How Implementation of Recommendations Affects Establishment of Panels in WTO Dispute Settlement

Abstract

The objective of this study was to conduct an empirical test of hypotheses which were pointed out in game theory analyses conducted in previous studies of WTO dispute settlement. To analyze how implementation of recommendations affects establishment of panels, this study clarified the relationship between previous game theory analyses and an empirical test and made a dummy variable which was set to 1 if the plaintiff had ever requested authorization to retaliate and was used as an explanatory variable for empirical analysis. It was shown that implementation of rulings and recommendations decreased the probability of early settlement.