Multilateral Trade Liberalization and Economic Growth

Abstract

Over the last years, the world has experienced a backlash against trade. It could translate into a strong appeal to trade protectionism, lowering multilateral cooperation and delaying further trade liberalization at both domestic and international level. Against this background, this paper assesses the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on the economic growth rate by using an unbalanced panel dataset comprising 150 countries over the period 1995~2015. Results suggest a strong positive impact of multilateral trade liberalization on economic growth in both entire sample and sub-samples alike.