IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/car/carecp/08-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade and Labor Standards in the European Union: A Gravity Model Approach

Author

Abstract

Using a gravity model, we examine whether labor standards are important determinants of bilateral export performance for EU-15 countries over the period 1988-2001. We assess the conventional wisdom that countries with low labor standards and less stringent regulations have performed better in terms of trade performance and use a panel data set in a triple-indexed gravity model to conduct our empirical investigation. Our empirical results indicate that labor standards matter, but that the conventional wisdom does not always hold. The standard variables used in gravity equations conform to theoretical expectations and are highly significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Yiagadeesen Samy & Vivek H. Dehejia, 2008. "Trade and Labor Standards in the European Union: A Gravity Model Approach," Carleton Economic Papers 08-08, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:08-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.carleton.ca/economics/wp-content/uploads/cep08-08.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Egger, Peter, 2000. "A note on the proper econometric specification of the gravity equation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 25-31, January.
    3. Laszlo Matyas, 1997. "Proper Econometric Specification of the Gravity Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 363-368, May.
    4. Cees Van Beers, 1998. "Labour Standards and Trade Flows of OECD Countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 57-73, January.
    5. I-Hui Cheng & Howard J. Wall, 2005. "Controlling for heterogeneity in gravity models of trade and integration," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Jan), pages 49-63.
    6. Gabriel Rodriguez & Yiagadeesen Samy, 2003. "Analysing the effects of labour standards on US export performance. A time series approach with structural change," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(9), pages 1043-1051.
    7. Alan V. Deardorff, 2011. "Determinants of Bilateral Trade: Does Gravity Work in a Neoclassical World?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robert M Stern (ed.), Comparative Advantage, Growth, And The Gains From Trade And Globalization A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff, chapter 24, pages 267-293, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. László Mátyás, 1998. "The Gravity Model: Some Econometric Considerations," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 397-401, May.
    9. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1989. "The Generalized Gravity Equation, Monopolistic Competition, and the Factor-Proportions Theory in International Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(1), pages 143-153, February.
    10. David Kucera & Ritash Sarna, 2006. "Trade Union Rights, Democracy, and Exports: a Gravity Model Approach," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 859-882, November.
    11. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    12. Vivek Dehejia & Yiagadeesen Samy, 2004. "Trade and labour standards: theory and new empirical evidence," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 179-198.
    13. Anderson, James E, 1979. "A Theoretical Foundation for the Gravity Equation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 106-116, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:ilo:ilowps:470016 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leitão, Nuno Carlos & Tripathi, Sabyasachi, 2013. "Portuguese Trade and European Union: The Gravity Model," MPRA Paper 45994, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso & Hendrik W. Kruse, 2019. "Are Labour Provisions in Free Trade Agreements Improving Labour Conditions?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 975-1003, November.
    4. Haberli, Christian. & Jansen, Marion. & Monteiro, José-Antonio., 2012. "Regional trade agreements and domestic labour market regulation," ILO Working Papers 994700163402676, International Labour Organization.

    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. Cardamone, Paola, 2007. "A Survey of the Assessments of the Effectiveness of Preferential Trade Agreements using Gravity Models," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 60(4), pages 421-473.
    2. Simone Juhasz Silva & Douglas Nelson, 2012. "Does Aid Cause Trade? Evidence from an Asymmetric Gravity Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 545-577, May.
    3. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann, 2003. "Augmented Gravity Model: An Empirical Application to Mercosur-European Union Trade Flows," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 291-316, November.
    4. Roland Rieder, 2006. "Playing Dominoes in Europe: An Empirical Analysis of the Domino Theory for the EU, 1962-2004," IHEID Working Papers 11-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised Jun 2006.
    5. Sierra-Fernández, Mª Del Pilar & Martínez-Campillo, Almudena, 2009. "Impacto del proceso de integración europea sobre las exportaciones de Castilla y León (1993-2007): un análisis econométrico a partir de la ecuación de gravedad/The Impact of the European Integration P," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 27, pages 783(34á)-78, Diciembre.
    6. Mustafizur Rahman & Wasel Bin Shadat & Narayan Chandra Das, 2006. "Trade Potential in SAFTA: An Application of Augmented Gravity Model," CPD Working Paper 61, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
    7. Lionel Fontagné & Michaël Pajot & Jean-Michel Pasteels, 2002. "Potentiels de commerce entre économies hétérogènes : un petit mode d'emploi des modèles de gravité," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(1), pages 115-139.
    8. Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Felicitas, Nowak-Lehmann D. & Horsewood, Nicholas, 2009. "Are regional trading agreements beneficial?: Static and dynamic panel gravity models," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 46-65, March.
    9. Michele Fratianni & Francesco Marchionne, 2008. "Heterogeneity In Trade Costs," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(48), pages 1-14.
    10. Rinaldo Brau & Anna Maria Pinna, 2013. "Movements of People for Movements of Goods?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1318-1332, October.
    11. Luljeta Hajderllari & Kostas Karantininis & Lartey G. Lawson, 2012. "FDI as an Export-Platform: A Gravity Model for the Danish Agri-Food Industry," IFRO Working Paper 2012/7, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    12. Kavallari, Aikaterini & Maas, Sarah & Schmitz, P. Michael, 2010. "Evidence on Euromediterranean Trade Integration: The Case of German Olive Oil Imports," Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, vol. 59(1).
    13. Dinçer, Gönül, 2014. "Turkey’s Rising Imports from BRICS: A Gravity Model Approach," MPRA Paper 61979, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:6:y:2008:i:48:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Yongcheol Shin & Laura Serlenga, 2007. "Gravity models of intra-EU trade: application of the CCEP-HT estimation in heterogeneous panels with unobserved common time-specific factors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 361-381.
    16. Muhammad Ullah & Kazuo Inaba, 2012. "Impact of RTA and PTA on Bangladesh’s Export: Application of a Gravity Model," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 445-460, December.
    17. Sushil Kumar & Shahid Ahmed, 2015. "Gravity Model by Panel Data Approach," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 50(4), pages 233-249, November.
    18. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2003. "Gravity model: An application to trade between regional blocs," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 31(2), pages 174-187, June.
    19. Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D. & Nicholas Horsewood, 2006. "Effects of Regional Trade Agreements Using a Static and Dynamic Gravity Equation," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 149, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    20. Michele Fratianni & Francesco Marchionne, 2011. "The Limits to Integration," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Thi Hanh Vu, 2013. "International Export Flows of Vietnam :A Gravity Model Approach," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 56(1), pages 83-108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    international trade; labor standards; gravity equation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:car:carecp:08-08. 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: Court Lindsay (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.