IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7000.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade, Insecurity, and Home Bias: An Empirical Investigation

Author

Listed:
  • James E. Anderson
  • Douglas Marcouiller

Abstract

Corruption and imperfect contract enforcement dramatically reduce trade. This paper estimates the reduction, using a structural model of import demand in which transactions costs impose a price markup on traded goods. We find that inadequate institutions constrain trade far more than tariffs do. We also find that omitting indexes of institutional quality from the model leads to an underestimate of home bias. Using a broad sample of countries, we find that the traded goods expenditure share declines significantly as income per capita rises, other things equal. Cross-country variation in the effectiveness of institutions offers a simple explanation of the observed global pattern of trade, in which high-income, capital-abundant countries trade disproportionately with one another.

Suggested Citation

  • James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 1999. "Trade, Insecurity, and Home Bias: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Working Papers 7000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7000
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7000.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davis, Donald R. & David E. Weinstein & Scott C. Bradford & Kazushige Shimpo, 1997. "Using International and Japanese Regional Data to Determine When the Factor Abundance Theory of Trade Works," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 421-446, June.
    2. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    3. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    4. 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..
    5. Grossman, Herschel I & Kim, Minseong, 1995. "Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1275-1288, December.
    6. BRUNETTI, AYMO AART OLIVER & Kisunko,Gregory & Weder,Beatrice Silvia, 1997. "Institutional obstacles to doing business : region-by-region results from a worldwide survey of the private sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1759, The World Bank.
    7. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Ernesto Stein & Shang-Jin Wei, 1998. "Continental Trading Blocs: Are They Natural or Supernatural?," NBER Chapters, in: The Regionalization of the World Economy, pages 91-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. James R. Markusen, 2021. "Explaining the Volume of Trade: An Eclectic Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 9, pages 177-186, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Anderson, James E. & Marcouiller, S.J. Douglas, 1997. "Trade and Security, I: Anarchy," Working Paper Series 477, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    11. James E. Rauch & Alessandra Casella, 2003. "Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation: Prices and Ties," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 21-42, January.
    12. Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1029-1046, December.
    13. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1998. "The Regionalization of the World Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fran98-1, June.
    14. Shang-Jin Wei, 1997. "Why is Corruption So Much More Taxing Than Tax? Arbitrariness Kills," NBER Working Papers 6255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Anderson James E & Young Leslie, 2006. "Trade and Contract Enforcement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36.
    16. John F. Helliwell, 1996. "Do National Borders Matter for Quebec's Trade?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 507-522, August.
    17. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-623, June.
    18. 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)

    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. James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 2002. "Insecurity And The Pattern Of Trade: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 342-352, May.
    2. James Harrigan, 2001. "Specialization and the Volume of Trade: Do the Data Obey the Laws?," NBER Working Papers 8675, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. James E. Anderson, 1999. "Why Do Nations Trade (So Little)?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 428, Boston College Department of Economics.
    4. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    7. Emla Fitzsimons & Vincent Hogan & J. Peter Neary, 1999. "Explaining the Volume of North-South Trade in Ireland - A Gravity Model Approach," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 381-401.
    8. Marianna Belloc, 2006. "Institutions and International Trade: A Reconsideration of Comparative Advantage," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 3-26, February.
    9. Ms. Katrin Elborgh-Woytek, 2003. "Of Openess and Distance: Trade Developments in the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1993-2002," IMF Working Papers 2003/207, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Andrew K. Rose, 1999. "One Money, One Market: Estimating the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade," NBER Working Papers 7432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2007. "Do free trade agreements actually increase members' international trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 72-95, March.
    12. Wheatley, W. Parker & Roe, Terry L., 2005. "The Effects of the Internet on U.S. Bilateral Trade in Agricultural and Horticultural Commodities," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19227, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Salvador Gil-Pareja & Rafael Llorca & Josè A. Martinez-Serrano, 2011. "Is There A Continental Bias In Trade?," ERSA conference papers ersa10p792, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Salvador Gil‐Pareja & Rafael Llorca‐Vivero & José A. Martínez‐Serrano & Josep Oliver‐Alonso, 2005. "The Border Effect in Spain," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(11), pages 1617-1631, November.
    15. Andres Faiña & Jesus Lopez-Rodríguez, 2003. "Population Potentials and Development Levels: Empirical Findings in the European Union," ERSA conference papers ersa03p30, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Michele Fratianni, 2007. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade," Working Papers 2007-17, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    17. Paas, Tiiu, 2002. "Gravity approach for exploring Baltic Sea regional integration in the field of international trade," HWWA Discussion Papers 180, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    18. Ghazalian, Pascal L. & Furtan, W. Hartley, 2008. "The effects of multinational activities on the measurement of home bias," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 401-416, September.
    19. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.
    20. Magerman, Glenn & Studnicka, Zuzanna & Van Hove, Jan, 2016. "Distance and border effects in international trade: A comparison of estimation methods," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 10, pages 1-31.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights

    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:nbr:nberwo:7000. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.