IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipt/decwpa/2013-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does online trade live up to the promise of a borderless world? Evidence from the EU Digital Single Market

Author

Listed:
  • Bo Cowgill

    (University of California at Berkeley)

  • Cosmina Dorobantu

    (Oxford University)

  • Bertin Martens

    (European Commission JRC)

Abstract

An important EU Digital Single Market policy objective is to achieve an open and integrated market for online e-commerce in the EU, to make it easy for consumers to go outside their domestic market and shop online in other EU Member States. This study applies a standard gravity model of international trade to Google e-commerce data to estimate the prevalence of home bias in online shopping in the EU. It compares how much EU Member States trade domestically and with other Member States, and how much the EU trades with itself and with the rest of the world. The research confirms the findings of the (offline) international trade literature, according to which there is strong home bias. There is no unambiguous evidence about the strengths or weaknesses of the EU Digital Single Market. Strong intra-EU home bias suggests that online consumers have a tendency to stay in their home country market. Equally strong extra-EU home bias suggests that online consumers who do decide to shop abroad have a tendency to stay in the EU however, rather than going to a non-EU country. There are indications that online home bias is lower in a comparable cross-border trade setting in North America. Data and methodological limitations do not allow a more detailed analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo Cowgill & Cosmina Dorobantu & Bertin Martens, 2013. "Does online trade live up to the promise of a borderless world? Evidence from the EU Digital Single Market," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2013-08, Joint Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipt:decwpa:2013-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC84466
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lendle, Andreas & Olarreaga, Marcelo & Schropp, Simon & Vezina, Pierre-Louis, 2012. "There goes gravity : how eBay reduces trade costs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6253, The World Bank.
    2. 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.
    3. Blum, Bernardo S. & Goldfarb, Avi, 2006. "Does the internet defy the law of gravity?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 384-405, December.
    4. Ali Hortaçsu & F. Asís Martínez-Jerez & Jason Douglas, 2009. "The Geography of Trade in Online Transactions: Evidence from eBay and MercadoLibre," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 53-74, February.
    5. Pacchioli, Consuelo, 2011. "Is the EU internal market suffering from an integration deficit?," CEPS Papers 5528, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    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. Nestor Duch-Brown & Bertin Martens, 2014. "Consumer benefits from the EU Digital Single Market: evidence from household appliances markets," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2014-03, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    2. Birg, Laura, 2018. "Cross-border or Online - Tax Competition with Mobile Consumers under Destination and Origin Principle," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181645, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Paul John, Pena, 2019. "An ASEAN Digital Single Market: Boosting the Aspiration for a Single Market in the Digital Era," MPRA Paper 95948, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rösner, Anja & Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich, 2020. "The impact of consumer protection in the digital age: Evidence from the European Union," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    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. Gomez-Herrera, Estrella & Martens, Bertin & Turlea, Geomina, 2014. "The drivers and impediments for cross-border e-commerce in the EU," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 83-96.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Liang Chen & Garrett Johnson & Yao Luo, 2015. "Great and Small Walls of China: Distance & Chinese E-Commerce," Working Papers 15-14, NET Institute.
    5. Cletus C. Coughlin & Dennis Novy, 2013. "Is the International Border Effect Larger than the Domestic Border Effect? Evidence from US Trade," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 59(2), pages 249-276, June.
    6. Dasgupta, Kunal & Mondria, Jordi, 2018. "Inattentive importers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 150-165.
    7. 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.
    8. Thi Mai Phuong, Chu & Tu, Thuy Anh, 2014. "On the border effect in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)," Papers 910, World Trade Institute.
    9. Richard Pomfret & Markus Lampe & Florian Ploeckl, 2014. "Spanning the Globe: The Rise of Global Communications Systems and the First Globalisation," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(3), pages 242-261, November.
    10. Michail Batikas & Estrella Gomez Herrera & Bertin Martens, 2015. "Film availability in Netflix country stores in the EU," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2015-11, Joint Research Centre.
    11. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Jullien, Bruno & Klimenko, Mikhail, 2021. "Language, internet and platform competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Wang, Zhe & Jiang, Dianchun & Zhang, Ming, 2024. "Seeking new location advantages: Analysis of emerging digital cross-border M&As—Based on TIMG index," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(2).
    13. Herman, Peter R. & Oliver, Sarah, 2023. "Trade, policy, and economic development in the digital economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    14. Melisande Cardona & Nestor Duch-Brown & Joseph Francois & Bertin Martens & Fan Yang, 2015. "The macro-economic impact of e-commerce in the EU Digital Single Market," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2015-09, Joint Research Centre.
    15. Anders Akerman & Edwin Leuven & Magne Mogstad, 2022. "Information Frictions, Internet, and the Relationship between Distance and Trade," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 133-163, January.
    16. Pradeep K. Chintagunta & Junhong Chu, 2021. "Geography as branding: Descriptive evidence from Taobao," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 53-92, March.
    17. Zi Hui Yin & Chang Hwan Choi, 2023. "The effects of China’s cross-border e-commerce on its exports: a comparative analysis of goods and services trade," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 443-474, March.
    18. J.W.A.M. Steegmans & Jonathan de Bruin, 2019. "Online housing search and gravity models," Working Papers 19-17, Utrecht School of Economics.
    19. Hicham Ganga & Javier Alonso & Vincenzo Spiezia & Jan Tscheke, 2018. "Patterns of domestic and cross-border e-commerce in Spain: A gravitational model approach," Working Papers 18/18, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    20. Badarinza, Cristian & Ramadorai, Tarun & Shimizu, Chihiro, 2022. "Gravity, counterparties, and foreign investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 132-152.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    online trade; e-commerce; gravity; barriers to trade; home bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    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:ipt:decwpa:2013-08. 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: Publication Officer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ipjrces.html .

    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.