IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v145y2023ics0022199623000983.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The importance of business travel for trade: Evidence from the liberalization of the Soviet airspace

Author

Listed:
  • Söderlund, Bengt

Abstract

The strong negative relationship between geographical distance and trade is not well understood. I use the liberalization of the Soviet airspace to estimate the causal impact of business travel cost on trade. The liberalization radically reduced travel time between Europe and East Asia and was followed by a significant increase in trade. I find that the cost of business travel can account for a large share of the trade frictions that cause trade to sharply decline with distance. A plausible explanation for these results is that face-to-face interaction through business travel is important for trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Söderlund, Bengt, 2023. "The importance of business travel for trade: Evidence from the liberalization of the Soviet airspace," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:145:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000983
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199623000983
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103812?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Storper & Anthony J. Venables, 2004. "Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 351-370, August.
    2. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2013. "What separates us? Sources of resistance to globalization," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1196-1231, November.
    3. Catalini, Christian & Fons-Rosen, Christian & Gaule, Patrick, 2016. "Did Cheaper Flights Change the Direction of Science?," IZA Discussion Papers 9897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Edward E Leamer & Michael Storper, 2001. "The Economic Geography of the Internet Age," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 32(4), pages 641-665, December.
    5. Egger, Hartmut & Egger, Peter & Greenaway, David, 2008. "The trade structure effects of endogenous regional trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 278-298, March.
    6. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    7. Anne Aguilera, 2008. "Business travel and mobile workers," Post-Print halshs-00489821, HAL.
    8. Andrew B. Bernard & Andreas Moxnes & Yukiko U. Saito, 2019. "Production Networks, Geography, and Firm Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(2), pages 639-688.
    9. Demet Yilmazkuday & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2017. "The role of direct flights in trade costs," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(2), pages 249-270, May.
    10. Aguilera, Anne, 2008. "Business travel and mobile workers," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1109-1116, October.
    11. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    12. Cristea, Anca D., 2011. "Buyer-seller relationships in international trade: Evidence from U.S. States' exports and business-class travel," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 207-220, July.
    13. Filipe Campante & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2018. "Long-Range Growth: Economic Development in the Global Network of Air Links," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1395-1458.
    14. Xavier Giroud, 2013. "Proximity and Investment: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 861-915.
    15. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2013. "Innis Lecture: What separates us? Sources of resistance to globalization," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(4), pages 1196-1231, November.
    16. James Feyrer, 2019. "Trade and Income—Exploiting Time Series in Geography," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 1-35, October.
    17. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2017. "Fly and trade: Evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 51-60.
    18. Ariella Kahn-Lang & Kevin Lang, 2020. "The Promise and Pitfalls of Differences-in-Differences: Reflections on 16 and Pregnant and Other Applications," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 613-620, July.
    19. Shai Bernstein & Xavier Giroud & Richard R. Townsend, 2016. "The Impact of Venture Capital Monitoring," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1591-1622, August.
    20. David Hummels, 2007. "Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 131-154, Summer.
    21. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/443fbihfmj8h58a4ceedn30ogb is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Jialan Wang, 2010. "Superstar Extinction," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 549-589.
    23. Nune Hovhannisyan & Wolfgang Keller, 2015. "International business travel: an engine of innovation?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 75-104, March.
    24. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    25. Jordan Shan & Ken Wilson, 2001. "Causality between trade and tourism: empirical evidence from China," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 279-283.
    26. N. Kulendran & Kenneth Wilson, 2000. "Is there a relationship between international trade and international travel?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 1001-1009.
    27. Mr. Rikhil Bhavnani & Ms. Natalia T. Tamirisa & Mr. Arvind Subramanian & Mr. David T. Coe, 2002. "The Missing Globalization Puzzle," IMF Working Papers 2002/171, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Michele Coscia & Frank M. H. Neffke & Ricardo Hausmann, 2020. "Knowledge diffusion in the network of international business travel," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(10), pages 1011-1020, October.
    29. Gabriel Lara Ibarra & David McKenzie & Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, 2021. "Estimating Treatment Effects with Big Data When Take-up is Low: An Application to Financial Education," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(2), pages 348-375.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Söderlund, Bengt, 2020. "The Importance of Business Travel for Trade: Evidence from the Liberalization of the Soviet Airspace," Working Paper Series 1355, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Pol Antràs & Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2023. "Globalization and Pandemics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(4), pages 939-981, April.
    3. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2017. "Fly and trade: Evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 51-60.
    4. Ayumu Tanaka, 2013. "Geographic Concentration of Foreign Visitors to Japan," Discussion papers e-12-013, Graduate School of Economics Project Center, Kyoto University.
    5. Ayumu Tanaka, 2023. "Geographic concentration of foreign visitors: evidence from Japan," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 211-222, February.
    6. Duan, Liaoliao & Sun, Weizeng & Zheng, Siqi, 2020. "Transportation network and venture capital mobility: An analysis of air travel and high-speed rail in China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. van der Wouden, Frank & Youn, Hyejin, 2023. "The impact of geographical distance on learning through collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    8. Umana-Dajud, Camilo, 2019. "Do visas hinder international trade in goods?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 106-126.
    9. Pauly, Stefan & Stipanicic, Fernando, 2021. "The creation and diffusion of knowledge: Evidence from the Jet Age," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2112, CEPREMAP.
    10. Fensore, Irene & Legge, Stefan & Schmid, Lukas, 2017. "Human Barriers to International Trade," Economics Working Paper Series 1712, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    11. Tanaka,Kiyoyasu, 2024. "Face-to-Face Communication and Production Networks: Evidence from First Trans-Siberian Flights," IDE Discussion Papers 918, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    12. Stefan Pauly & Fernando Stipanicic, 2022. "The Creation and Diffusion of Knowledge: Evidence from the Jet Age," Working Papers hal-04067326, HAL.
    13. Elisaveta Archanskaia & Guillaume Daudin, 2012. "Heterogeneity and the Distance Puzzle," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2012-17, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    14. Stefan Pauly & Fernando Stipanicic, 2022. "The Creation and Diffusion of Knowledge: Evidence from the Jet Age," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-04067326, HAL.
    15. Van De Vijver, Elien & Derudder, Ben & Witlox, Frank, 2014. "Exploring causality in trade and air passenger travel relationships: the case of Asia-Pacific, 1980–2010," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 142-150.
    16. Zhang, Chi & Kandilov, Ivan T. & Walker, Mark D., 2021. "Direct flights and cross-border mergers & acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    17. Fensore, Irene & Legge, Stefan & Schmid, Lukas, 2022. "Ancestry and international trade," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 33-51.
    18. Demet Yilmazkuday & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2017. "The role of direct flights in trade costs," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(2), pages 249-270, May.
    19. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Raddatz, Claudio, 2016. "Comparative advantage, international trade, and fertility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 48-66.
    20. Wessel, Jan, 2019. "Evaluating the transport-mode-specific trade effects of different transport infrastructure types," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-57.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade costs; Air travel; Face-to-face communication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:145:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000983. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.