Cultural factors and especially common languages are well-known determinants of trade. By contrast, the knowledge of foreign languages was not explored in the literature so far. We combine traditional gravity models with data on fluency in the main languages used in EU and candidate countries....

Gravity equations have been used for more than 50 years to estimate ex post the partial effects of trade costs on international trade flows, and the well-known - and traditionally presumed exogenous - "trade-cost elasticity" plays a central role in computing general equilibrium trade-flow and...

This paper identifies a "border" effect in the absence of a border. The finding that trade between East- and West-Japan is 23.1 to 51.3 percent lower than trade within both country parts, is established despite the absence of an obvious east-west division due to historical borders, cultural...

This paper intends to combine two fields in the economic literature by examining empirically the FDI pattern - horizontal versus vertica l- within the European Union and the relevance of trade integration as a potential determinant of investment flows over the period 1995-2009. We capture trade...

In view of the deferred start of negotiations for the modernization of the Customs Union between the EU and Turkey (CU-EUT), we look back and analyse the ex post trade consequences of the CU-EUT. Employing up-to-date econometric best practices for regional integration agreements, we quantify...

Using a novel common econometric specification, we examine the measurement of three important effects in international trade that historically have been addressed largely separately: the (partial) effects on trade of economic integration agreements, national borders, and bilateral distance....

We use an empirical gravity equation approach to study how nonreciprocal trade preferences (NRTPs), enacted mainly through the Generalized System of Preferences, affect the exports of the beneficiary nations. In line with existing studies, the average trade effect stemming from nonreciprocal...

How do trade costs affect international trade? This paper offers a new approach. We rely on a flexible gravity equation that predicts variable trade cost elasticities, both across and within country pairs. We apply this framework to the effect of currency unions on international trade. While we...

We re-visit the evidence about the trade benefits of European Monetary Union (EMU), focusing on the experience of countries which adopted the common currency since 2002. Based on "state of the art" gravity estimations for the period 1992-2013, we reach three main conclusions. First, estimates...

Three years ago, very few economists would have imagined that one of the newest and fastest growing research areas in international trade is the use of quantitative trade models to estimate the economic welfare losses from dissolutions of major countries' economic integration agreements (EIAs)....