The dynamics of international trade integration: 1967–2004

Abstract

This article explores how trade integration has advanced over the last four decades and what the foreseeable future holds, among other related questions. To this end, we consider certain methods which have scarcely been used in the literature on trade integration. First, we measure trade integration through a set of indicators which control not only for how open economies are, but also for their degrees of connectedness in the World Trade Web. Second, we assess how these indicators have evolved over time, what the likely steady state distribution might be, and whether results could differ depending on a variety of weighting schemes (GDP, population). The results show that, under current trends, future world trade will be much more trade-integrated, especially for the most heavily populated countries. However, there is still a long way to go before reaching the hypothetical scenario of geographically neutral trade.