Qualité des institutions, similarité institutionnelle et commerce international

This paper revisits the effects of the quality of domestic and supranational institutions, and institutional similarity on trade. To do so, we use Rodrick and Subramanian’s [2004] classification of institutions functions. We estimate a gravity model (Anderson and van Wincoop [2003]) based on the bilateral exports for 83 developed and developing economies in 2017. Results confirm the positive effect of the institutional similarity between partners on bilateral trade. This is mainly verified for market creating, market regulating and market legitimizing institutions. The role of institutional similarity in enhancing trade is stressed when trade partners are both middle-income countries. Other results validate the negative effet of institutional distance on trade. Our study also demonstrates the positive impact of the quality of market creating and market regulating institutions on importers’ trade, especially for high-income countries. Institutional quality seems however to negatively affect the exporters’ trade. There is only little evidence on the role of market stabilizing institutions and democracy (market legitmizing) in enhancing bilateral trade. Finally, the study also confirm the positive effects of trade partners’ membership to the WTO or to a RTA on bilateral trade.