We present a novel two-stage gravity specification with period-varying bilateral trade cost terms. We test our specification to confirm the benchmark result on declining international distance elasticities over time, using two new data sets. Analyzing period-varying bilateral trade cost derived...

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...

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis - i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio - has been one of the most prominent frameworks in...

Recent panel studies have found relatively high point estimates for the elasticity of ag-gregate price measures with respect to productivity in (former) transition economies, while other studies report price-productivity elasticity estimates to depend positively on average productivity in the...

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis – i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio – has been one of the most prominent frameworks...