This paper takes a first look at the trade effects of China's Belt and Road Initiative, also referred to as the New Silk Road, on the 71 countries potentially involved. The initiative consists of several infrastructure investment projects to improve the land and maritime transportation in the...

This paper combines local election results and geo-referenced road construction data over 1993-2012 to investigate political bias in road infrastructure investment in a democratic setting, focusing on the case of Mexico. Using a regression discontinuity design, the paper finds strong evidence of...

This paper presents a structural general equilibrium model to analyze the effects on trade, welfare, and gross domestic product of common transport infrastructure. Specifically, the model builds on the framework by Caliendo and Parro (2015)-a Ricardian model with sectoral linkages, trade in...

This paper studies the impact of transport infrastructure projects of the Belt and Road Initiative on shipment times and trade costs. Based on a new data on completed and planned Belt and Road transport projects, Geographic Information System analysis is used to estimate shipment times before...