IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/15267_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Border effect and market potential: the case of the European Union

In: Accessibility and Spatial Interaction

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Henar Sales-Olmedo
  • Ana Condeço-Melhorado
  • Javier Gutiérrez

Abstract

The globalization of population and trade flows yielded an increase of interactions within the international framework. Accessibility indicators are especially suited to represent spatial interaction since they capture two basic factors that determine the amount of flows between a set of places: the opportunities available and the infrastructure used to move those flows. While globalization trends contributed to the weakening of borders, several studies confirm that borders still matter in international trade, and play a significant role in the form of home bias, that is, a marked preference for domestic products. Still, most studies of international accessibility ignore this fact, thus failing to show realistic results. This chapter makes use of gravity equations to calibrate the distance decay parameter as well as a new coefficient to control for the border effect in the market potential indicator. We used official trade data at the country level in the European Union (EU) and evaluated different distance metrics in order to obtain a realistic measure of the border effect within the EU. Our results suggest that the border effect in Europe was previously underestimated due to an excessive simplification when measuring distances. While our preliminary results were similar to previous research, once we applied realistic measures of transports cost (either travel time or generalized transport costs) and removed those countries that are highly affected by the Rotterdam effect, we found that European countries trade 15 times more within themselves than with any other European country. Consequently, integrating the effects of borders in accessibility analysis of international scope evidences that the gap between central and peripheral countries is even larger than expected.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Henar Sales-Olmedo & Ana Condeço-Melhorado & Javier Gutiérrez, 2014. "Border effect and market potential: the case of the European Union," Chapters, in: Ana Condeço-Melhorado & Aura Reggiani & Javier Gutiérrez (ed.), Accessibility and Spatial Interaction, chapter 7, pages 133-155, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:15267_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781782540724.00014.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Volker Nitsch, 2000. "National borders and international trade: evidence from the European Union," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1091-1105, November.
    2. Thierry Mayer & Keith Head, 2002. "Illusory Border Effects: Distance Mismeasurement Inflates Estimates of Home Bias in Trade," Working Papers 2002-01, CEPII research center.
    3. John F. Helliwell & Geneviève Verdier, 2001. "Measuring internal trade distances: a new method applied to estimate provincial border effects in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1024-1041, November.
    4. Clark, Todd E. & van Wincoop, Eric, 2001. "Borders and business cycles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 59-85, October.
    5. Holger C. Wolf, 1997. "Patterns of Intra- and Inter-State Trade," NBER Working Papers 5939, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Intra-National versus International Trade: How Stubborn are Nations in Global Integration?," NBER Working Papers 5531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Holger C. Wolf, 2000. "Intranational Home Bias In Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 555-563, November.
    8. Chen, Natalie, 2004. "Intra-national versus international trade in the European Union: why do national borders matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 93-118, May.
    9. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    10. Russell Hillberry & David Hummels, 2003. "Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1089-1092, November.
    11. repec:bla:reviec:v:10:y:2002:i:3:p:517-24 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-623, June.
    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. Haas, Levi & Schenk-Hoppé, Klaus R., 2019. "International Trade: Smarten up to talk the talk," MPRA Paper 99096, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Panagiotopoulos, George & Kaliampakos, Dimitris, 2021. "Location quotient-based travel costs for determining accessibility changes," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    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. Nuria Gallego & Carlos Llano, 2014. "The Border Effect and the Nonlinear Relationship between Trade and Distance," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 1016-1048, November.
    2. Salas-Olmedo, María Henar & García, Patricia & Gutiérrez, Javier, 2015. "Accessibility and transport infrastructure improvement assessment: The role of borders and multilateral resistance," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 110-129.
    3. Cletus C. Coughlin & Dennis Novy, 2013. "Is the International Border Effect Larger than the Domestic Border Effect? Evidence from US Trade," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 59(2), pages 249-276, June.
    4. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    5. Gabriel Felbermayr & Jasmin Gröschl, 2014. "Within U.S. Trade And The Long Shadow Of The American Secession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 382-404, January.
    6. Carlos Llano‐Verduras & Asier Minondo & Francisco Requena‐Silvente, 2011. "Is the Border Effect an Artefact of Geographical Aggregation?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(10), pages 1771-1787, October.
    7. 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.
    8. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Lafourcade, Miren & Mayer, Thierry, 2005. "The trade-creating effects of business and social networks: evidence from France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-29, May.
    9. Chen, Natalie, 2004. "Intra-national versus international trade in the European Union: why do national borders matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 93-118, May.
    10. Pacchioli, Consuelo, 2011. "Is the EU internal market suffering from an integration deficit?," CEPS Papers 5528, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    11. Agnosteva, Delina E. & Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto, 2014. "Intra‐national Trade Costs: Measurement and Aggregation," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2014-2, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    12. Jasmin Katrin Gröschl, 2013. "Gravity Model Applications and Macroeconomic Perspectives," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 48.
    13. Ghemawat, Pankaj & Llano, Carlos & Requena, Francisco, 2009. "Rethinking regional competitiveness: Catalonia's international and interregional trade, 1995-2006," IESE Research Papers D/802, IESE Business School.
    14. Thi Mai Phuong, Chu & Tu, Thuy Anh, 2014. "On the border effect in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)," Papers 910, World Trade Institute.
    15. Matthias Helble, 2007. "Border Effect Estimates for France and Germany Combining International Trade and Intranational Transport Flows," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 143(3), pages 433-463, October.
    16. Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "On the role of domestic trade flows for estimating the gravity model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 526-540, July.
    17. Nicholas Crafts & Alexander Klein, 2015. "Geography and intra-national home bias: U.S. domestic trade in 1949 and 2007," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 477-497.
    18. Lionel Fontagné & Thierry Mayer & Soledad Zignago, 2005. "Trade in the Triad: how easy is the access to large markets?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1401-1430, November.
    19. Cletus C. Coughlin & Dennis Novy, 2021. "Estimating Border Effects: The Impact Of Spatial Aggregation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1453-1487, November.
    20. Mayer, Thierry & Pierre-Phillippe Combes & Miren Lafourcade, 2003. "Can Business and Social Networks Explain the Border Effect Puzzle?," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 150, Royal Economic Society.

    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:elg:eechap:15267_7. 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    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.