This study examines the impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on China’s intra-regional trade using the synthetic control method. By combining aggregate trade analysis with structural decomposition, we find that RCEP implementation has significantly strengthened China’s trade integration with member economies, with heterogeneous effects across trade margins. These findings suggest that regional trade agreements can promote trade expansion not only through volume growth but also through structural adjustment, offering policy-relevant insights for regional economic integration.

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