CEPII, Recherche et Expertise sur l'economie mondiale
Free Trade Agreements and the Movement of Business People


Thierry Mayer
Hillel Rapoport
Camilo Umana Dajud

 Points clés :
  • Many of the measures to contain Covid-19 severely reduced business travel.
  • We use provisions to ease the movement of business visitors in trade agreements to study the impact of barriers to the movement of business people.
  • To analyze the large number of trade agreements, we develop an algorithm that combines machine learning and text analysis techniques.
  • We show that provisions facilitating business travel indeed facilitate business travel (but not permanent migration).
  • Easing business travel increases trade flows by11% and the probability to export a given product by 6%.

 Résumé :
Many of the measures to contain Covid-19 severely reduced business travel. Using provisions to ease the movement of business visitors in trade agreements, we show that removing barriers to the movement of business people promotes trade. To do this, we first document the increasing complexity of Free Trade Agreements. We then develop an algorithm that combines machine learning and text analysis techniques to examine the content of FTAs. We use the algorithm to determine which FTAs include provisions to facilitate the movement of business people and whether those provisions are included in dispute settlement mechanisms. Using these data and accounting for the overall depth of FTAs, we show that provisions facilitating business travel indeed facilitate business travel (but not permanent migration) and, eventually, increase bilateral trade flows.


 Mots-clés : Covid-19 | Business travel | Free Trade Agreements | Machine Learning | Text Analysis

 JEL : F10, F13, F14, F15, F20


Articles et documents associés :

  • "Free Trade Agreements and the movement of business people", Journal of Economic Geography
  • CEPII Working Paper
    N°2021-10, December 2021

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