IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc15/113060.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Border Effects without Borders

Author

Listed:
  • Wrona, Jens

Abstract

Over the last 20 years the border-effect literature repeatedly documented the trade-reducing effect of inter- and intra-national borders. Thereby, the sheer size and persistence of observed border effects from the beginning raised doubts on the genuine effect of underlying borders. However, when so-called "border effects" result either from statistical artefacts or from differences in fundamentals, why should their spatial dimension then inevitably coincide with the geography of present or past political borders? This paper identifies a discontinuous trade reduction along a geographic dimension that neither existing nor defunct political borders can explain. Trade between the East and the West of Japan is 23.1% - 51.3% lower than trade within both country parts. Including a rich set of explanatory variables, suggests that recent agglomeration trends, reflected by the contemporaneous structure of Japan's business and social networks, rather than cultural differences, shaped by long-lasting historical shocks, can explain the east-west bias in intra-Japanese trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Wrona, Jens, 2015. "Border Effects without Borders," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113060, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc15:113060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/113060/1/VfS_2015_pid_327.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Okubo, Toshihiro, 2004. "The border effect in the Japanese market: A Gravity Model analysis," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-11, March.
    2. Volker Nitsch, 2000. "National borders and international trade: evidence from the European Union," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1091-1105, November.
    3. Murat Genc & Masood Gheasi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2012. "The impact of immigration on international trade: a meta-analysis," Chapters, in: Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot & Mediha Sahin (ed.), Migration Impact Assessment, chapter 9, pages 301-337, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Volker Nitsch & Nikolaus Wolf, 2013. "Tear down this wall: on the persistence of borders in trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 154-179, February.
    5. Andrew B. BERNARD & Andreas MOXNES & SAITO Yukiko, 2014. "Geography and Firm Performance in the Japanese Production Network," Discussion papers 14034, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Stephen J. Redding & Daniel M. Sturm, 2008. "The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1766-1797, December.
    7. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Benjamin Jung & Farid Toubal, 2010. "Ethnic Networks, Information, and International Trade: Revisiting the Evidence," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 97-98, pages 41-70.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Simonovska, Ina & Waugh, Michael E., 2014. "The elasticity of trade: Estimates and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 34-50.
    11. Hertel, Thomas & Hummels, David & Ivanic, Maros & Keeney, Roman, 2007. "How confident can we be of CGE-based assessments of Free Trade Agreements?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 611-635, July.
    12. Wolf, Nikolaus, 2009. "Was Germany Ever United? Evidence from Intra- and International Trade, 1885–1933," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 846-881, September.
    13. Daniel L. Millimet & Thomas Osang, 2007. "Do state borders matter for U.S. intranational trade? The role of history and internal migration," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(1), pages 93-126, February.
    14. Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2012. "Understanding interstate trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 158-166.
    15. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry & Ries, John, 2010. "The erosion of colonial trade linkages after independence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-14, May.
    16. Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan & Lameli, Alfred & Südekum, Jens, 2012. "Dialects, cultural identity, and economic exchange," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 225-239.
    17. Felbermayr, Gabriel J. & Toubal, Farid, 2010. "Cultural proximity and trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 279-293, February.
    18. Yotov, Yoto V., 2012. "A simple solution to the distance puzzle in international trade," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 794-798.
    19. Poncet, Sandra, 2003. "Measuring Chinese domestic and international integration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21.
    20. Russell Hillberry & David Hummels, 2003. "Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1089-1092, November.
    21. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Lafourcade, Miren & Mayer, Thierry, 2005. "The trade-creating effects of business and social networks: evidence from France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-29, May.
    22. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2000. "Non-Europe: The magnitude and causes of market fragmentation in the EU," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 136(2), pages 284-314, June.
    23. Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Intra-National versus International Trade: How Stubborn are Nations in Global Integration?," NBER Working Papers 5531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Holger C. Wolf, 2000. "Intranational Home Bias In Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 555-563, November.
    25. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2002. "Bones, Bombs, and Break Points: The Geography of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1269-1289, December.
    26. SAITO Yukiko, 2012. "The Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake on Companies in the Non-affected Areas: Structure of the inter-company network of supply chains and its implication (Japanese)," Discussion Papers (Japanese) 12020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    27. Keith Head & John Ries, 1998. "Immigration and Trade Creation: Econometric Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 47-62, February.
    28. Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot & Mediha Sahin (ed.), 2012. "Migration Impact Assessment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14476.
    29. Chen, Natalie, 2004. "Intra-national versus international trade in the European Union: why do national borders matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 93-118, May.
    30. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    31. KONISHI Yoko & Se-il MUN & NISHIYAMA Yoshihiko & Ji Eun SUNG, 2012. "Determinants of Transport Costs for Inter-regional Trade," Discussion papers 12016, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    32. Adam Ozimek & Daniel Miles, 2011. "Stata utilities for geocoding and generating travel time and travel distance information," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 11(1), pages 106-119, March.
    33. Fujita, Masahisa & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 1997. "Regional growth in postwar Japan," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 643-670, November.
    34. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
    35. 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.
    36. Cristea, Anca D., 2011. "Buyer-seller relationships in international trade: Evidence from U.S. States' exports and business-class travel," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 207-220, July.
    37. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2011. "Gravity, trade integration, and heterogeneity across industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 206-221.
    38. Fujita, Masahisa & Mori, Tomoya & Henderson, J. Vernon & Kanemoto, Yoshitsugu, 2004. "Spatial distribution of economic activities in Japan and China," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 65, pages 2911-2977, Elsevier.
    39. James E. Rauch & Vitor Trindade, 2002. "Ethnic Chinese Networks In International Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 116-130, February.
    40. Anderson, James E, 1979. "A Theoretical Foundation for the Gravity Equation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 106-116, March.
    41. repec:adr:anecst:y:2010:i:97-98:p:03 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. El-Sahli, Zouheir & Gullstrand, Joakim & Olofsdotter, Karin, 2017. "The Internal and External Effects of Offshoring on Job Security," Working Papers 2017:14, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Céline Bonnet & Jan Philip Schain, 2020. "An Empirical Analysis Of Mergers: Efficiency Gains And Impact On Consumer Prices," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-35.
    3. Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2012. "Understanding interstate trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 158-166.
    4. Jens Suedekum, 2018. "Economic effects of differences in dialect," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 414-414, January.
    5. Zouheir El-Sahli & Joakim Gullstrand & Karin Olofsdotter, 2022. "The external effects of offshoring on job security in SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1613-1640, December.
    6. Arnarson, Björn Thor & Gullstrand, Joakim, 2016. "Linking Services to Manufacturing Exports," Working Papers 2016:27, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 24 Feb 2017.

    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. Wrona, Jens, 2015. "Border effects without borders: What divides Japan's internal trade?," DICE Discussion Papers 185, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    2. Jens Wrona, 2018. "Border Effects Without Borders: What Divides Japan's Internal Trade?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7056, CESifo.
    3. Gabriel Felbermayr & Jasmin Gröschl, 2014. "Within U.S. Trade And The Long Shadow Of The American Secession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 382-404, January.
    4. Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "On the role of domestic trade flows for estimating the gravity model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 526-540, July.
    5. Yoto V. Yotov, 2021. "The Variation of Gravity within Countries (or 15 Reasons Why Gravity Should Be Estimated with Domestic Trade Flows)," CESifo Working Paper Series 9057, CESifo.
    6. Jasmin Katrin Gröschl, 2013. "Gravity Model Applications and Macroeconomic Perspectives," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 48.
    7. Agnosteva, Delina E. & Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2019. "Intra-national trade costs: Assaying regional frictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 32-50.
    8. Larch, Mario & Tan, Shawn W. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2023. "A simple method to ex-ante quantify the unobservable effects of trade liberalization and trade protection," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 1200-1213.
    9. Delina E. Agnosteva & James E. Anderson & Yoto V. Yotov, 2014. "Intra-national Trade Costs: Measurement and Aggregation," NBER Working Papers 19872, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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.
    11. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    12. Tomoya Mori & Jens Wrona, 2018. "Inter-city Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 7233, CESifo.
    13. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    14. Nuria Gallego & Carlos Llano, 2014. "The Border Effect and the Nonlinear Relationship between Trade and Distance," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 1016-1048, November.
    15. Volker Nitsch & Nikolaus Wolf, 2013. "Tear down this wall: on the persistence of borders in trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 154-179, February.
    16. Thi Mai Phuong, Chu & Tu, Thuy Anh, 2014. "On the border effect in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)," Papers 910, World Trade Institute.
    17. Cletus C. Coughlin & Dennis Novy, 2021. "Estimating Border Effects: The Impact Of Spatial Aggregation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1453-1487, November.
    18. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Benedikt Herz & Xosé-Luís Varela-Irimia, 2020. "Border effects in European public procurement [Information costs and home bias: an analysis of US holdings of foreign equities]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(6), pages 1359-1405.
    23. Tomoya Mori & Jens Wrona, 2021. "Centrality Bias in Inter-city Trade," KIER Working Papers 1056, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    24. Anderson, James E. & Borchert, Ingo & Mattoo, Aaditya & Yotov, Yoto V., 2018. "Dark costs, missing data: Shedding some light on services trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 193-214.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation

    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:zbw:vfsc15:113060. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.