近年來各國致力於推展貿易自由化，國際間除了世界貿易組織(World Trade Organization；WTO)的存在以外，各國間自由貿易協定(Free Trade Agreement；FTA)的數量也不斷增加，因此被認為是探討貿易自由化時不可忽視的要素。本研究主要討論FTA的簽訂對台灣貿易量造成的影響，想了解是否能達到提升進出口貿易量之目的。本應將所有與台灣簽訂FTA之國家列入考量，但由於台灣與中國2010年簽訂兩岸經濟合作架構協議(Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement；ECFA)至今的時間過於短暫，因此本文主要著重於與台灣簽訂FTA時間較長的五個中美洲國家：巴拿馬、瓜地馬拉、尼加拉瓜、薩爾瓦多及宏都拉斯。
文中我採用Gravity Model來對台灣簽訂FTA的效果進行分析，觀察FTA的有無對於貿易量的影響程度。進一步嘗試將FTA分期，研究FTA可能隨著時間長短帶來不同的各期效果，並提出合理的解釋。此外，由於不同種類的商品在國際間貿易的情形、方式各不相同，貿易自由化帶來的效果也被認為有所差異。因此我依照Rauch Classification的分類方式將商品分為Organized Exchange、Reference Priced、Differentiated三類，分別探討FTA的簽訂對台灣不同型態商品貿易的影響。結果會發現簽訂FTA確實對台灣的貿易情形產生正面效果，且對於長期的影響又較短期顯著。而若將商品進行分類後，也的確能看到FTA僅對於Organized Exchange商品的進口以及Reference Priced、Differentiated商品的出口產生顯著效果的現象。且隨著商品類別的不同，可以發現彼此間長短期效果也具有差異性。

Recently, many countries endeavor to promote trade-liberalization. In additionto the World Trade Organization(WTO),there is also anincreasing number of Free Trade Agreement(FTA)among countries. As a result, FTAs have beenregarded as an important factor when discussing the impact of trade-liberalization. This research mainly discusses the influences of FTA on Taiwan’s trade volume with selected trading partners. Although it is more appropriate to consider every country with which Taiwan has signeda FTA, the period elapsed after signing theEconomic Cooperation Framework Agreement(ECFA) is not long enough (signed in 2010). For this reason, this research focuses on the other 5 countries: Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, which have long enough period after signing FTA with Taiwan to observe the impacts.
In the empirical investigation, I adopt the Gravity Model to analyze the effect of FTA on trade volume. In addition, I trace the impact of FTA in one, two, three, or over three years and provide possible explanations. Besides, the effects of trade-liberalization may vary across different products as they face different ways to exchange. I address this by categorizing products into three types according to Rauch (1999)Classification: Organized Exchange, Reference Priced, and Differentiated. I discussed the influences of FTA for each type and for both exports and imports. My findings are that, first, there is indeed a positive effect of FTA for Taiwan, and the effect would be strongerin the long run (over 3 years) as compared to the short run (within 3 years). After categorizing the products into three categories, I find that the FTAshave significant effects on imports of goods in the organized exchange categoryand exports of goodsin the reference priced and differentiated goods categories. Furthermore, the magnitude of short-run and long-run impacts also vary by categories. The FTAs have significant short-run effects on imports of goods in the organized exchange category and long-run effects on exports of goods in the differentiated categories.

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