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Free trade agreements and world obesity
Author(s) -
Baggio Michele,
Chong Alberto
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/soej.12447
Subject(s) - openness to experience , obesity , placebo , sample (material) , economics , international economics , free trade , free trade agreement , international trade , demographic economics , econometrics , medicine , psychology , social psychology , chemistry , alternative medicine , pathology , chromatography
We study the causal link between trade openness via free trade agreements (FTAs) and obesity rates. When applying a difference‐in‐differences approach by exploiting the year a country entered a free trade agreement with the United States during the period 1990–2016. We find a positive and causal impact of FTAs on obesity rates, which are statistically and economically significant. We show that our findings are robust to placebo tests, the use of synthetic control methods, and a maximized sample. Furthermore, we show that when using an event studies approach the equal trends assumption holds.