In this paper we study the impact of digitalization on trade costs in 58 economies over the period 2014 - 2018. Improvements in digital connectivity can reduce trade costs through multiple channels, including better access to information, lower transaction costs, the reduced need for business...

What are the barriers that separate nations; While recent work provides intriguing clues, we have remarkably little concrete evidence as to the nature, size, and shape of barriers. This paper offers direct and indirect evidence on trade barriers, moving us toward a comprehensive geography of...

We derive a simple equation to calculate the global welfare impact of the simultaneous reduction of trade costs between multiple country-pairs. Interestingly, we find that we obtain the same equation for a broad class of trade models. Moreover, balanced trade is mostly not required for the...

The development of pre-industrial Europe was driven by the expansion of trade. This paper describes the patterns of trade and shows how they can be understood in terms of differences in trading costs. It discusses how the different levels of trade?from local to transoceanic-contributed, both...

In pre-industrial Europe, growth was driven by the expansion of trade, and the expansion of trade was driven by falling trading costs. This paper discusses the mechanisms linking these processes: profit-seeking behavior by merchants, changes in the organization of production, technological...

Air transportation is a major facilitator of international trade in terms of the value of goods and services involved, and is important to specific industries, such as tourism, that are being developed by many lower income countries. High air transportation costs can pose a major impediment to...

In this paper we test the well-known hypothesis of Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) that trade costs are the key to explaining the so-called Feldstein-Horioka puzzle. Using a gravity framework in an intertemporal context, we provide strong support for the hypothesis and we reconcile our results with...