The gravity literature has focused on distance, borders and contiguity to measure geography's impact on trade. We add value to this literature in terms of data, method and assessment of effects. First, we expand existing geographical databases by adding topographical features. We supply novel...

Does European economic integration create more inequality between domestic regions, or is the opposite true? We show that a general answer to this question does not exist, and that the outcome depends on the liberalization scenario. In order to examine the impact of European and international...

In the course of integrating Eastern Europe into the EU the accession countries will have a good opportunity to attract industries from Western Europe and elsewhere and to catch up in per capita income. However, the catching up of the accession countries will be accompanied by an increase in...

Implementation of the European internal market and East-West integration has been accompanied by a dramatic change in the spatial distribution of economic activity, with higher growth west and east of a longitude degree through Germany and Italy. In the east, income growth has been accompanied...

In this paper, I identify some stylized facts characterizing regional evolution in Europe during the eighties. In particular, I provide evidence of the existence of convergence clubs based on regional specialization. Afterward, I give an explanation of this empirical evidence based on the...

This volume was prepared by Thomas Steinwachs while he was working at the ifo Center for International Economics. It was completed in September 2018 and accepted as a doctoral dissertation by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU). It is a collection of four self-contained...

Based on the estimation of a theoretically consistent gravity equation, together with a careful computation of transportation costs across countries and industries, the Paper first provides estimates of ‘border effects’ among EU countries. The second objective is to examine the reasons for...

The aim of the article is to evaluate the position in global value chains (GVCs) of food processing industries in the Visegrad countries (V4; Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia) between 1995 and 2018. To identify the intensity and forms of integration in GVC of these industries in each country...

By utilizing panel statistics of 1520 country pairs and economic integration agreements (EIAs) from 2007 to 2017, this paper presents evidence of the effect of EIAs on export margins, i.e., both extensive (firms) and intensive margins (average exports per firm). In doing so, this work adds...

Access to critical raw materials (CRMs) is increasingly being shaped by geopolitical dynamics, fuelling a global competition for supply security. This paper applies the gravity model of trade to examine how OECD countries leverage Aid for Trade (AfT), Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), and...