IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9584.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gravity at Sixty: The Workhorse Model of Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Yoto V. Yotov

Abstract

On the eve of its 60th anniversary, the gravity model of trade is a ‘celebrity’, due to its intuitive appeal, solid theoretical foundations, and remarkable empirical success. Yet, many economists still view gravity simply as an intuitive but naive reduced-form estimating equation and apply it without guidance from theory, while others are skeptical about its usefulness for counterfactual projections. The objective of this paper is to offer a historical overview of its evolution from an a-theoretical application to an estimating computable general equilibrium (E-CGE) model, which can be nested in more complex frameworks. Along the way, I address some misconceptions about the gravity model, summarize the current best practices for gravity estimations, and highlight some properties that have made gravity so successful.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "Gravity at Sixty: The Workhorse Model of Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 9584, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9584.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2016. "Terms of trade and global efficiency effects of free trade agreements, 1990–2002," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 279-298.
    2. Bruce A. Blonigen & Wesley W. Wilson (ed.), 2018. "Handbook of International Trade and Transportation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 17028.
    3. Cosimo Beverelli & Alexander Keck & Mario Larch & Yoto V. Yotov, 2018. "Institutions, Trade and Development: A Quantitative Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 6920, CESifo.
    4. Treb Allen & Costas Arkolakis, 2014. "Trade and the Topography of the Spatial Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1085-1140.
    5. Richard Baldwin & Daria Taglioni, 2006. "Gravity for Dummies and Dummies for Gravity Equations," NBER Working Papers 12516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sami Bensassi & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2012. "How Costly is Modern Maritime Piracy to the International Community?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 869-883, November.
    7. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2017. "Currency unions, trade and heterogeneity," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88487, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Holger Breinich & Harald Fadinger & Volker Nocke & Nicolas Schutz, 2020. "Gravity With Granularity," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_236v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany, revised Mar 2025.
    9. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    10. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Lionel Fontagné & Amina Lahrèche-Révil, 2005. "How Does FDI React to Corporate Taxation?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(5), pages 583-603, September.
    11. Anderson, James E. & Borchert, Ingo & Mattoo, Aaditya & Yotov, Yoto V., 2018. "Dark costs, missing data: Shedding some light on services trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 193-214.
    12. Chor, Davin, 2010. "Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 152-167, November.
    13. Neary, Peter & Carrère, Céline & Mrázová, Monika, 2020. "Gravity without Apologies: The Science of Elasticities, Distance, and Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 14473, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Mr. Rikhil Bhavnani & Ms. Natalia T. Tamirisa & Mr. Arvind Subramanian & Mr. David T. Coe, 2002. "The Missing Globalization Puzzle," IMF Working Papers 2002/171, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Baier, Scott L. & Yotov, Yoto V. & Zylkin, Thomas, 2019. "On the widely differing effects of free trade agreements: Lessons from twenty years of trade integration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 206-226.
    16. repec:fth:nystbu:92-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. David K. Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1992. "Dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade: the J-curve revisited," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 65, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    18. Céline Carrère & Monika Mrázová & J Peter Neary, 2020. "Gravity Without Apology: the Science of Elasticities, Distance and Trade," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 880-910.
    19. Baldwin, Richard & Dingel, Jonathan, 2021. "Telemigration and development: On the offshorability of teleworkable jobs," CEPR Discussion Papers 16641, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Lorenzo Caliendo & Maximiliano Dvorkin & Fernando Parro, 2019. "Trade and Labor Market Dynamics: General Equilibrium Analysis of the China Trade Shock," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 741-835, May.
    21. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
    22. Youssef Benzarti & Alisa Tazhitdinova, 2021. "Do Value-Added Taxes Affect International Trade Flows? Evidence from 30 Years of Tax Reforms," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 469-489, November.
    23. James E Anderson & Mario Larch & Yoto V Yotov, 2020. "Transitional Growth and Trade with Frictions: A Structural Estimation Framework," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(630), pages 1583-1607.
    24. Backus, David K & Kehoe, Patrick J & Kydland, Finn E, 1994. "Dynamics of the Trade Balance and the Terms of Trade: The J-Curve?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 84-103, March.
    25. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-1721, September.
    26. Balistreri, Edward J. & Hillberry, Russell H., 2007. "Structural estimation and the border puzzle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 451-463, July.
    27. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    28. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    29. Douglas L. Campbell, 2013. "Estimating the Impact of Currency Unions on Trade: Solving the Glick and Rose Puzzle," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1278-1293, October.
    30. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.
    31. Lorenzo Caliendo & Fernando Parro, 2015. "Estimates of the Trade and Welfare Effects of NAFTA," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 1-44.
    32. Broda, Christian & Greenfield, Joshua & Weinstein, David E., 2017. "From groundnuts to globalization: A structural estimate of trade and growth," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 759-783.
    33. James E. Anderson & Mario Larch & Yoto V. Yotov, 2018. "GEPPML: General equilibrium analysis with PPML," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 2750-2782, October.
    34. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    35. repec:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_236 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    37. Rodrigo Adão & Costas Arkolakis & Sharat Ganapati, 2020. "From Heterogeneous Firms to Heterogeneous Trade Elasticities: The Aggregate Implications of Firm Export Decisions," NBER Working Papers 28081, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Rodrigo Adão & Costas Arkolakis & Sharat Ganapati, 2020. "Aggregate Implications of Firm Heterogeneity: A Nonparametric Analysis of Monopolistic Competition Trade Models," Working Papers 2020-161, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    39. James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 2002. "Insecurity And The Pattern Of Trade: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 342-352, May.
    40. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimarães & Tom Zylkin, 2020. "Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 20(1), pages 95-115, March.
    41. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1990. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model, the Linder Hypothesis and the Determinants of Bilateral Intra-industry Trade," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1216-1229, December.
    42. Ingo Borchert & Mario Larch & Serge Shikher & Yoto V. Yotov, 2021. "The International Trade and Production Database for Estimation (ITPD-E)," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 166, pages 140-166.
    43. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    44. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Egger, Peter, 2007. "A knowledge-and-physical-capital model of international trade flows, foreign direct investment, and multinational enterprises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 278-308, November.
    45. Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), 2014. "Handbook of International Economics," Handbook of International Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    46. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Clance, Matthew W., 2018. "Heterogeneous effects of economic integration agreements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 587-608.
    47. Anderson, James E, 1979. "A Theoretical Foundation for the Gravity Equation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 106-116, March.
    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. Beniamino Quintieri & Giovanni Stamato, 2023. "Are preferential agreements beneficial to EU trade? New evidence from the EU–South Korea treaty," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(12), pages 3511-3541, December.
    2. Bagci, Kenan & Bakimli, Esat & Diallo, Abdouramane, 2022. "Impacts of Trade Facilitation and Logistics Performance on Trade Flows: The Case of Landlocked African OIC Countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Uganda)," Conference papers 333447, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    3. Frensch, Richard & Fidrmuc, Jarko & Rindler, Michael, 2023. "Topography, borders, and trade across Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 816-832.
    4. Sinthavanh Chanthavong, 2024. "Quantifying the impact of trade liberalization on Lao imports (evidence from product-level data)," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 455-474, August.
    5. Adhikari, Shweta & Poudel, Dikshit & Gopinath, Munisamy, 2023. "Is Policy Greasing the Wheels of Global Palm Oil Trade?," Research on World Agricultural Economy, Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd (NASS), vol. 4(2), June.
    6. Zechlin, Linus & Marpe, Moritz, 2024. "Evaluating China's role in contemporary South American trade - an economic complexity approach," IPE Working Papers 241/2024, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).

    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. Yoto V. Yotov, 2024. "The evolution of structural gravity: The workhorse model of trade," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(4), pages 578-603, October.
    2. Heid, Benedikt & Stähler, Frank, 2024. "Structural gravity and the gains from trade under imperfect competition: Quantifying the effects of the European Single Market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "Short run gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    4. Yoto V. Yotov, 2021. "The Variation of Gravity within Countries (or 15 Reasons Why Gravity Should Be Estimated with Domestic Trade Flows)," CESifo Working Paper Series 9057, CESifo.
    5. Mario Larch & Yoto V. Yotov, 2016. "General Equilibrium Trade Policy Analysis with Structural Gravity," CESifo Working Paper Series 6020, CESifo.
    6. Mario Larch & Serge Shikher & Constantinos Syropoulos & Yoto V. Yotov, 2022. "Quantifying the impact of economic sanctions on international trade in the energy and mining sectors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1038-1063, July.
    7. Georg Schneider & Frank Stähler & Georg U. Thunecke, 2022. "The (Non-)Neutrality of Value-Added Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 9663, CESifo.
    8. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Yotov, Yoto V., 2021. "From theory to policy with gravitas: A solution to the mystery of the excess trade balances," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Scott L. Baier & Amanda Kerr & Yoto V. Yotov, 2018. "Gravity, distance, and international trade," Chapters, in: Bruce A. Blonigen & Wesley W. Wilson (ed.), Handbook of International Trade and Transportation, chapter 2, pages 15-78, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. 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.
    11. Piermartini, Roberta & Yotov, Yoto, 2016. "Estimating Trade Policy Effects with Structural Gravity," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2016-10, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    12. Rebecca Freeman & Mario Larch & Angelos Theodorakopoulos & Yoto V. Yotov, 2021. "Unlocking New Methods to Estimate Country-Specific Trade Costs and Trade Elasticities," CESifo Working Paper Series 9432, CESifo.
    13. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    14. Fontagné, Lionel & Guimbard, Houssein & Orefice, Gianluca, 2022. "Tariff-based product-level trade elasticities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    15. Anderson, James E. & Borchert, Ingo & Mattoo, Aaditya & Yotov, Yoto V., 2018. "Dark costs, missing data: Shedding some light on services trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 193-214.
    16. Mario Larch & Yoto Yotov, 2017. "On the impact of TTIP in Southeastern and Eastern Europe: A quantitative analysis," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 54-73,74-92.
    17. Silviano Esteve-Pérez & Salvador Gil-Pareja & Rafael Llorca-Vivero & Jordi Paniagua, 2021. "Has the Euro paid off? A study of the trade-induced welfare effects of the EMU," Working Papers 2103, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    18. Natalie Chen & Dennis Novy, 2022. "Gravity and Heterogeneous Trade Cost Elasticities," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(644), pages 1349-1377.
    19. Heid, Benedikt & Larch, Mario, 2016. "Gravity with unemployment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 70-85.
    20. Pamela Smith & Xiangwen Kong, 2022. "Intellectual property rights and trade: The exceptional case of GMOs," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 763-811, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    structural gravity; evolution; theory; estimation general equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_9584. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.