UNSC Membership and PTAs Zachary and Taemin

Research Question Does UNSC membership make it more likely that a country will form a Preferential Trade Agreement with the US?

Literature Review The political economy of the UNSC Countries trade aid for legitimacy Why do countries form PTAs? Economic benefits Political calculations

Hypothesis The US forms Preferential Trade Agreements with UNSC members to increase its influence.

Methodology Independent: UNSC Membership Vreeland and Dreher 2014 Dependent: PTA accession with USA, lagged Baccini and Dür 2014 Logistic regressions

Our Findings PTA Distribution, 2009 Rate of PTA Accession Non-UNSC

Some Caveats Results are inconsistent across different lag times Lag time (years) Prob > chi2 3 0.0431 5 0.0214 7 0.0063 10 0.0380 No controls yet

Conclusion/Next Steps Control for other variables Create better lag mechanism Expand window of UNSC membership Look at African UNSC members