Ruta, Michele

Person:
Ruta, Michele

Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Global Practice

Author Name Variants

Ruta, Michele, Ruta, M.

Fields of Specialization

International Economics, International Integration, Regional Integration

External Links

Personal website

Departments

Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Global Practice

Last updated:October 6, 2025

Biography

Michele Ruta is Lead Economist in the Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Global Practice of the World Bank Group, where he leads the work program on regional integration. He had previous appointments as Economic Advisor to the Senior Director of the Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice (2015-2018), Senior Economist at the IMF (2013-2015), Counsellor at the WTO (2007-2013) and Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute (2004-2007). He holds a PhD in economics from Columbia University (2004) and an undergraduate degree from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (1998). Michele’s research interests are in international economics, and particularly on issues concerning international/regional integration. He has published in refereed journals such as the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Journal of the European Economic Association. He was a lead author of the World Trade Report of the WTO between 2008 and 2013, and contributed to many policy reports, including the Global Economic Prospects of the World Bank, and the World Economic Outlook of the IMF. His work has been cited, among others, in the Economist, Financial Times, Guardian, Le Monde.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/39224

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Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 10 of 49

Geopolitics and the World Trading System
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-23) Mattoo, Aaditya; Ruta, Michele; Staiger, Robert W.
Until the beginning of this century, the GATT/WTO system worked. Economic research provided a compelling explanation. It showed that if governments maximize the well-being of their own countries broadly defined, GATT/WTO principles would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation over their trade policy choices. Now heightened geopolitical rivalry seems to have undermined the WTO. A simple transposition of the previous rationalization suggests that geopolitics and trade cooperation are not compatible. The paper shows that this is only true if rivalry eclipses any consideration of own-country well-being. In all other circumstances, there are gains from trade cooperation even with geopolitics. Furthermore, the WTO’s relevance is in question only if it adheres too rigidly to its existing rules and norms. Through measured adaptation to the geopolitical imperative, the WTO can continue to thrive as a forum for multilateral trade cooperation in the age of geopolitics.
Is US Trade Policy Reshaping Global Supply Chains ?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-01) Mattoo, Aaditya; Freund, Caroline; Mulabdic, Alen; Ruta, Michele
This paper examines the reshaping of supply chains using detailed US 10-digit import data (tariff-line level) between 2017 and 2022. The results show that while US-China decoupling in bilateral trade is real, supply chains remain intertwined with China. Over the period, China’s share of US imports fell from 22 to 16 percent. The paper shows that the decline is due to US tariffs. US imports from China are being replaced with imports from large developing countries with revealed comparative advantage in a product. Countries replacing China tend to be deeply integrated into China’s supply chains and are experiencing faster import growth from China, especially in strategic industries. Put differently, to displace China on the export side, countries must embrace China’s supply chains. Within products, the reorientation of trade is consistent with a “China + 1” strategy, as opposed to diversified sourcing across multiple countries. There is some evidence of nearshoring, but it is exclusive to border nations, and there is no consistent evidence of reshoring. Despite the significant reshaping, China remained the top supplier of imported goods to the US in 2022.
Deep Trade Agreements and Heterogeneous Firms Exports
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-01) Neri--Lainé, Matteo; Orefice, Gianluca; Ruta, Michele
This paper studies the effect of regional trade agreements on firms’ exports. Using detailed information on the content of trade agreements and firm-level exports for 31 developing countries between 2000 and 2020, the analysis shows that the depth of trade agreements matters for the export performance of firms. Moving from shallow to deep trade agreements boosts firms’ exports, on average, by 3.6 percent. In line with models of trade with heterogeneous firms, the trade impact of deep trade agreements depends on firm’s characteristics. The impact is stronger for large firms and firms involved in global value chains and is negative for small firms. Robustness tests and an Instrumental Variable strategy confirm the causal interpretation of the results. These heterogeneous impacts on firms’ exports imply a selection effect of deep trade agreements with significant welfare consequences.
Trade and Infrastructure Integration in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-28) Fontagné, Lionel; Lebrand, Mathilde; Murray, Siobhan; Ruta, Michele; Santoni, Gianluca
Economic integration of the African continent rests on two pillars: the ratification of an ambitious trade agreement and massive investment in transportation infrastructure. Leveraging a newly created city-level database on African exporters’ transport times, transport route optimization and general equilibrium modeling of international trade, the paper quantifies the impact of greater trade and transport integration in Africa. A pan-African agreement, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, would increase African countries’ exports by an average of 3.4 percent and increase gross domestic product by 0.6 percent. Complementing trade integration by reducing transportation time on roads, ports and border posts would increase exports by 11.5 percent and increase gross domestic product by 2 percent. Major transport investments are necessary to reap the full benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Deep Trade Agreements: Anchoring Global Value Chains in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-07-12) Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele
International economic integration offers unexploited opportunities to Latin America and the Caribbean. This report studies how the region’s countries can leverage trade agreements to promote their economies’ participation in global value chains (GVCs).The gaps between potential and actual GVC integration follow from the region’s Economic fundamentals, such as geography, market size, institutions, and factor endowments. But policy choices matter as well. The report, based on new data and evidence, shows that trade agreements can drive policy reforms and help the region overcome some of its disadvantageous fundamentals. The report makes specific policy recommendations to guide Latin American and Caribbean countries in leveraging trade agreements to pursue greater international integration and economic growth. Four main findings emerge from the analysis: (i) Latin America and the Caribbean’s poor international integration and limited participation in GVCs have contributed to its low economic growth over the past decade; (ii) Although the region’s countries increasingly participate in preferential trade agreements (PTAs), there are gaps in the content of these agreements; (iii) Deep trade agreements present an avenue to promote trade and boost GVC integration and upgrading, thus contributing to improved economic performance; (iv) Four areas of deep integration - trade facilitation, regulatory cooperation, services, and state support - are priorities to improve these countries’ GVC participation and upgrading.
The Economic Impact of Deepening Trade Agreements
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-03-03) Fontagné, Lionel; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele; Santoni, Gianluca
This paper explores the economic impacts of preferential trade agreements, conditional on their level of ambition. It clusters 278 agreements, encompassing 910 provisions over 18 policy areas and estimates the trade elasticity for the different clusters. These elasticities are used in a series of general-equilibrium counterfactual situations for endowment economies, revealing that deepening existing agreements (the intensive margin of regional integration) could boost world trade by 3.9 percent and world GDP by 0.9 percent. The expected gains from deepening agreements within or across regions vary depending on the initial depth of agreements and the size of regional markets.
Containing Chinese State-Owned Enterprises? The Role of Deep Trade Agreements
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04) Lefebvre, Kevin; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele
Regional trade agreements increasingly include provisions that regulate state-owned enterprises. This paper combines new information on the content of “deep” regional trade agreements and data on Chinese firm-level exports during 2000-11 to analyze the spillover effect of rules on state-owned enterprises on the intensive and extensive margins of Chinese state-owned enterprises’ trade. Rather than containing state capitalism, regional trade agreements regulating state-owned enterprises signed by Chinese trading partners with third countries increase exports and entry of Chinese state-owned enterprises as they gain a competitive edge in regulated markets. This spillover effect is robust to several extensions and is even stronger for agreements that include rules on subsidies and competition policy. This finding points to the need for commonly agreed multilateral rules to regulate state owned enterprises.
Handbook of Deep Trade Agreements
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-07-08) Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele; Mattoo, Aaditya; Mattoo, Aaditya; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele
Deep trade agreements (DTAs) cover not just trade but additional policy areas, such as the international flows of investment and labor, and the protection of intellectual property rights and the environment. Their goal is integration beyond trade, or deep integration. DTA rules influence how countries transact, invest, work, and, ultimately, develop. The rules and commitments in DTAs should be informed by evidence and shaped by development priorities rather than international power or domestic politics. An impediment to this goal is that data and analysis on trade agreements have not captured the new dimensions of integration. Little effort has been made to identify the content and consequences of DTAs. This Handbook takes a step towards filling this gap in our understanding of international economic law and policy. It presents detailed data and analysis on the content of the policy areas most frequently covered in DTAs, focusing on the stated objectives, substantive commitments, and other aspects such as transparency, procedures, and enforcement. Each chapter, authored by lead experts in their respective fields, explains in detail the methodology used to collect the information and provides a first look at the evidence by policy area.
Trade Policy and Exporters’ Resilience: Evidence from Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-05) Cali, Massimiliano; Ghose, Devaki; Montfaucon, Angella Faith; Ruta, Michele
How does trade policy affect exporters’ ability to respond to foreign demand shocks Faced with a sudden change in the demand for their goods, exporting firms must optimally change their inputs and/or input sources. This paper tests whether a country’s own trade policy makes such adjustments harder for firms that rely on imported inputs. The analysis exploits new time-varying data on tariffs and non-tariff measures faced by Indonesian firms and focuses on the impact of exchange rate shocks on exports to Japan. In response to a depreciation of the yuan, which makes Chinese exports more competitive, the findings show that firms that face non-tariff measures on their inputs see a much larger drop in their export values compared to firms that do not face any non-tariff measures. That is not the case for import tariffs on inputs, which do not affect the export response to the shock. This difference is consistent with the (partial) fixed costs imposed by non-tariff measures on imports in contrast to the pure variable costs of tariffs. The magnitude of this effect depends on the type of non-tariff measure and on firms’ characteristics, such as their participation in global value chains, size, and product quality.
The Impact of Regional Trade Agreements on Georgia's Exporters: A Firm-Level Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09) Neri-Laine, Matteo; Orefice, Gianluca; Ruta, Michele
This paper assesses the trade impact of regional trade agreements signed by Georgia. Using information from the World Bank’s Deep Trade Agreements database and the Exporters’ Dynamics Database for Georgia for 2000–20, the paper tests the effect of regional trade agreements on the performance of Georgian exporters. The results show that the depth of regional trade agreements has a positive effect on the exports of firms, and the more so if trade agreements include legally enforceable provisions. Interestingly, the effect of regional trade agreements is not homogeneous across exporters with different characteristics. While large exporters and firms participating in global value chains benefit from deep trade agreements, small firms are negatively affected. Deep trade agreements have a positive effect on the probability of entry into the export market for large firms and firms in global value chains.