The research looked at different theories about how trade agreements affect trade between countries. They used a method called Bayesian Model Averaging to deal with the uncertainty in these theories. This helped them find evidence of Trade Creation, Trade Diversion, and Open Bloc effects in trade agreements. They also found that Trade Creation is not as strong when considering natural trading partner effects, except for the EU. To understand the real impact of these agreements on trade, they had to consider many factors like Trade Creation, Trade Diversion, and all possible trade agreements. They also found that factors like resources and economic policies play a role in creating trade between countries.