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...

The authors examine the influence of infrastructure, institutional quality, colonial and geographic context, and trade preferences on the pattern of bilateral trade. They are interested in threshold effects, and so emphasize those cases where bilateral country pairs do not actually trade. The...

How does geographic distance affect the impact of trade agreements on bilateral exports, and through what channels? This paper examines this questions in a gravity model context for different types of goods for 185 countries over the period 1965-2010. Three stylized facts emerge. First, although...

This paper analyzes the impacts of selected trade facilitation measures on international trade flows. A gravity model is used to estimate four equations: a pooled cross-section model; a fixed-effects model; a random effects model; and a Poisson maximum likelihood estimator. The contribution of...

In the mid-2000s, the production of hearing aids shifted almost entirely to 3D printing. Using difference-in-differences and synthetic control methods, this paper examines the effects of this shift on trade flows. The analysis finds that trade increased roughly 60 percent following the...

This paper examines how cities and regions within countries are likely to adjust to trade openness and improved connectivity driven by large transport investments from China's Belt and Road Initiative. The paper presents a quantitative economic geography model alongside spatially detailed...