Essays in international trade and economic geography[Essais sur le commerce international et l'économie géographique]

This dissertation focuses on the role played by trade cost in the shaping of trade flows. While the last two chapters examine the role of unconventional trade costs, the first two assess the impact of more traditional domestic and international trade costs. Chapter 1 is a joint effort with Jules Hugot. In this chapter we estimate the elasticity of trade to distance and its evolution since 1870. For this purpose we take advantage of four important episodes in the history of international trade: the openings of the Suez and Panama canals and the later closure and reopening of the first. In Chapter 2 I study the effect of a reduction of domestic transport costs. To address the endogeneity of infrastructure placement, I exploit the natural experiment provided by the opening of intercoastal shipping routes connecting the west and east coasts of Canada through the Panama Canal. Chapter 3 documents the negative impact of travel visas on bilateral trade flows. In order to estimate their causal effect I exploit a natural experiment provided by changes in Annex I of the Schengen agreements. I show that the subsequent introduction of visas to enter the Schengen Space considerably reduced bilateral trade flows. In chapter 4 I examine empirically the impact of politics on trade flows. Following Eysenck's depiction of the political spectrum, I show that distance separating countries on the different dimensions of the political spectrum has a robust negative impact on bilateral exchanges.