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 past literature presents ambiguous evidence about the bidirectional and causal influences between countries ́institutional framework and their trading activity. In our analysis, we investigate the relationship between institutions and trade constructing a measure of institutions from the...

We move beyond the nation-state as the unit of analysis and use subnational spatial variation to study the effect of the institutional environment on international trade. Additionally, we address the heterogeneous effect of trade agreements on different regions within a country. Employing a...

Many scholars are concerned with why the U.S. and Canada have been so much more successful over time than other New World economies. Since all New World societies enjoyed high levels of product per capita early in their histories, the divergence in paths can be traced back to the achievement of...

We propose and apply methods to quantify the impact of national institutions on international trade and development. We are able to identify the direct impact of country-specific institutions on international trade within the structural gravity framework. Our approach naturally addresses the...