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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Giorgio Fazio, Dr Sara MaioliORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
This study uses gravity models to analyse the impact of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and their depth on the bilateral trade of cultural goods from 1999 to 2019. Our findings indicate that the formation of an RTA increases overall bilateral cultural trade by 27% among member states, with the most significant impacts observed in cultural heritage and visual arts sub-groups. RTAs also exhibit phasing-in effects, leading to significant trade increases in cultural heritage, visual arts, and printed matter sub-categories twelve years after an RTA formation.We also explore whether RTAs containing culture-specific provisions—such as Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Audio-Visual (AV) content, and Cultural Cooperation (CC)—increase trade more than RTAs that do not. Our analysis shows that the impact of these culture-specific provisions is contingent upon their legal enforceability. Specifically, RTAs with legally enforceable IPR provisions significantly boost overall bilateral cultural trade, particularly benefiting the trade in cultural heritage, music & performing arts, and audio & audio-visual media goods. Similarly, RTAs with legally enforceable AV and CC provisions have a substantially positive impact on overall cultural trade and on trade in specific goods within the audio & audio-visual media sub-group, such as films and video games. Overall, this study underscores the importance of RTAs for cultural trade. When considering the inclusion of culture-specific provisions in trade negotiations, however, our findings suggest that their effectiveness depends on being underpinned by legally enforceable clauses.
Author(s): Cevik M, Fazio G, Maioli S
Publication type: Online Publication
Publication status: Published
Series Title: Creative PEC Discussion Paper Series
Year: 2025
Access Year: 2025
Print publication date: 03/07/2025
Acceptance date: 26/06/2025
Publisher: Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC)
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
Access Date: 23 September
URL: https://pec.ac.uk/discussion_paper_/regional-trade-agreements-cultural-provisions-and-trade-in-cultural-goods/
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15737339
