IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/2000-024.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gravity model specification and the effects of the Canada-U.S. border

Author

Listed:
  • Howard J. Wall

Abstract

There is a well-established literature finding that the Canada-U.S. border has a large dampening effect on trade, is asymmetric, and differs across provinces. In this paper, I demonstrate that the standard gravity model used to obtain these results provides biased estimates of the volume of trade. I attribute this to heterogeneity bias and reestimate the effects of the border using a gravity model that allows for heterogeneous gravity equations. Doing so does not alter the general results of existing studies, although it does yield a border effect that is 40 percent larger, reverses the border's asymmetry, and indicates very different provincial effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard J. Wall, 2000. "Gravity model specification and the effects of the Canada-U.S. border," Working Papers 2000-024, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2000-024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/2000-024
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2000/2000-024.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 339-412, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tamim Bayoumi & Barry Eichengreen, 1997. "Is Regionalism Simply a Diversion? Evidence from the Evolution of the EC and EFTA," NBER Chapters, in: Regionalism versus Multilateral Trade Arrangements, pages 141-168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-1125, December.
    4. John F. Helliwell, 1996. "Do National Borders Matter for Quebec's Trade?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 507-522, August.
    5. 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.
    6. Takatoshi Ito & Anne O. Krueger, 1997. "Regionalism versus Multilateral Trade Arrangements," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ito_97-1.
    7. Laszlo Matyas, 1997. "Proper Econometric Specification of the Gravity Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 363-368, May.
    8. I-Hui Cheng & Howard J. Wall, 2005. "Controlling for heterogeneity in gravity models of trade and integration," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Jan), pages 49-63.
    9. 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.
    10. Anderson, Michael A & Smith, Stephen L S, 1999. "Do National Borders Really Matter? Canada-US Regional Trade Reconsidered," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 219-227, May.
    11. Alan V. Deardorff, 2011. "Determinants of Bilateral Trade: Does Gravity Work in a Neoclassical World?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robert M Stern (ed.), Comparative Advantage, Growth, And The Gains From Trade And Globalization A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff, chapter 24, pages 267-293, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. James E. Anderson, 1999. "Why Do Nations Trade (So Little)?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 428, Boston College Department of Economics.
    13. 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.
    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. Nardella, Michele & Boccaletti, Stefano, 2004. "The Impact Of Eu And Us Agro-Food Non Tariff Measures On Exports From Developing Countries," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20105, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Daniel J. Henderson & Daniel L. Millimet, 2008. "Is gravity linear?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 137-172.
    3. Philippa Dee, 2005. "The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement: An Assessment," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 345, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. I-Hui Cheng & Howard J. Wall, 2005. "Controlling for heterogeneity in gravity models of trade and integration," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Jan), pages 49-63.
    5. Martin Andresen, 2010. "The Geography of the Canada-United States Border Effect," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(5), pages 579-594.
    6. Tembo, Gelson & Jayne, Thomas S., 2009. "Agricultural Trade Flows among Developing Countries: Do Regional Preferential Trade Agreements make a Difference?," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51733, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Anderson, Michael A. & Smith, Stephen L.S., 2007. "How does history matter? Hysteresis in Canadian trade," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 279-291, December.
    8. Carlucci, Domenico & De Blasi, Giuseppe & Santeramo, Fabio Gaetano & Seccia, Antonio, 2008. "New challenges and opportunities for Italian exports of table wines and high quality wines," MPRA Paper 8728, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Abdoulganiour Almame Tinta, 2017. "The determinants of participation in global value chains: The case of ECOWAS," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1389252-138, January.
    10. Nardella, Michele & Boccaletti, Stefano, 2003. "The Impact Of Technical Barriers On Us-Eu Agro-Food Trade," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22012, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Aswini Kumar Mishra & Jigar N. Gadhia & N. Kubendran & Makara Sahoo, 2015. "Trade Flows between India and Other BRICS Countries: An Empirical Analysis Using Gravity Model," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 16(1), pages 107-122, February.

    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. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    2. Daniel L. Millimet & Thomas Osang, 2007. "Do state borders matter for U.S. intranational trade? The role of history and internal migration," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(1), pages 93-126, February.
    3. Whalley, John & Xin, Xian, 2009. "Home and regional biases and border effects in Armington type models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 309-319, March.
    4. Jan Fidrmuc & Jarko Fidrmuc, 2003. "Disintegration and Trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(5), pages 811-829, November.
    5. Howard J. Wall, 2003. "NAFTA and the geography of North American trade," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 85(Mar), pages 13-26.
    6. Edward J. Balistreri & Russell H. Hillberry, 2006. "Trade frictions and welfare in the gravity model: how much of the iceberg melts?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(1), pages 247-265, February.
    7. Jérôme Trotignon, 2009. "L'intégration régionale favorise-t-elle la multilatéralisation des échanges ?," Post-Print halshs-00335633, HAL.
    8. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2000. "Non-Europe: The magnitude and causes of market fragmentation in the EU," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 136(2), pages 284-314, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Matthieu Bussière & Bernd Schnatz, 2009. "Evaluating China’s Integration in World Trade with a Gravity Model Based Benchmark," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 85-111, February.
    11. Jérôme Trotignon, 2010. "La restriction des émissions de CO2 pénalise-t-elle les exportations ? Un modèle de gravité avec données de panel et variables muettes régionales," Post-Print halshs-00477244, HAL.
    12. Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2007. "Accounting for pairwise heterogeneity in bilateral trade flows: a stochastic varying coefficient gravity model," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(12), pages 927-930.
    13. Anderson, Michael A. & Smith, Stephen L.S., 2007. "How does history matter? Hysteresis in Canadian trade," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 279-291, December.
    14. Lionel Fontagné & Michaël Pajot & Jean-Michel Pasteels, 2002. "Potentiels de commerce entre économies hétérogènes : un petit mode d'emploi des modèles de gravité," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(1), pages 115-139.
    15. Trotignon, Jérôme, 2010. "Does Regional Integration Promote the Multilateralization of Trade Flows?: a Gravity Model Using Panel Data," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 25, pages 223-251.
    16. 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.
    17. Jiří Schwarz, 2012. "Impact of institutions on cross-border price dispersion," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(4), pages 617-645, December.
    18. Kei-Mu Yi, 2010. "Can Multistage Production Explain the Home Bias in Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 364-393, March.
    19. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2000. "Non-Europe: The magnitude and causes of market fragmentation in the EU," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 136(2), pages 284-314, June.
    20. Pacchioli, Consuelo, 2011. "Is the EU internal market suffering from an integration deficit?," CEPS Papers 5528, Centre for European Policy Studies.

    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:fip:fedlwp:2000-024. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.