Do We Really Know That the WTO Increases Trade?

This paper estimates the effect of World Trade Organization (WTO) membership on international trade. I use an augmented version of international trade’s baseline gravity equation model for my model specification. I also use the dataset for six-nine (69) years and 175 countries. I replicate the study of Rose (2004) and extend the study to cover more years. This study reveals how model specification bias, omitted variable bias, undermined WTO institutional reach and wrong technique of data analysis have made WTO’s influence on international trade statistically insignificant.