Does centrality of importing countries affect export prices in the global trade?

This study employs network analysis to explore whether and to what extent export prices vary with the relative position of importing (or destination) countries in the world trade network. We estimate a gravity model, where export prices are regressed on the relative position of destination countries in the network, GDP per capita, physical distance, contiguity, and common language. We employ three measures of centrality to account for different aspects of the position of destination markets in the trade network: in-degree centrality (to examine the extent to which a destination country is well supplied within the network); indirect centrality (to assess the exporting countries’ influence on a destination country); arch centrality (to estimate the relevance of importing markets for exporting countries). The results suggest that the centrality parameters are robust to the country specialisation for the top five exporting countries, while findings related to the whole sample show that the better a destination country is supplied, interconnected with influent exporters, and central for a specific exporter, the lower the export prices in that country.