Research On The Formation Mechanism Of Regional Trade Agreements:from The Perspective Of Global Value Chain

In the past two decades,as the negotiation process of multilateral trade agreements represented by WTO slows down,a new wave of regional economic integration has been set off around the world and the number of regional trade agreements(RTA)has grown rapidly.The development of RTA is not only reflected in the increase in quantity,but the depth and breadth of provisions also extend the traditional trade rules.On the other hand,since the 1990 s,with the deepening of the global specialization,global value chain(GVC)has become a typical feature of today’s world economic and trade activities.Under the trade pattern of global value chain,traditional trade rules can no longer adapt to the complex needs of transnational production,meanwhile the development characteristics of RTA can more closely match the characteristics of current GVC trade.Therefore,this paper holds that the production linkage between countries under the GVC is the fundamental motivation of the development of global RTA.Under the background of the rise of global trade protectionism and the rage of COVID-19 epidemic,globalization has suffered a huge impact.China remains committed to maintaining and developing the fruits of globalization.Speeding up the implementation of the RTA strategy and building a network of free trade zones are important national strategies for China to build an open economy,which is also an important means for China to actively participate in the formulation of international economic and trade rules and strive for the institutional power of global economic governance.This paper links the two important characteristics of current international trade: the rapid development of RTA and the deepening of GVC and documents the mechanism of RTA formation from the perspective of GVC.We reveal that the country’s cross-border production linkage in GVC is an important driving force for the formation of RTA and provide theoretical and empirical support for the strategic implementation of china’s free trade zone network through the international experience formed by RTA.The full text is divided into eight chapters,the specific content and main points of view are as follows:The first chapter of this paper is an introduction,which summarizes the research background,theory and practical significance,the content and ideas of the study,and points out the contribution and shortcomings of the paper.The second chapter is a literature review of the paper,summarizing the related literature on the motivation of RTA formation and the relevant research on GVC measurement and the impact of global value chain development on trade policy.We also Clarify the main viewpoints and shortcomings of the existing research,which lays a theoretical foundation for this paper.The third chapter analyzes the development course and pattern evolution of RTA and GVC respectively through data description.And we also explore the common changing trends and structural characteristics of RTA and GVC,which provides evidence support for the subsequent empirical research.The fourth chapter of this paper makes an empirical study of the causes of global RTA formation from the perspective of GVC linkage.Based on the global value chain production decomposition methodology proposed by Wang et al.(2017)and 2016 version World Input and Output Table(WIOD)data,this chapter quantifies the intensity of cross-border production linkages between countries.And ee empirically tested that the improvement of GVC linkages between countries will significantly increase the probability of RTA signing,and this phenomenon is particularly evident in the complex GVC.Further extension analysis finds that when the political relations between the two countries are in an extreme state(excellent or very poor),the effect of GVC linkages on the probability of RTA signing significantly reduced.The closer the cross-border production links between countries,the more obvious RTA’s contribution to the growth of bilateral trade between the two countries is.Based on the conclusion of chapter four,this paper further expands the influence mechanism of RTA formation from the perspective of GVC in two aspects.Firstly,based on the development of depp RTA,the fifth chapter of this paper combines various RTA depth measurement indicators to explore the role of GVC linkages between countries in promoting the construction of deep RTA and also analyzes the impact mechanism and points out that the deepening of GVC cooperation between countries puts forward higher requirements on the institutional environment,which is the internal driving force of the RTA depth.Secondly,based on the third-country effect of RTA,the sixth chapter of this paper puts forward the “contagion effect” and “spillover effect” in the third-country effect of RTA in the GVC linkage between countries.The empirical results show that these two types of RTA third-country effects have significantly promoted the number of global RTA.Among them,the "contagion effect" in GVC linkage has a greater impact than the effect in the trade linkage,and the "spillover effect" mainly affects the formation of the RTA through the MFN provisions in the deep RTA.The above three chapters are the core of empirical research in this paper,which together constitute the main research content and research results.Chapter seven first shows that GVC linkage is the key factor to predict the formation of RTA by means of machine learning.This chapter also predicts the RTA signing based on the GVC linkages between countries,and obtains China’s potential RTA signing partners from the results.Furthermore,this chapter draws on the general equilibrium analysis framework developed by Yotov et al.(2017)to carry out policy experiments and analyzes the potential welfare impact of China’s signing of an RTA with partner countries that are closely related to GVC.Chapter 8 is the main conclusion,policy suggestion and future research direction of this paper.According to the research results of the previous chapter,this chapter makes practical and reasonable suggestions for China in the process of promoting new pattern of comprehensive opening up from the perspective of RTA strategic and GVC development,and also discusses the possible future research directions under the theme of RTA formation motivation.