Applying Gravity Equation to Evaluate the Trade Flows among Taiwan, and Its Main Trading Partners

• Main Authors: Wei-JuLu, 盧韋儒
• Other Authors: Wann-Yih Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44749876264567646672

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 國際管理碩士在職專班 === 98 === Free Trade Area becomes the trend of trade alliances since the Doha Development Round has been stalled. According to WTO’s statistics of 2008, there were more than 230 FTAs have been formed and numbers are still increasing. Most scholars argued that joining an FTA would bring trade creation benefits; however, few researches have been done by using cross-section time series data to examine the trade flows about Taiwan, especially for trade flows among Taiwan, CAFTA and main trading partners. To evaluate the changes of trade flows among non-FTA trading partners and FTA trading partners, data were firstly collected from official publications from 1990 to 2008. Then SPSS 15 software was used to process outputs. From the studying results, it indicates that trade flows were influenced by various variables, such as GDP per capita, distance, language, population and religion. Besides, the benefits of FTA which were argued by scholars and researchers were not found in this study. This studying result can lead researchers a different point of views to discuss the real benefits of FTA. Also, it also could be a reference for government when FTA wants to be signed in the future.