This article in the Economist (subscription required) reports on three different analyses of GATT and its successor, the World Trade Organization, and what their effects may have been on world trade, necessarily a counterfactual analysis. As Austrians might expect, the upshot of the three taken together is . . . not as much as many think, nor as good.
Since the article is “premium content” (you have to $ub$cribe to Economist.com), I’ve tried hereand here and here to provide links to the analyses directly.
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As far as I can tell, it isn’t premium content. Look here and you’ll see that the article “Is there any point to the WTO?” is not marked with the premium content sign and if you non-subscribers click here you’ll therefore come to the article.
In any case the point of the article is that a economist named Andrew Rose (Otherwise most famous for his studies showing that monetary unions increase trade) have come forward with studies showing that WTO-members haven’t seen their foreign trade increases more than those that aren’t members. 2 studies critical of Rose argue that if you take into account that some countries are de facto members even though they aren’t formally in while others are formally in but in name only, then WTO membership does promote trade.
I think there’s a bug on The Economist’s website. If you try to go directly to the article it tells you you need a subscription. However if you go to the main website then click on the article, it’s free. Go figure…
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