IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v49y2016i1p237-263.html

Internal trade, productivity and interconnected industries: A quantitative analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Albrecht
  • Trevor Tombe

Abstract

Does trade within a country affect welfare and productivity? What are the magnitude and consequences of costs to such trade? To answer these questions, we exploit unique Canadian data to measure internal trade costs in a variety of waysthey are large and vary across sectors and provinces. To quantify their consequences for welfare and productivity, we use a recent multi-sector trade model featuring rich inputoutput relationships. We find interprovincial trade is an important contributor to Canada's GDP and welfare, though there are significant costs to such trade. Reducing interprovincial trade costs by 10% yields aggregate gains of 0.9%; eliminating our preferred estimates of costs, gains average between 3% and 7%equivalent to real GDP gains between $50 billion and $130 billion. Finally, as policy reforms are often sector specific, we liberalize sectors one at a time and find gains are largest in highly interconnected industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Albrecht & Trevor Tombe, 2016. "Internal trade, productivity and interconnected industries: A quantitative analysis," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(1), pages 237-263, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:49:y:2016:i:1:p:237-263
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12196
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12196
    Download Restriction: access restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/caje.12196?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Mansell & Mukesh Khanal & Trevor Tombe, 2020. "The Regional Distribution of Federal Fiscal Balances: Who Pays, Who Gets and Why It Matters," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 13(14), June.
    2. Andrew Agopsowicz & Bassirou Gueye & Natalia Kyui & Youngmin Park & Mohanad Salameh & Ben Tomlin, 2017. "April 2017 Annual Reassessment of Potential Output Growth in Canada," Staff Analytical Notes 17-5, Bank of Canada.
    3. Trevor Tombe & Jennifer Winter, 2021. "Fiscal integration with internal trade: Quantifying the effects of federal transfers in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 522-556, May.
    4. Toshihiro OKUBO & Akira SASAHARA, 2022. "A Long-run Transition of Japan's Inter-regional Value Chains," Discussion papers 22067, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Agnosteva, Delina E. & Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2019. "Intra-national trade costs: Assaying regional frictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 32-50.
    6. Pau S. Pujolas & Jack Rossbach, 2025. "How Should Canada React to the Looming U.S. Trade War?," Department of Economics Working Papers 2025-01, McMaster University.
    7. Mr. Jorge A Alvarez & Mr. Ivo Krznar & Trevor Tombe, 2019. "Internal Trade in Canada: Case for Liberalization," IMF Working Papers 2019/158, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Calin Arcalean & Gerhard Glomm & Ioana Cosmina Schiopu, 2019. "Urbanization, productivity differences and spatial frictions," CESifo Working Paper Series 7609, CESifo.
    9. Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2012. "Understanding interstate trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 158-166.
    10. Yang, Yang & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik & Yu, Zhuangxiong, 2024. "How does enterprise digitalization affect corporate carbon emission in China: A firm-level study," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Christopher Cotton & Daniel Teeter, 2025. "Breaking Down Canada’s Internal Trade Barriers," Working Paper 1529, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    12. G. Kent Fellows & Katharina Koch & Alas Munzur & Robert Mansell & Pierre-Gerlier Forest, 2020. "The Canadian Northern Corridor: Planning for National Prosperity," SPP Briefing Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 13(28), December.
    13. G. Kent Fellows & Trevor Tombe, 2018. "Gains from Trade for Canada’s North: The Case for a Northern Infrastructure Corridor," SPP Communique, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 10(2), March.
    14. Robby K. Bemrose & W. Mark Brown & Jesse Tweedle, 2020. "Going the distance: Estimating the effect of provincial borders on trade when geography (and everything else) matters," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 1098-1131, August.
    15. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2020. "Gains from domestic versus international trade: Evidence from the US," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 199-210, February.
    16. Han Zou, 2024. "Environmental regulation, corporate strategy and trade costs: a regression discontinuity in time design," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 12163-12191, May.
    17. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Ikumo Isono & Satoru Kumagai, 2020. "Transportation Costs in Archipelagos: Evidence from Indonesia," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 58(3), pages 227-241, September.
    18. G. Kent Fellows & Trevor Tombe, 2018. "Opening Canada’s North: A Study of Trade Costs in the Territories," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 11(17), June.
    19. Beverly Lapham & Daniel Teeter, 2023. "A Gravity Analysis of Inter-Provincial Trade," Working Paper 1507, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    20. Zhao, Yujie & Zhang, Zixuan & Zhang, Boyuan & Sun, Haixia, 2024. "Does administrative monopoly regulation affect cross-regional resource allocation?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    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:cje:issued:v:49:y:2016:i:1:p:237-263. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.html .

    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.