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The drivers of Italian exports and product market entry: 1862-1913 (Updated August 2020)

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  • Jacopo Timini

    () (Banco de España)

Abstract

Between its Unification and WWI, Italy’s changing export composition echoed its economic transformation. In this paper I decompose Italian export growth in its margins, and then analyse the determinants of Italian exports and product market entry (and exit). To do so, I use two different databases (aggregate and product-level bilateral trade data) and methodologies (gravity and logit models). Besides confirming some well-known empirical and historical facts for the Italian case (gravity variables hold; trade follows a Heckscher-Olhin pattern), the regression results offer a new perspective on two distinctive features of its history: trade policy and emigration. These two factors are positively associated with Italian exports and product market entry. These findings also have additional implications for the role of emigration on the course of the Italian economy: accounting for the trade channel, its overall effect may be larger than previously thought.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacopo Timini, 2018. "The drivers of Italian exports and product market entry: 1862-1913 (Updated August 2020)," Working Papers 1836, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage, revised Aug 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:bde:wpaper:1836
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    4. Christian Castro & Jorge E. Galán, 2019. "Drivers of Productivity in the Spanish Banking Sector: Recent Evidence," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 115-141, June.
    5. Gergely Ganics & Atsushi Inoue & Barbara Rossi, 2018. "Confidence intervals for bias and size distortion in IV and local projections — IV models," Working Papers 1841, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage.
    6. Jacopo Timini, 2019. "Staying dry on Spanish wine: the rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement (Updated May 2020)," Working Papers 1932, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage, revised May 2020.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Italian exports; Market entry; First globalization; gravity models; logit models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • N73 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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