Are trade costs higher for services than for manufactures? Evidence from firm-level data

Using a unique database, I estimate the costs of trading with European Union countries, relative to the costs of trading with the domestic market, for services and manufacturing firms located in the Basque Country region of Spain. I find that, despite the dramatic improvement in information and communication technologies, international trade costs for services are still much larger than for manufactures. Based on standard elasticities of substitution used in the literature, our results suggest that the tariff equivalent of international trade costs is between 50% and 60% larger for services than for manufactures.trade costs; exports; services; manufactures; firm-level evidence; Basque-Country

Related variety and regional growth in Spain

This paper investigates whether related variety, among other types of spatial externalities, affected regional growth in Spain at the NUTS 3 level during the period 1995-2007. We found evidence that related variety matters for growth across regions, especially when measured with the assistance of the Porter's cluster classification and the proximity index proposed by Hidalgo et al.. That is, Spanish provinces with a range of industries that are technologically related tend to show higher economic growth rates, controlling for the usual suspects. We did not find, however, any evidence of regional growth effects that come from technologically related sectors imports.technological relatedness, related variety, regional branching, regional diversification

The emergence of new industries at the regional level in Spain. A proximity approach based on product-relatedness

How do regions diversify over time? Inspired by recent studies, we argue that regions diversify into industries that make use of capabilities in which regions are specialized. As the spread of capabilities occurs through mechanisms that have a strong regional bias, we expect that capabilities available at the regional level play a larger role than capabilities available at the country level for the development of new industries. To test this, we analyze the emergence of new industries in 50 Spanish regions at the NUTS 3 level in the period 1988-2008. We calculate the capability-distance between new export products and existing export products in Spanish regions, and provide econometric evidence that regions tend to diversify into new industries that use similar capabilities as existing industries in these regions. We show that proximity to the regional industrial structure plays a much larger role in the emergence of new industries in regions than proximity to the national industrial structure. This suggests that capabilities at the regional level enable the development of new industries.Regional branching, diversification, new industries, capabilities, Spain, proximity index

Is the Border Effect an Artefact of Geographic Aggregation?

The existence of a large border effect is considered as one of the main puzzles of international macroeconomics. We show that the border effect is, to a large extent, an artefact of geographic concentration. In order to do so we combine international flows with intranational flows data characterised by a high geographic grid. At this fine grid, intranational flows are highly localised and dropping sharply with distance. The use of a small geographical unit of reference to measure intra-national bilateral trade flows allows to estimating correctly the negative impact of distance on shipments. When we use sector disaggregated export flows of 50 Spanish provinces in years 2000 and 2005 split into interprovincial and inter-national flows, we find that the border effect is reduced substantially and even becomes statistically not different from zero in some estimations.border effect, distance, interregional trade, international trade, Spanish provinces

Convergence across Spanish Provinces:Cross-section and Pairwise Evidence

Distribution free statistics are employed to investigate biennial income per capita convergence across 52 Spanish provinces over the period 1955-1997. Based upon ideas of concordance and discordance that capture convergence and divergence properties, the paper presents results that suggest convergence is dominant for the full sample over the entire period, swings in this trend between convergence and divergence are present and switching in rank does take place. When provinces are analysed in pairs some show strong evidence of divergence.Convergence; Steady state; Average UK regional male wages