IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notgep/13-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating The Effects of the Container Revolution on World Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Bernhofen
  • Zouheir El-Sahli
  • Richard Kneller

Abstract

We quantify the effects of the container revolution on a large panel of product level trade flows during 1962-1990. We exploit time and cross-sectional variation in countries’ first adoption of container facilities to construct a time-varying bilateral container technology variable and estimate its effects on trade in the panel. On North-North trade, the cumulative average treatment effects of containerization over a 20 year time period amount to about 700%, can be interpreted as causal and are larger than the standard policy liberalization variables. In a nutshell, we provide the first econometric evidence for containerization to be a driver of 20th century economic globalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Bernhofen & Zouheir El-Sahli & Richard Kneller, 2013. "Estimating The Effects of the Container Revolution on World Trade," Discussion Papers 2013-02, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notgep:13/02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/gep/documents/papers/2013/2013-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kei-Mu Yi, 2003. "Can Vertical Specialization Explain the Growth of World Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(1), pages 52-102, February.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Haiyan Deng & Alyson C. Ma & Hengyong Mo, 2005. "World Trade Flows: 1962-2000," NBER Working Papers 11040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Theo Notteboom & Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2008. "Containerisation, Box Logistics and Global Supply Chains: The Integration of Ports and Liner Shipping Networks," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 10(1-2), pages 152-174, March.
    4. Mokyr, Joel, 1992. "The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195074772.
    5. Bruce A. Blonigen & Wesley W. Wilson, 2008. "Port Efficiency and Trade Flows," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 21-36, February.
    6. Clark, Ximena & Dollar, David & Micco, Alejandro, 2004. "Port efficiency, maritime transport costs, and bilateral trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 417-450, December.
    7. Hurd, John II, 1975. "Railways and the expansion of markets in India, 1861-1921," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 263-288, July.
    8. Gisela Rua, 2014. "Diffusion of Containerization," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-88, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Paul Krugman, 1995. "Growing World Trade: Causes and Consequences," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 327-377.
    12. 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.
    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. Coşar, A. Kerem & Demir, Banu, 2018. "Shipping inside the box: Containerization and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 331-345.
    2. Bridgman, Benjamin, 2012. "The rise of vertical specialization trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 133-140.
    3. Philip Sauré, 2012. "Bounded Love of Variety and Patterns of Trade," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 645-674, September.
    4. Jonathan Perraton, 2019. "The scope and implications of globalisation," Chapters, in: Jonathan Michie (ed.), The Handbook of Globalisation, Third Edition, chapter 3, pages 50-76, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Benjamin Bridgman, 2008. "Energy Prices and the Expansion of World Trade," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 904-916, October.
    6. Mariko Klasing & Petros Milionis & Robert Zymek, 2015. "Gravity across Space and Time," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 265, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    7. Alyson C. Ma & Ari Van Assche, 2016. "Spatial Linkages and Export Processing Location in China," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 316-338, March.
    8. Dominik Boddin & Frank Stähler, 2018. "The Organization of International Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 7378, CESifo.
    9. Gabriel F De Oliveira & Nicolas Peridy, 2019. "The trade-reducing effects of market power in international ports," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2674-2687.
    10. César Ducruet & Réka Juhász & David Krisztián Nagy & Claudia Steinwender, 2019. "All aboard: The aggregate effects of port development," Economics Working Papers 1708, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2022.
    11. Wessel, Jan, 2019. "Evaluating the transport-mode-specific trade effects of different transport infrastructure types," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-57.
    12. Jo, Ah-Hyun & Chang, Young-Tae, 2023. "The effect of airport efficiency on air traffic, using DEA and multilateral resistance terms gravity models," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    13. Logan T Lewis & Ryan Monarch & Michael Sposi & Jing Zhang, 2022. "Structural Change and Global Trade," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 476-512.
    14. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2011. "Production Networks and Trade Patterns in East Asia: Regionalization or Globalization?," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 10(1), pages 65-95, Winter/Sp.
    15. Gnutzmann-Mkrtchyan, Arevik & Henn, Christian, 2018. "Peeling away the layers: Impacts of durable tariff elimination," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 259-276.
    16. Christophe Gouel & Nina Kousnetzoff & Hassan Salman, 2008. "Commerce international et transports : tendances du passe et prospective 2020," Working Papers 2008-28, CEPII research center.
    17. Anne-Célia Disdier & Lionel Fontagné & Mondher Mimouni, 2015. "Tariff Liberalization and Trade Integration of Emerging Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 946-971, November.
    18. Hea-Jung Hyun & Jung Hur, 2014. "Trade Openness and Vertical Structure: Evidence From Korean Firm-Level Data," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 701-720, September.
    19. Prema-chandra Athukorala & Tala Talgaswatta & Omer Majeed, 2017. "Global production sharing: Exploring Australia's competitive edge," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(10), pages 2172-2192, October.
    20. Mika Saito, 2004. "Armington elasticities in intermediate inputs trade: a problem in using multilateral trade data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 1097-1117, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    containerization; 20th century global transportation infrastructure.;

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:not:notgep:13/02. 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: Hilary Hughes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgnotuk.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.