IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v173y2018icp73-77.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democratization, contracts and comparative advantage

Author

Listed:
  • Samy Soliman, Felix
  • Schymik, Jan

Abstract

We study how the international spread of democracy shaped the comparative advantage of countries. Using data on the “Third Wave of Democratization” between 1976 and 2000 we find that democratizing countries shifted their exports towards more contract intensive goods that require a larger portion of relationship-specific inputs. This shift is observed on the intensive margin (volumes of industry-level exports) as well as the extensive margin of trade (number of goods a country exports). Using an instrumental variable strategy based on democracy waves, alternative proxy variables and subsamples suggests that the effects of democratization on trade specialization are causal.

Suggested Citation

  • Samy Soliman, Felix & Schymik, Jan, 2018. "Democratization, contracts and comparative advantage," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 73-77.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:173:y:2018:i:c:p:73-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.09.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176518303847
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.09.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elias Papaioannou & Gregorios Siourounis, 2008. "Democratisation and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1520-1551, October.
    2. Andrei A. Levchenko, 2013. "International Trade and Institutional Change," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(5), pages 1145-1181, October.
    3. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    4. Nathan Nunn, 2007. "Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts, and the Pattern of Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 569-600.
    5. Do, Quy-Toan & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Raddatz, Claudio, 2016. "Comparative advantage, international trade, and fertility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 48-66.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Francisco A. Gallego & James A. Robinson, 2014. "Institutions, Human Capital, and Development ," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 875-912, August.
    7. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    8. Manova, Kalina, 2008. "Credit constraints, equity market liberalizations and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 33-47, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Martin Strieborny & Madina Kukenova, 2016. "Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1487-1515.
    2. Nunn, Nathan & Trefler, Daniel, 2014. "Domestic Institutions as a Source of Comparative Advantage," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 263-315, Elsevier.
    3. Keith E. Maskus & Lei Yang, 2018. "Domestic patent rights, access to technologies and the structure of exports," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 51(2), pages 483-509, May.
    4. Frensch, Richard & Horvath, Roman & Huber, Stephan, 2021. "Openness effects on the rule of law: Size and patterns of trade," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Strieborny, Martin, 2013. "Suppliers, Investors, and Equity Market Liberalizations," Working Papers 2013:12, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    6. Azomahou, Théophile T. & Maemir, Hibret & Wako, Hassen A., 2021. "Contractual frictions and margins of trade," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 1048-1067.
    7. Florent Silve & Alexander Plekhanov, 2018. "Institutions, innovation and growth : Evidence from industry data," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(3), pages 335-362, July.
    8. Juan Carluccio & Thibault Fally, 2012. "Global Sourcing under Imperfect Capital Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 740-763, August.
    9. Caballero, Julian & Candelaria, Christopher & Hale, Galina, 2018. "Bank linkages and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 30-47.
    10. Gerritse, Michiel, 2021. "Does trade cause detrimental specialization in developing economies? Evidence from countries south of the Suez Canal," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Ferguson, Shon & Formai, Sara, 2013. "Institution-driven comparative advantage and organizational choice," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 193-200.
    12. Eppinger, Peter S. & Kukharskyy, Bohdan, 2017. "Contracting institutions and firm boundaries," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 100, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    13. Defever, Fabrice & Suedekum, Jens, 2014. "Financial liberalization and the relationship-specificity of exports," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 375-379.
    14. Fernandes, Ana M. & Mattoo, Aaditya & Nguyen, Huy & Schiffbauer, Marc, 2019. "The internet and Chinese exports in the pre-ali baba era," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 57-76.
    15. Eppinger, Peter & Kukharskyy, Bohdan, 2021. "Contracting institutions and firm integration around the world," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    16. Chor, Davin, 2010. "Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 152-167, November.
    17. Demir, Banu & Javorcik, Beata, 2018. "Don’t throw in the towel, throw in trade credit!," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 177-189.
    18. Paunov, Caroline, 2016. "Corruption's asymmetric impacts on firm innovation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 216-231.
    19. Kalina Manova & Zhiwei Zhang, 2008. "China's exporters and importers: firms, products, and trade partners," Working Paper Series 2008-28, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    20. Antonio Ciccone & Elias Papaioannou, 2023. "Estimating Cross-Industry Cross-Country Interaction Models Using Benchmark Industry Characteristics," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(649), pages 130-158.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Comparative advantage; Institutional change; Relationship-specific investments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

    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:eee:ecolet:v:173:y:2018:i:c:p:73-77. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.