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Liner shipping plays a crucial role in facilitating the movement of manufactured goods around the world. While previous literature has shown that liner shipping is an important trade driver, potential differences across trade routes and world regions have not as yet been explored. This paper examines whether the impact of liner shipping on bilateral trade flows differs significantly across world regions, as well as exploring other geographical patterns.

Using state-of-the-art gravity modelling, this paper investigates the impact of the UNCTAD's Liner Shipping Bilateral Connectivity Index on bilateral trade in manufactured goods using a comprehensive database of disaggregated trade data for the period from 2006 to 2019.

The results show that the trade effect of liner shipping is greater in long-distance and interregional bilateral flows. For some regions, such as North America and Oceania, the effect is greater than the world average, while for others, such as Africa and South America, the effect is significantly smaller. The trade effects of liner shipping connectivity on the main east–west routes are average, but clear asymmetry emerges when analysing China's inward and outward trade flows separately.

The results of this paper show that the major east–west routes determine the baseline trade effects of liner shipping, demonstrate that some north–south trades such as those involving Oceania generate larger trade effects and confirm that the trade effects of liner shipping can be improved for some world regions such as South America and Africa.

This paper analyzes the impact of macroeconomic variables such as real exchange rate, exchange-rate volatility, and economic growth of the UK and Norway on Norway’s bilateral trade flow to the UK via maritime and other transport modes. The first two models considered trade volume (import and export) via only maritime transport, while the third and fourth models considered trade volume via modes other than maritime transport. The empirical validity of the Marshall-Lerner condition is tested to see whether a devaluation of the real exchange rate improves the trade balance in the long term. In addition to the long-term relationship among variables, short-term effects are also evaluated. The results show that the real income of Norway and its trading partner (the UK) is the main determinant of bilateral trade flow via maritime and other transport modes. Moreover, the results indicate that in the long run, the Marshall-Lerner condition is satisfied only for bilateral trade via modes other than maritime transport.

This study proposes spatial origin-destination threshold Tobit to address spatial interdependence among bilateral trade flows while accounting for zero trade volumes.

This model is designed to capture multiple forms of spatial autocorrelation embedded in “directional” trade flows. The authors apply this improved model to export flows among 32 Asian countries in 1990.

The empirical results indicate the presence of all three types of spatial dependence: exporter-based, importer-based and exporter-to-importer-based. After further considering multifaceted spatial correlation in bilateral trade flows, the authors find that the effect of conventional trade variables changes in a noticeable way.

This finding implies that the standard gravity model may produce biased estimates if it does not take spatial dependence into account.

This paper attempts to offer an improved model of the standard gravity model by taking spatial dependence into account.

Exchange rate uncertainty leads to an indecisive environment for imports and exports that would condense international trade, foreign direct investment, trade earnings, trade volumes, economic growth and welfare. This study aims to examine, empirically, the effect of exchange rate uncertainty on bilateral trade performance, focusing on eight SAARC member economies using the popular modified gravity model of trade.

The paper includes eight SAARC members – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka panel data set over the period 2005–2018. The authors consider both standardized value (standard deviation) and conditional variance model to determine volatility of exchange rate. Primarily, ordinary least squares, random effects and fixed effects estimation techniques are employed to investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility. Endogeneity and robustness of the findings have been tested using the simultaneity-adjusted model and dynamic panel data two-step system GMM estimation techniques.

Empirical findings endorse the view that exchange rate volatility lowers trade flows in the SAARC regions. However, this adverse effect of exchange rate uncertainty on trade is pretty small. The negative correlation between exchange rate volatility and bilateral trade remains consistent and significant after controlling of simultaneous causality, autocorrelation, year effects, country-pair heterogeneity and endogeneity irrespective of panel data estimation techniques and different measures of volatility.

The present paper is original work.

Since its development by Tinbergen (1962), the gravity model of international trade has widely been applied to analyse the effect of various factors on trade relationships between countries. Past studies on trade gravity vary not only in the mix of model variables but also in how they have come into the analysis. This study reviews existing literature on bilateral trade with an aim to identify influential predictors such as changes of trade policy and national development strategy and highlight important yet understudied factors such as transport and logistics infrastructure, and sustainable development. To demonstrate the needs to examine these critical factors across industry sectors, the study presents the case of textiles and clothing (T&C) production and trade between China and its trading partners as an illustration. Through the literature review, it shows how the gravity model can be applied to address current issues in international trade arena such as the potential trade war between the US and China, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and other important factors shaping global T&C trade. This study offers future research directions for analysis of global trade in the T&C industry and contributes to the wider literature of international business and trade.

This paper explores the empirical relationship between population age structure and bilateral trade.

The author includes age structure in both log and Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) formulations of the gravity equation of trade. The author studies relative age effects, using differences in the demographic structure of each country-pair.

The author finds that a relatively larger share of population in working age increases bilateral exports. This is robust to various estimation models, as well as to changes in the method of specifying the demographic controls. Old-age shares have a negative, but less robustly estimated impact on trade. Estimating instead the balance of trade between trading partners produces similar results, with positive effects of age structure peaking later in working life.

Global populations are poised to undergo a massive transition. Trade a crucial way that the demographic deficits of one country may be offset by the dividends of another as comparative advantages shift along with the size and strength of their underlying workforce.

The author’s work is among the first to quantify the effect of relative age structure between two countries and their bilateral trade flows. Focusing on the aggregate flows, relative age shares and PPML estimates of the trade relationship, this paper provides the most comprehensive picture to date on how age structure affects trade.

The proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will become a large trade agreement in Asia, which has brought together the ten members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five of the neighbors’ countries. Under the trend of globalization, the progress of the transportation industry and regional integration will increase the volume of trade, therefore maritime performance is intrinsically linked to trade. In fact, few studies have examined regional integration in the context of seaborne. This paper aims to use the cluster analysis and Poisson quasi-maximum likelihood (PQML) gravity model to investigate the trading bloc phenomenon and relation between trade and marine transportation.

In this paper, hierarchical clustering analysis and tree diagrams are used to identify functional areas characterized by bilateral trade intensity and bilateral liner shipping connectivity indices. Regional reorganizations that have occurred within Asian countries were studied. This study illustrates that these trading blocs have a positive impact on trade when maritime transport, production and trading networks have developed between regions. A gravity model was constructed using worldwide trade data for 2007, 2010 and 2015. The study considered free trade agreement (FTA)/common market (CM) of EU, RCEP and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as regional dummies and designed a real trade bloc induction variable. In addition, the study did not use the commonly adopted ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation but used the PQML method to estimate the gravity equation to overcome the problem of a large number of zero trade observations. Preliminary results show that regional integration cannot guarantee the establishment of intraregional trade but depends on the stage of economic development and regional industrial characteristics.

The major findings are summarized as follows. Both liner shipping connectivity and logistics performance have significant advantages with positive coefficients in each regression results. The creation of intraregional trade is not guaranteed, depending on the characteristics of the trade and the stage of economic development of the region. For RCEP, the effect created by intra-regional trade is better than the EU. Instead, the “nominal” intra-RCEP trade was significantly below the “real” trading blocs. For RCEP, the effect created by intra-regional trade is better than that of the EU. Instead, “nominal” intra-RCEP trade is much lower than “real” trading blocs. The real trading bloc between East Asia and Taiwan clearly exists, and the bloc phenomenon is becoming more and more significant. This result shows that Taiwan’s trade flow with East Asia is higher than the normal level relationship implied by its corresponding economic and geographical conditions.

This paper focuses on new empirical work done for this study is on the potential impact on trade. Earlier studies that have discussed and/or provided estimates of the benefits to the RCEP plan from improved transport and supply chain connectivity are cited. Marine transportation performance inherently links to economies of commerce. Few studies have examined regional integration in the context of maritime transportation, which reflects the lack of a mix of trade economists and maritime logistics research in the existing literature. This paper attempts to investigate the trading bloc phenomenon formed by regional integration (such as RCEP) and the relation between trade and marine transportation. With the official entry into force of the RCEP in 2020, it will promote increased trade and demand for logistics and maritime transport services in East Asia.

This article examines the impact of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) on Korean exports to ASEAN countries by using the system generalized method of moments. The data covered 15 sectors according to their relative importance in Korean exports and spanned from 1980 to 2006. The estimated results suggest that Korea’s exports were diverted to ASEAN members as a result of the AFTA formation. In 5 of the 15 sectors, the AFTA exerted a significant negative effect on Korean exports to ASEAN countries, but for the remaining 9, the results were mixed and statistically insignificant. The results also indicate that the sectoral approach yields more robust and clear-cut results than the aggregate one.

In a supply-constrained region like Asia, promoting exports has always been a challenge particularly at a time when Asia’s trade has been severely affected by lack of external demand. This paper argues that price barriers have taken a new shape during the global financial crisis period which may generate differential impacts on trade flows as we proceed toward recovery. The size and shape of price barriers would be higher if NTBs, applied by the countries during the crisis period, were counted. One of the conclusions of this paper is that ‘price’ barrier is still more important than ‘non-price’ barrier in enhancing Asia’s trade and integration. The higher the price barrier between countries in a pair, the less they trade. In other words, a 10 percent increase in the ad-valorem price (transport and tariff) lowered trade by 6 percent. Tariff and transport costs, each considered separately, also influence the trade flow in the same direction, to more or less the same extent. There are indications of huge domestic infrastructure bottlenecks in countries in Asia. Based on direct and indirect evidence related to trade barriers, this paper concludes that complementary trade policies focusing on price and non-price barriers have immense importance in enhancing international trade and integration in the post-crisis period.

This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015.

Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively.

Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications.

The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.