IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc17/168270.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The view from space: Theory-based time-varying distances in the gravity model

Author

Listed:
  • Hinz, Julian

Abstract

I compute distances used in the gravity model of international trade that improve the existing measures along multiple lines and help remedy the border puzzle by up to 50%. I derive a trade cost aggregation that is agnostic to the underlying gravity framework while taking into account the economic geography of countries. Using this method I compute bilateral and internal country distances, making use of nightlight satellite imagery for information on the economic geography of countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Hinz, Julian, 2017. "The view from space: Theory-based time-varying distances in the gravity model," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168270, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168270
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/168270/1/VfS-2017-pid-3511.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-1721, September.
    4. Feyrer, James, 2021. "Distance, trade, and income — The 1967 to 1975 closing of the Suez canal as a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    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. 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.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 428-488.
    8. de Sousa, José, 2012. "The currency union effect on trade is decreasing over time," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 917-920.
    9. John F. Helliwell & Geneviève Verdier, 2001. "Measuring internal trade distances: a new method applied to estimate provincial border effects in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(4), pages 1024-1041, November.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Richard Baldwin & Daria Taglioni, 2006. "Gravity for Dummies and Dummies for Gravity Equations," NBER Working Papers 12516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2011. "A Bright Idea for Measuring Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 194-199, May.
    14. Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2006. "Notes on CEPII’s distances measures," MPRA Paper 26469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Yotov, Yoto V., 2012. "A simple solution to the distance puzzle in international trade," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 794-798.
    16. Poncet, Sandra, 2003. "Measuring Chinese domestic and international integration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21.
    17. Anne-Célia Disdier & Keith Head, 2008. "The Puzzling Persistence of the Distance Effect on Bilateral Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 37-48, February.
    18. 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.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/443fbihfmj8h58a4ceedn30ogb is not listed on IDEAS
    20. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    21. 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.
    22. Fally, Thibault, 2015. "Structural gravity and fixed effects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 76-85.
    23. Roland Hodler & Paul A. Raschky, 2014. "Regional Favoritism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 995-1033.
    24. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    25. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    26. 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.
    27. Hillberry, Russell & Hummels, David, 2008. "Trade responses to geographic frictions: A decomposition using micro-data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 527-550, April.
    28. 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.
    29. Hirokazu Ishise & Miwa Matsuo, 2015. "Trade In Polarized America: The Border Effect Between Red States And Blue States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(3), pages 1647-1670, July.
    30. Mario Larch & Pehr-Johan Norbäck & Steffen Sirries & Dieter M. Urban, 2016. "Heterogeneous Firms, Globalisation and the Distance Puzzle," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(9), pages 1307-1338, September.
    31. Nils B. Weidmann & Doreen Kuse & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2010. "The Geography of the International System: The CShapes Dataset," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 86-106, February.
    32. 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. Matthieu Crozet & Julian Hinz & Federico Trionfetti, 2023. "Exchange Rate Pass-Around," Working Papers hal-04150476, HAL.
    2. Julian Donaubauer & Alexander Glas & Birgit Meyer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2018. "Disentangling the impact of infrastructure on trade using a new index of infrastructure," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(4), pages 745-784, November.
    3. Lionel Fontagné & Mathilde Lebrand & Siobhan Murray & Michele Ruta & Gianluca Santoni, 2023. "Trade and Infrastructure Integration in Africa," Working Papers 2023-14, CEPII research center.
    4. Persyn, Damiaan & Díaz-Lanchas, Jorge & Barbero, Javier, 2022. "Estimating road transport costs between and within European Union regions," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 33-42.
    5. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2021. "The United States of Europe: A Gravity Model Evaluation of the Four Freedoms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 23-48, Spring.
    6. Damiaan Persyn & Javier Barbero & Jorge Díaz‐Lanchas & Patrizio Lecca & Giovanni Mandras & Simone Salotti, 2023. "The ripple effects of large‐scale transport infrastructure investment," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 755-792, September.
    7. Federico Carril-Caccia & Aitor Garmendia-Lazcano & Asier Minondo, 2023. "Social ties and home bias in mergers and acquisitions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 159(3), pages 563-593, August.
    8. Julian Hinz & Elsa Leromain, 2016. "Politics of Global Value Chains," Working Papers 1026, Economic Research Forum, revised Jul 2016.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Larch, Mario & Yotov, Yoto V., 2015. "Economic integration agreements, border effects, and distance elasticities in the gravity equation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 307-327.
    4. 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.
    5. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "Short run gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Jens Wrona, 2018. "Border Effects Without Borders: What Divides Japan's Internal Trade?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7056, CESifo.
    7. Carlos Llano‐Verduras & Asier Minondo & Francisco Requena‐Silvente, 2011. "Is the Border Effect an Artefact of Geographical Aggregation?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(10), pages 1771-1787, October.
    8. Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "The evolution of structural gravity: The workhorse model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(4), pages 578-603, October.
    9. Wrona, Jens, 2015. "Border Effects without Borders," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113060, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. 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).
    11. Piermartini, Roberta & Yotov, Yoto V., 2016. "Estimating trade policy effects with structural gravity," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2016-10, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    12. 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.
    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. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2008. "International Trade Integration: A Disaggregated Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Yotov, Yoto V., 2021. "From theory to policy with gravitas: A solution to the mystery of the excess trade balances," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    18. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2011. "Gravity, trade integration, and heterogeneity across industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 206-221.
    19. Santamaria, Marta & Ventura, Jaume & Yesilbayraktar, Ugur, 2021. "Borders within Europe," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 560, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    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:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    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:vfsc17:168270. 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.