Growing preferential trade agreements across the globe

I use the concept of trade creation and trade diversion as conceptualized by Viner (1950) The trade creation effect is a result of removal of trade barriers, in case the member of PTAs were natural partners6 – the removal of trade barriers generally lead to trade creation within the block. [...] Whether the PTAs led to trade creation or trade diversion – depends on the sign of the coefficient reported in the last 3 columns. [...] Country A 3rd Country Trade Diversion PTA Canada Country B Canadian trading partner Grey lines represent Trade Volume before the PTA Dark Blue lines represent Trade Volume after the PTA Light Blue is the effect of the FTA – in this case it is Trade Diversion Index: To measure ''proximity'' of Canadian trade to export patterns of other countries, I constructed a ''Revealed Comparative Advantage'' i [...] A Canada Country B Trade Creation Grey lines represent Trade Volume before the PTA Dark Blue lines represent Trade Volume after the PTA A good example is that of the PTA signed between Thailand and Laos that led to an increase in trade volumes between Canada and the trading partners – Thailand and Laos. [...] In the following graphs the red lines represent the model forecast for the natural logarithm of bilateral value of trade.