The estimated coefficient of distance on the volume of trade is generally found to increase rather than decrease through time using the traditional gravity model of trade. This distance puzzle proved robust to several ad hoc versions of the model using data for 1962-96 for a large sample of 130...

This paper investigates the role of trade costs for exporter dynamics in Africa. In comparison to exporters from other regions, African exporting firms are fewer, smaller, and relatively less diversified in terms of products and destinations. African countries also display the highest rates of...

Social protection, especially health care systems for the poor, is essential to reduce inequality. Health-related shocks, such as death or severe sickness, can affect households' budgets significantly and create serious household trauma, leading to higher possibilities of them falling into...

We create two novel datasets - the starting dates of Roll-On Roll-Off Terminal System (RRTS) service by route, and interprovincial land trade - to evaluate the effects of the RRTS on agricultural trade costs within the Philippines as measured by border effects. We find province border effects to...

A unilateral trade reform generates two opposite effects: market access expansion and strengthening of competitive pressures in the liberalized market. Using detailed trade and firm-level data from France, we investigate how French firms' product scope and export sales changed after Chinese...

By applying regression discontinuity designs to a set of household surveys from the 1980–90s, we examine whether Côte d'Ivoire's aggregate wealth was translated at the borders of neighboring countries. At the border of Ghana and at the end of the 1980s, large discontinuities are detected for...

This paper investigates the effect of countries' structural economic vulnerability (EVI) on their participation in international trade using an unbalanced panel dataset of 118 countries from 1996 to 2018 and the two-step system generalized method of moments estimator. It has revealed several...

We estimate import processing costs based on the time it takes to import. Our theory extends existing time-cost measures to account for uncertainty in import processing. We use detailed, highly disaggregated data on import processing dates and import values to provide evidence for our theory and...

While the effects of immigrants on aggregate trade flows have been extensively examined, the role of immigrants in shaping trade in value added (TiVA) remains underexplored. Employing a panel dataset covering 38 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member host countries...