Changes in the trade patterns of the UK in a global perspective

The aim of our paper is threefold. Based on the contemporary theories of international trade we analyze the integration of the United Kingdom to the European Union from the aspect of merchandise trade. We use disaggregated data (6-digit, HS, CEPII BACI) on bilateral trade flows of the UK with the EU14(13) in the timeframe of 1996-2016 to show the changes on the extensive and intensive margins (à la Kehoe and Ruhl, 2013) and also that of vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade. The analyses of the changes allow us to make conclusions about the possible effect of Brexit on the intra-European trade, while we also extend our calculations to the dynamics of global patterns in intra-industry trade. The latter topic to our knowledge has not been thoroughly examined since the seminal paper of Brülhart (2009)

China Does Not Want a Trade War – The Case for Rare Earth Elements

The aim of this paper is to evaluate China’s growing geopolitical importance through a brief overview and an analysis of the US–Chinese relations after World War II. After a brief historical insight into the US trade policy, the most probable theoretical explanations leading to a U-turn in trade relations with most of the world are summed up. Thirdly, we aim to revaluate China’s geopolitical weight in light of the recent trade war, and finally further sophisticate the analysis through a case study of the market of rare earth metals and compounds. The conclusion is drawn that we might be approaching a new milestone in the hegemonic transfer but we have certainly not yet arrived at a turning point

Determinants of the exports of Hungary: Trade theory and the gravity model

The end of the Communist regime brought about great changes in the economies of Central and Eastern Europe; the restructuring of foreign trade was one of the biggest challenges for these countries. After the transition period, Hungary became a very open country, with its trade to GDP ratio around 1.5, while trading with more than 190 countries. The aim of this paper is to analyse the determinants of exports between 1993–2014, with an emphasis on the impact of factor endowments. According to our results, economic size, common border, and free trade agreements had a statistically significant positive effect on exports, while the coefficient of distance had the expected negative sign. We measured factor endowments with several approaches and our results show that exports change in line with the Linder hypothesis, i.e. Hungary tends to trade more with countries having similar factor endowments, and thus its trade is based on differentiated products