Trade Effects of Gender Provisions in USA Trade Deals with Developing Countries

• In Event: Contemporary Issues in Trade Agreements

Abstract

How do gender-related provisions in the U.S.’s preferential trade agreements (PTAs) affect its trade with developing countries? The inclusion of non-trade issue (NTI) provisions in PTAs has become a notable trend, extending beyond traditional trade matters to encompass issues such as labor standards, human rights, environmental regulations, and gender equality. While past studies have examined the motivations behind including such provisions and their effects on corresponding objectives, there is a significant research gap in understanding their impacts on trade between signatory countries, especially in the context of North-South trade partnerships. Moreover, gender provisions are understudied, with most of the NTI and trade literature to date focusing on environmental and labor standards. We argue that adding gender provisions to PTAs is likely to decrease U.S. imports from developing country partners, particularly in sectors of the U.S. economy with higher female employment and from trade partners with higher gender inequality. This aligns with scholarship highlighting that NTI provisions disproportionately increase production costs for developing countries, thus reducing their trade competitiveness. Our analysis, using industry-level bilateral trade data encompassing the U.S. PTAs (1995-2022), offers support for our argument. Our study sheds light on the role of gender provisions as a means to offset gendered distributional costs of trade within advanced democratic frameworks. Its implication extends to the role of NTI provisions in shaping trade relationships with developing countries, with the potential implications for them.

Authors

• Seungbin Park, University of Alabama

• Megan Roosevelt, Virginia Military Institute