Les exportations de marchandises favorisent-elles celles de services ? Une étude à partir du modèle de gravité

Based on a gravity analysis, the paper shows that there is a significant relationship between goods and services exports, at least as they are measured in the current account of the BOP. Truly enough several recent works have already, but incidentally, shed some light on this issue. The paper is structured as follows. First it recalls what the gravity model is and how it was previously applied to services exports. The second section deals with the panel data. The bilateral trade panel includes 30 OECD countries; it covers the years 2004 to 2008. The section explains the problems that were encountered when building the panel and how they were overcome. The third section describes the available services headings of the EBOPS-OECD data that might, for theoretical reasons, be related to commodities exchange. It suggests a specific services indicator that the paper tests afterwards. The fourth section proposes three econometric analyses. The initial one validates the basic model by comparing its results for commodities and services exports. The following one focuses on the relation between commodities exports and the two services exports indicators. The last one studies the case of transport and travel services, those two headings are expected to generate opposite results when tested with the model. The analysis confirms that several services exports are truly and significantly linked with commodities exports. Nevertheless it also demonstrates, that available data are too scarce and somewhat not enough detailed to go beyond rather broad views. Consequently, on the one hand spurious correlation may arise (Travel), while on the other hand true potential ones may remain concealed (Merchanting).