Je T'Aime, Moi Non Plus: Bilateral Opinions and International Trade

This paper studies the relationship between bilateral trade patterns and opinions. It uses the Eurobarometer public opinion surveys published by the European Commission, which provide data on the share of the population in each EU15 member country in favour of each CEEC joining the EU. Our results first suggest that bilateral opinions have a statistically robust and relatively large effect on imports, even when standard and new covariates capturing proximity between countries are controlled for. We interpret this effect as reflecting a positive impact of "bilateral affinity" on trade patterns. We also show that it is possible to go some way towards explaining the variance in bilateral opinions among our sample. Last we provide some preliminary attempt to determine causality between bilateral opinions and imports.

[1]  D. Rodrik,et al.  Why are Some People (and Countries) More Protectionist than Others? , 2001 .

[2]  James E. Anderson.  Why Do Nations Trade (So Little) , 2000 .

[3]  W. Easterly,et al.  Tropics, Germs, and Crops: How Endowments Influence Economic Development , 2002 .

[4]  Stu Sjouwerman,et al.  Your E-mail , 2004 .

[5]  S. Jean,et al.  What Are EU Trade Preferences Worth for Sub-Saharan Africa and Other Developing Countries? , 2005 .

[6]  Barry Eichengreen,et al.  The Role of History in Bilateral Trade Flows , 1996 .

[7]  James E. Anderson,et al.  Insecurity and the Pattern of Trade: An Empirical Investigation , 2002, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[8]  K. O’Rourke,et al.  The Determinants of Individual Attitudes Towards Immigration , 2006 .

[9]  James E. Rauch,et al.  Ethnic Chinese Networks in International Trade , 1999, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[10]  A. Rose.  One Money, One Market: Estimating the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade , 1999 .

[11]  G. Nicoletti,et al.  Regulation and Wage Premia , 2004 .

[12]  K. Head,et al.  Immigration and the Trade of Provinces , 2002 .

[13]  James E. Anderson,et al.  Trade Costs , 2004 .

[14]  D. Gould.  Immigrant Links to the Home Country: Empirical Implications for U.S. Bilateral Trade Flows , 1994 .

[15]  James E. Rauch.  Business and Social Networks in International Trade , 2001 .

[16]  Robert G. Blanton.  The Liberal Illusion: Does Trade Promote Peace? , 2004, The Journal of Politics.

[17]  T. Mayer,et al.  Non-Europe: The magnitude and causes of market fragmentation in the EU , 2000 .

[18]  Julien Garnier.  UK in or UK out? A common cycle analysis between the UK and the Euro zone , 2004 .

[19]  P. Krugman.  Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade , 1980 .

[20]  T. Hatton.  Seeking Asylum in Europe , 2004 .

[21]  R. Feenstra.  Advanced international trade : theory and evidence , 2004 .

[22]  W. Isard,et al.  Location Theory and International and Interregional Trade Theory , 1954 .

[23]  Kala Krishna,et al.  Advanced international trade: theory and evidence , 2005 .

[24]  David Hummels,et al.  Toward a Geography of Trade Costs , 1999, GTAP Working Paper.

[25]  T. Mayer,et al.  Trade in the Triad: How Easy is the Access to Large Markets? , 2004 .

[26]  Dale Boisso,et al.  Economic Distance, Cultural Distance, and Openness in International Trade: Empirical Puzzles , 1997 .

[27]  G. Nighswonger.  THE SERVICE DEPARTMENT“ , 1996 .

[28]  R. Sinnott,et al.  The Determinants of Individual Trade Policy Preferences: International Survey Evidence , 2001 .

[29]  J. Tinbergen.  Shaping the World Economy: Suggestions for an International Economic Policy , 1964 .

[30]  James E. Anderson,et al.  Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle , 2001 .

[31]  Katherine Barbieri,et al.  The Liberal Illusion: Does Trade Promote Peace? , 2002 .

[32]  Jacques Melitz,et al.  Language and Foreign Trade , 2002 .

[33]  James A. Robinson,et al.  The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation , 2000 .

[34]  V. Coudert,et al.  Real Equilibrium Exchange Rate in China , 2005 .

[35]  F. Lemoine,et al.  L’économie indienne: changements structurels et perspectives à long-terme , 2005 .

[36]  Dalia. Marin.  A Nation of Poets and Thinkers - Less so with Eastern Enlargement? Austria and Germany , 2004 .

[37]  Charles Wyplosz,et al.  The Economics of European Integration , 2003 .

[38]  K. Head,et al.  The Puzzling Persistence of the Distance Effect on Bilateral Trade , 2004 .

[39]  A. Rose,et al.  One money, one market : the effect of common currencies on trade , 2000 .

[40]  H. White.  A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity , 1980 .

[41]  A. Rose,et al.  An Estimate of the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade and Income , 2001 .

[42]  Marta Castilho,et al.  La compétitivité de l’agriculture et des industries agroalimentaires dans le Mercosur et l’Union européenne dans une perspective de libéralisation commerciale , 2004 .

[43]  Hervé Boulhol.  Technology Differences, Institutions and Economic Growth: a Conditional Conditional Convergence , 2004 .

[44]  William. K. Hutchinson,et al.  The Impact of Immigration on American Import Trade in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries , 1999, The Journal of Economic History.

[45]  John Ries,et al.  Immigration and Trade Creation: Econometric Evidence from Canada , 1998 .

[46]  Anthony J. Venables,et al.  Economic Geography and International Inequality , 2001 .

[47]  Mohamed Hedi Bchir,et al.  From Bound Duties to Actual Protection: Industrial Liberalisation in the Doha Round. ENEPRI Working Paper No. 41, 2005 , 2005 .

[48]  Daniel Trefler.  Trade Liberalization and the Theory of Endogenous Protection: An Econometric Study of U.S. Import Policy , 1993, Journal of Political Economy.

[49]  G. Gaulier,et al.  Disentangling Horizontal and Vertical Intra-Industry Trade , 2005 .

[50]  Valérie Mignon,et al.  China and the relationship between the oil price and the dollar , 2007 .

[51]  K. Lommatzsch,et al.  The Stock-Flow Approach to the Real Exchange Rate of CEE Transition Economies , 2004 .

[52]  J. Fidrmuc,et al.  Who is in Favor of Enlargement? Determinants of Support for EU Membership in the Candidate Countries Referenda , 2004 .