Gravity equations have been used for more than 50 years to estimate ex post the partial effects of trade costs on international trade flows, and the well-known - and traditionally presumed exogenous - "trade-cost elasticity" plays a central role in computing general equilibrium trade-flow and...

We analyze the distribution of economic activity across space for different types of activity and different levels of aggregation. Not only is this distribution highly uneven (independently of the type of activity and level of aggregation), it is also remarkably regular regarding its size...

This paper estimates the effects of the EU enlargements in the 2000s for trade in parts and components and trade in final goods separately. A gravity model is applied to disaggregated trade data over the period 1999 - 2009 for trade between EU and OECD countries. The estimation approach accounts...

This paper assesses whether the sensitivity of bilateral trade volumes to various trade cost factors is constant or varies across countries. It utilizes a random coeffcients model and analyses a cross-sectional sample of bilateral trade data for 96 countries in 2005. We expect the elasticity of...

Since the revival of the gravity literature in the early nineties most work has been done with cross-section data. Just a few more recent contributions made use of panel data. So far that research left open the question whether to treat time and country effects as random or fixed. This note...

Personal characteristics of migrants could help to strengthen the impact of migrant networks on bilateral trade. While most of the attention has been focused on immigrants' educational attainment, this paper focuses on the relevance of the tasks carried out by migrants. Our empirical results...