Bilateral Trade Flows Research Articles

Estimating the effect of exchange rate changes on total exports

This paper shows that real effective exchange rate (REER) regressions, the standard approach for estimating the response of aggregate exports to exchange rate changes, imply biased estimates of the underlying elasticities. We provide a new aggregate regression specification that is consistent with bilateral trade flows micro-founded by the gravity equation. This theory-consistent aggregation leads to unbiased estimates when prices are set in an international currency as postulated by the dominant currency paradigm. We use Monte-Carlo simulations to compare elasticity estimates based on this new “ideal-REER” regression against typical regression specifications found in the REER literature. The results show that the biases are small (around 1 percent) for the exchange rate and large (around 10 percent) for the demand elasticity. We find empirical support for this prediction from annual trade flow data. The difference between elasticities estimated on the bilateral and the aggregate levels reduce significantly when applying an ideal-REER regression rather than a standard REER approach.

의약품 제조기준 상호 인증 협정(GMP MRA)의 무역 증진 효과 분석

This study analyze the effect of GMP MRA (Good Manufacturing Process Mutual Recognition Agreement) on bilateral trade flows in medical products using EU and 6 other countries cases. Estimation results using gravity and difference in difference models suggest that GMP MRA increases the bilateral trade flows of medical products by 44~235%. This results imply the trade improvement effect by GMP MRA is significant, which suggests that Korea might promote GMP MRA with trading partners.

Trade, FDI, and Global Imbalances

We propose a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the implications of trade and FDI liberalizations for the surge of global trade and current account (CA) imbalances. We calibrate our model to replicate the evolution of bilateral trade and FDI flows across 5 major economies as well as their CA balances over 1996-2014. Our counterfactual experiments suggest that the decline in trade and FDI costs accounts for about half of the increase in global trade imbalances and a quarter of the increase in CA imbalances over this period. Moreover, we find that the openness of the Chinese economy after 2001 has little impacts on global imbalances, whereas the unbundling of the U.S. outward FDI is a major driver of global imbalances.

Dissecting Trade and Business Cycle Co-movement

Business cycles appear highly synchronized across countries. To understand this empirical phenomenon, I develop a multi-country international real business cycle model with international trade that offers several potential explanations: shocks to TFP, demand, leisure, investment, economic sectors, and bilateral trade. These shocks fully account for movements in gross domestic product and trade shares, completely describing the data during 1992-2014. Calibrating the model to a panel of developed (G7) countries, I find that openness to trade and the volatility of bilateral trade flows, which are manifested in bilateral trade shocks, are essential in synchronizing international business cycles. In contrast, other correlated country-specific shocks play relatively minor roles. This suggests that economic integration through trade has been the primary driver of the co-movement of business cycles internationally. I use my model to also address the \textit{trade co-movement puzzle}, which states that international real business cycle models should be predicting a much stronger link between trade and the correlation of business cycles. Once we account for the dynamics of the decline in trade costs and the volatility of bilateral trade flows, IRBC models do indeed predict a strong link between trade and business cycle co-movement. My finding suggests that more research on the dynamics of trade shocks is crucial when studying cross-country business cycle synchronization.

Global auto industry and product standards

Global auto industry and product standards

Time, uncertainty and trade flows

AbstractThis paper quantifies the impact of international transport time on bilateral trade flows in goods using previously unexploited information drawn from a large data set on international parcel delivery times. In line with previous work, we find that an extra day spent in international transit reduces bilateral trade by just under 1% at the sample median. In addition, and for the first time in the literature, we examine the impact of time‐related uncertainty, which requires traders to hold costly inventories or build costly redundancies into supply chains. We find that a one day increase in international transport time uncertainty reduces bilateral trade flows by just over 1%. Splitting the sample into developing and developed countries shows that international transit time matters primarily for south–south trade, whereas uncertainty is relatively more important for north–north trade. Using new data on trade in intermediate versus final goods, we also find some evidence that time and uncertainty both matter more for movements of intermediates of the type that takes place within global value chains.

Do environmental provisions in trade agreements make exports from developing countries greener?

Abstract Environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are increasing in terms of their number and variety. The economic effects of these environmental provisions remain largely unclear. It is, therefore, necessary to determine whether the trend to incorporate environmental provisions in PTAs counteracts the goal to spur economic development through trade via these PTAs. This is the first article in which the trade effects of environmental provisions in PTAs are thoroughly investigated. The spotlight is put on developing countries for which the assumed trade-off between economic development and environmental protection is particularly acute. This article buses a new fine-grained dataset on a broad range of environmental provisions in 680 PTAs, combined with a panel of worldwide bilateral trade flows from 1984 to 2016. We show that environmental provisions can help reduce dirty exports and increase green exports from developing countries. This effect is particularly pronounced in developing countries with stringent environmental regulations. By investigating how environmental provisions in PTAs affect trade flows, this article contributes to the literature on the following topics: international trade and the environment; design and impacts of trade agreements; and greening the economy in developing countries. It also shows that the design of trade agreements matters. Environmental provisions can be used as targeted policy tools to promote the green transformation and to leverage synergies between the economic and environmental effects of including environmental provisions in trade agreements.

Global Trade Flows: Revisiting the Exchange Rate Elasticities

This paper contributes to the debate on the magnitude of exchange rate elasticities by providing a set of price and quantity elasticities for 51 advanced and emerging-market economies. Specifically, we report for each of these countries the elasticity of trade prices and trade quantities on the export and on the import side, as well as the reaction of the trade balance. To this aim, the paper uses a large unified database of highly disaggregated bilateral trade flows, covering 5000 products and more than 160 trading partners. We present a range of estimates using not only standard regression techniques but also generated regressors that aim to uncover changes in the exchange rate elasticities due to unobserved marginal costs and competitor prices in the importing market. Our results show that quantity elasticities are significantly below one, pass-through is incomplete and export prices react significantly to exchange rate changes. In spite of low quantity elasticities, the trade balance reacts positively to a depreciation in all countries because export and import prices adjust. Overall, our findings suggest that exchange rate changes can play an important role in addressing global trade imbalances.

The Impact of Thailand’s Openness on Bilateral Trade between Thailand and Japan: Copula-Based Markov Switching Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of trade openness and the factors based on the gravity model on the bilateral trade flows between Thailand and Japan. The factors consist of GDP, distance, trade openness, and exchange rate. Bilateral trade is composed of two flows: Thailand’s export flow to Japan, and Thailand’s import flow from Japan. The specified gravity equations are estimated by Copula-based Markov switching seemingly unrelated regression approach. The best-fitting model is chosen based on the lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC). The Normal and Student’s t distributions are for Thailand’s export equation and Thailand’s import equation, respectively. The Student’s t copula is applied for joint distribution. Analyzing the bilateral trade flow is separated into two situations, namely the high and the low growth markets. Empirical results show that distance provides a positive effect on the export in a high growth regime, but a negative impact on the export in a low growth regime. As for Thailand’s import flow, all variables, but especially trade openness, provide strong evidence supporting significance for both regimes. For the GDPs of both Thailand and Japan, trade openness and the exchange rate increase import flow in a high growth market. Meanwhile, the exchange rate decreases import flow in a low growth market. The Markov Switching Probability Estimation notes that Thailand’s trading with Japan is mostly in the fast-growing market.

Geographic proximity, trade and economic growth: a spatial econometrics approach

ABSTRACTThis paper examines economic growth in terms of ‘bilateral trade flow’ and ‘geographical distance’ using the spatial dynamic panel data model for the period 1992–2016. The findings illustrate that the effect of spatial spillover or spatial dependence is one of the main economic growth determinants. Also, we find out that spatial relationships across countries and the spatial effects of trade are quite relevant. A country’s economic growth is actually affected by the performance of its neighbours and trade partners. This result suggests that the spillover effects of geographical position and trade partners are the key determinants of economic growth. In fact, overlooking such factors can result in misspecification of models. In addition, the findings confirmed that growth rate of labour force has a negative impact on economic growth while the formation of gross fixed capital has a significant positive effect.

Does it make sense to deepen the economic cooperation of the western balkan economies?

The article discusses the structural changes in bilateral trade flows between Western Balkan (WB) countries in 2007-2018. The basic idea was to address whether there is a justification for the often proposed deepening of economic cooperation among WB states. After analysing the dynamics of mutual trade, we computed the value of intra-industry trade, whose potential decrease could indicate a divergence between observed trade structures. To detect a possible structural change in WB trade sectors, qualitative changes in those countries’ exports were calculated through the tendencies of a share of products at higher levels of processing. After calculating the export concentration coefficients, all the results were compared with those achieved by these countries in trade with the EU and in total. The article argues that there is no solid reason to pursue policies for strengthening mutual economic ties particularly towards a customs union, especially given the more attractive prospect of EU integration.

The Consequences of Foreign Direct Investments in Redefining Bilateral Trade Flow in Nigeria: A Gravity Panel Approach

Most of the Nigerian government?s transformation agenda is geared toward creating and enabling business environments to attract foreign direct investment. Opinions are divided as to the impact of foreign investment on trade and this researcher believed it could be either positive or negative. Hence, this research is to ascertain the magnitude of foreign investment?s impact on Nigeria?s bilateral trade. Integrating foreign direct investment in the gravity model, we applied the PPML technique because of its robustness and ability to recognise zero trade. We segregated foreign investment into three-flow, stock and its annual growth. Our estimation revealed that foreign direct investment stock impacts negatively on bilateral trade flow in Nigeria for both exports and imports and it is robust with the overall sample. Exporters? foreign direct investment inflow was also revealed to have an impact on bilateral trade in Nigeria. But in all ramifications the magnitude of the negative impact is relatively small but statistically significant reflecting that trade and inward foreign investment are at least substitutes. Nigeria should further encourage inward foreign investment to further stimulate economic growth and aid in creating import substitution.

Razvoj infrastrukture, institucija, trgovina unutar regiona - slučaj istočne Afrike

This study empirically examines the relationship between infrastructure stock and bilateral trade flows using a panel of 11 countries in East Africa for the period 2000 to 2018. Infrastructure augmented gravity model was estimated using total bilateral exports for the countries in East Africa. Infrastructure was disaggregated into transport and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructures. Two institutional variables, control of corruption index and regulatory quality, were incorporated in the model. By employing Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator, the results confirm that both ICT and transport infrastructures and quality institutions positively impact on the volumes of total bilateral exports in East Africa. However, ICT infrastructure has a greater impact on trade flows compared to transport infrastructure. Therefore, more resources should be channelled towards increasing the stock of ICT infrastructure to propel trade and regional integration in East Africa.

Russian Domestic Trade: Applying the Gravity Mode for Rail Cargo Flows

This article uses the gravity model to explain the trade flows between the regions of Russia. The data used contains information on all rail freight flows in tonnes for the period 2012–2016. The authors discuss the assumptions that make the gravity model applicable for trade by one mode of transport. For the purpose of correct estimation of the gravity equation, the special method of obtaining trade values in rubles was developed. The coefficients of distance and gross regional products are close to the results of previous studies on international and domestic trade. Along with the distance factor, the average rail tariff variable was included in the model. The significance of the coefficients of both variables has confirmed that trade flows are determined not only by transport costs, but by other trade costs, too. The results suggest that the export volume of the sending region proportional to its output is positively related to the volume of bilateral domestic trade flows. Accounting for regional fixed effects has not changed the coefficients of distance and average tariffs significantly, indicating the robustness of the estimates. No proof has been found for the impact of infrastructure on trade. An institutional factor that can negatively affect the trade volume is the level of corruption in the recipient region.

Avoiding and escaping the 'commodity trap' in development

Based on the 'Prebisch-Singer' hypothesis, a strand of literature has emerged that focuses on the phenomenon of commoditisation and 'commodity trap' in development. Following Kaplinsky (2006), we revisit the hypothesis on a country's terms of trade in manufacturing trade. Offering high quality products and targeting 'niche' markets in high-income countries are beneficial strategies for developing countries to improve their terms of trade and escaping a potential 'commodity trap'. Barriers to entry via standards in the importing countries might even support such strategies. In this study, we firstly propose a proxy to capture commoditisation. Then, applying a gravity model on global bilateral intra-industry trade flows controlling for multilateral resistances over the period 1998-2014, it is shown that compliance with quality non-tariff measures (NTMs) reduces the negative impact of commoditisation on industry-level terms of trade.

Does Partner Country’s Attitude Matter for Bilateral Trade Flow? A Panel GMM Factor Analysis Approach

Does Partner Country’s Attitude Matter for Bilateral Trade Flow? A Panel GMM Factor Analysis Approach

Structural Gravity and the Gains from Trade under Imperfect Competition: Quantifying the Effects of the European Single Market

We extend structural gravity models of bilateral trade flows to oligopolistic competition. We show that conventional gravity estimates do not only reflect trade costs but also market power. Our simple estimation procedure generalizes the standard gravity model and disentangles exogenous trade frictions and endogenous market power distortions. We use our estimated model to counterfactually increase trade costs by abolishing the European Single Market. We find that domestic firms’ markups in EU member countries increase by 2 to 6 percent. Importantly, welfare effects of trade liberalization are much more pronounced due to the change in competition among domestic and foreign firms.

Revisiting the Trade Effects of Services Agreements

The proliferation of services trade agreements and improved availability of data on bilateral services trade flows has resulted in a growing literature on the theoretical and empirical assessment of services trade effects. In this paper, we revisit the trade effects of services agreements using an updated database on bilateral services trade flows from the OECD and based on recent developments in the estimation of structural gravity models. Our results suggest a services trade effect of 13.7% at the intensive margin, with significantly higher estimates for intra-EU trade. However, the trade effect becomes weakly significant when the estimation includes zero trade flows. Incorporation of anticipation effects in the analyses accentuates the average treatment effect significantly (and monotonically with time) but only at the intensive margin.

Tools for reconstructing the bilateral trade network: a critical assessment

ABSTRACT This study critically assesses the performances of the Gravity Model (GM) and of the RAS algorithm for the bilateral flow intensity estimations and link prediction. The main novelty is the application of these methodologies to reconstruct the network topology with a minimum amount of information. Moreover, we implement a multi-layer analysis to provide a comprehensive and robust framework, by testing several food commodities, over the period 1986–2013. The main outcomes suggest that the RAS algorithm outperforms the Gravity Model in the estimations of the bilateral trade flows, importantly guaranteeing the balance constraints (i.e. global import equals global export), while GM generates lower relative errors, but it underestimates total global flows. Both RAS and GM can be applied to accurately recover the network architecture. The implications of our study encompass a wide range of applications: systemic-risk assessment, creation of new databases, and scenario analyses to support policy decisions.

Effects of cultural institutes on bilateral trade and FDI flows: Cultural diplomacy or economic altruism?

AbstractThe number of cultural institutes from major developed and developing countries increased significantly in the last twenty years. In this paper, using cross‐sectional and panel data analysis on bilateral trade in goods and services, and FDI inflows and outflows, we examine the economic effects of 1,266 cultural institutes from China, France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and UK for the period of 1990–2015. The empirical results suggest that cultural institutes have significantly positive trade and FDI enhancing effects, which are persistent over time. However, these effects are most robust only with goods exports and FDI outflows. Furthermore, the economic effects of cultural institutes are not homogenous across destinations and are the strongest for developed rather than developing host countries. There is also significant heterogeneity among cultural institutes with significant differences in their economic effects on different types of bilateral trade and FDI flows.