IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcecon/v41y2013i1p126-140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of international trade on institutions and infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Hochman, Gal
  • Tabakis, Chrysostomos
  • Zilberman, David

Abstract

We develop a theoretical model that explores the impact of international trade on both institutions and infrastructure, while explicitly addressing the correlation between institutional quality and infrastructure investment. We show that trade leads to higher infrastructure investment so that domestic firms become more productive and can, thus, better compete internationally. However, infrastructure investment also has a detrimental effect on firms, as it is financed through firm taxation. As a result, when some firms have stronger political ties than others, trade leads to weaker institutions and more cronyism as the government attempts to lower the tax burden on the politically connected firms. Moreover, we show that trade with a partner characterized by high aggregate firm productivity or low firm fixed costs induces a country to invest more heavily in both its infrastructure and its institutional framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Hochman, Gal & Tabakis, Chrysostomos & Zilberman, David, 2013. "The impact of international trade on institutions and infrastructure," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 126-140.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:41:y:2013:i:1:p:126-140
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2012.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596712000509
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jce.2012.07.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nathan Nunn, 2007. "Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts, and the Pattern of Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 569-600.
    2. Agrawal, Anup & Knoeber, Charles R, 2001. "Do Some Outside Directors Play a Political Role?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 179-198, April.
    3. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
    4. Andrei A. Levchenko, 2007. "Institutional Quality and International Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 791-819.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina & Ponomareva, Maria, 2004. "Federal Tax Arrears in Russia: Liquidity Problems, Federal Redistribution or Russian Resistance?," CEPR Discussion Papers 4267, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Bougheas, Spiros & Demetriades, Panicos O. & Morgenroth, Edgar L. W., 1999. "Infrastructure, transport costs and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 169-189, February.
    8. Maria Ponomareva & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2004. "Federal tax arrears in Russia Liquidity problems, federal redistribution or regional resistance?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(3), pages 373-398, September.
    9. Angela Cheptea, 2007. "Trade liberalization and institutional reforms1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 15(2), pages 211-255, April.
    10. Simon Johnson & Jonathan D Ostry & Arvind Subramanian, 2010. "Prospects for Sustained Growth in Africa: Benchmarking the Constraints," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 57(1), pages 119-171, April.
    11. Pushan Dutt & Daniel Traca, 2010. "Corruption and Bilateral Trade Flows: Extortion or Evasion?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 843-860, November.
    12. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth Lee Sokoloff, 2002. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 41-110, August.
    13. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    14. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2009. "Trade, inequality, and the political economy of institutions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1489-1520, July.
    15. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March.
    16. Angela Cheptea, 2007. "Trade liberalization and institutional reforms," Post-Print hal-02360551, HAL.
    17. Johnson, Simon & Mitton, Todd, 2003. "Cronyism and capital controls: evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 351-382, February.
    18. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    19. Daniel Berkowitz & Johannes Moenius & Katharina Pistor, 2006. "Trade, Law, and Product Complexity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 363-373, May.
    20. 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.
    21. John G. Fernald, 1999. "Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 619-638, June.
    22. James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 2002. "Insecurity And The Pattern Of Trade: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 342-352, May.
    23. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," Post-Print hal-03579844, HAL.
    26. Esfahani, Hadi Salehi & Ramirez, Maria Teresa, 2003. "Institutions, infrastructure, and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 443-477, April.
    27. Alberto Ades & Rafael Di Tella, 1997. "The New Economics of Corruption: a Survey and Some New Results," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 45(3), pages 496-515, August.
    28. Priya Ranjan & Jae Young Lee, 2007. "Contract Enforcement And International Trade," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 191-218, July.
    29. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    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. Tereza Nìmeèková & Arshad Hayat, 2022. "Does trade openness improve the quality of domestic institutions? Evidence from Africa," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 17(4), pages 881-908, December.
    2. Chiara Franco & Daniela Maggioni, 2022. "Does international trade favor proximity in cultural beliefs?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(3), pages 449-477, September.
    3. Ishac Diwan & Jamal Ibrahim Haidar, 2021. "Political Connections Reduce Job Creation: Firm-level Evidence from Lebanon," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(8), pages 1373-1396, August.
    4. Azomahou, Théophile T. & Maemir, Hibret & Wako, Hassen A., 2021. "Contractual frictions and margins of trade," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 1048-1067.
    5. Michiel Gerritse, 2015. "Does trade cause long-run development? Theory and evidence from countries behind the Suez channel," ERSA conference papers ersa15p1100, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Akihiko Yanase & Ngo Van Long & Ngo Van Long, 2020. "Trade Costs and Strategic Investment in Infrastructure in a Dynamic Global Economy with Symmetric Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 8707, CESifo.
    7. Pınar ÇUHADAR & Ömer DORU, 2020. "Institutions and International Trade Linkages: An Investigation with Panel Data Analysis on Transition Economies Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of governance indicator as ," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 28(45).
    8. Faheem Ur Rehman & Yibing Ding & Abul Ala Noman & Muhammad Asif Khan, 2020. "The Nexus Between Infrastructure and Export: An Empirical Evidence from Pakistan," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 12(2), pages 141-157, May.
    9. Akihiko Yanase & Ngo Van Long, 2020. "Strategic Investment in an International Infrastructure Capital: Nonlinear Equilibrium Paths in a Dynamic Game between Two Symmetric Countries," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, December.
    10. Sosson Tadadjeu & Paul Ningaye & Henri Njangang, 2023. "Are natural resources also bad for infrastructure quality?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1053-1079, August.

    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. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2009. "Trade, inequality, and the political economy of institutions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1489-1520, July.
    2. Bailey, Michael & Gupta, Abhinav & Hillenbrand, Sebastian & Kuchler, Theresa & Richmond, Robert & Stroebel, Johannes, 2021. "International trade and social connectedness," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    3. Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Giray Gozgor & Chi Keung Marco Lau, 2017. "Institutions and gravity model: the role of political economy and corporate governance," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 7(3), pages 421-436, December.
    4. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    5. Hatzigeorgiou, Andreas & Karpaty, Patrik & Kneller, Richard & Lodefalk, Magnus, 2016. "Immigrant Employment and the Contract Enforcement Costs of Offshoring," Working Papers 2016:7, Örebro University, School of Business, revised 01 Feb 2022.
    6. Araujo, Luis & Mion, Giordano & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2016. "Institutions and export dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 2-20.
    7. 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.
    8. Mathieu Couttenier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2010. "Civil War in a Globalized World: Diplomacy and Trade," Working Papers 10-02, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Feb 2010.
    9. Ana P. Fernandes & Jing-Lin Duanmu, 2023. "Foreign Banks and Firms' Export Dynamics: Evidence from China's Banking Reform," Discussion Papers 2304, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    10. Getachew Magnar Kitila & Fuzhong Chen, 2021. "Multilateral Trade Resistance, International Competitiveness and African International Exports: A Network Perspective," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 5(10), pages 111-126.
    11. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    12. Tongsheng Xu & Xiao Liang, 2017. "Measuring aggregate trade costs and its empirical effects on manufacturing export composition in China," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, December.
    13. Andrei A. Levchenko & Julian di Giovanni, 2009. "International Trade and Aggregate Fluctuations in Granular Economies," 2009 Meeting Papers 491, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Mrázová, Monika & Neary, J. Peter, 2020. "IO for exports(s)," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    15. Tang, Heiwai, 2012. "Labor market institutions, firm-specific skills, and trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 337-351.
    16. Alfonso Irarrazabal & Andreas Moxnes & Luca David Opromolla, 2013. "The Margins of Multinational Production and the Role of Intrafirm Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(1), pages 74-126.
    17. Agnes Kügler & Andreas Reinstaller & Klaus S. Friesenbichler, 2023. "Can value chain integration explain the diverging economic performance within the EU?," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 50(1), pages 25-47, March.
    18. Saad, Ayhab F., 2021. "Institutional change in the global economy: How trade reform can be detrimental to welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 97-110.
    19. Simone Moriconi & Giovanni Peri & Dario Pozzoli, 2020. "The role of institutions and immigrant networks in firms’ offshoring decisions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1745-1792, November.
    20. Till Gross & Stephane Verani, 2012. "Financing Constraints, Firm Dynamics, and International Trade," 2012 Meeting Papers 1035, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cronyism; Infrastructure; Institutions; International trade; Politically connected firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

    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:eee:jcecon:v:41:y:2013:i:1:p:126-140. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622864 .

    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.