A basic assumption of the gravity equation of international trade is that increasing trade costs lower exports. Butintuition and theory imply that a high export volume lowers bilateral trade costs as well, because a fixed cost intensivetrade sector probably bears lower average costs with more...

To estimate correctly the effect of variable trade costs on firms’ exports, the gravity equation should control for the number of firms that participate in foreign markets. Due to the absence of these data, previous studies control for this omitted variable using econometric strategies that...

The Gravity Model is the workhorse for empirical studies in International Economies and it is commonly used in explaining the trade flow between countries. Recently, several studies have showed the importance of taking into account the spatial effect. Spatial Econometric techniques meet this...

Two large but separate bodies of literature analyze the economic effects of international trade and immigration. Given that several factors are important determinants of both trade and migration flows, the previous studies are vulnerable to a potentially serious omitted-variables bias,...