The gravity model is the workhorse model to describe and explain variation in bilateral trade patterns. Consistent with both Heckscher-Ohlin models and models of imperfect competition and trade, this versatile model has proven to be very successful, explaining a large part of the variance in...

This paper studies the importance of intangible barriers to trade in explaining variation in disaggregate international trade. The analysis is based on a sample of 55 countries for the year 2000. We explicitly focus on the importance of institutional and cultural dimensions of distance. Our...

Ineffective institutions increase transaction costs and reduce trade. This paper shows that differences in the effectiveness of institutions offer an explanation for the tendency of OECD countries to trade disproportionately with each other, and with non-OECD countries.

This paper studies the effect of institutions on trade flows, using a gravity modelapproach. We start from a standard gravity equation that incorporates geographical proximity,language, trade policy and common history. These factors reflect the costs of trade acrossgeographical and cultural...

Economists increasingly pay attention to social capital as an important determinant of macroeconomic growth performance. At the same time, there is discussion regarding the robustness of the results of empirical growth studies. In a seminal paper, Knack and Keefer (1997) assess the effect of...

This paper studies the intangible costs of international trade by extending the basic gravity equation with measures of cultural and institutional distance, and institutional quality. Analyzing a sample of bilateral trade flows between 92 countries in 1999, we find that institutional distance...

The survival of firms under changes in the business environment caused by exogenous shocks may be explained using economic Darwinism. Exogenous shocks can cause ‘cleansing effects’ as shocks clean out unproductive firms so that available resources are allocated to the remaining more...

In consumer cities, the presence and location of immigrants impacts house prices through two channels, which both can be valued positively as well as negatively: (i) their presence and contribution to population diversity and (ii) the creation of immigrant-induced consumer amenities like those...

We consider whether external urban economic advantages (agglomeration economies) vary with time and space using a simple economic model and detailed micro-data on 134 locations in New Zealand for the period 1976-2018. We find subtle temporal variation, with estimates peaking in 1991 and then...

This paper employs Vector Autoregression (VAR) models to measure the impact of monetary policy shocks on regional output in Indonesia. Having incorporated a possible structural break following the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian Crisis, the impulse response functions derived from the estimated...