A dynamic approach to road freight flows modeling in Spain

This paper presents an innovative approach to analyzing road vehicle freight traffic that uses a dynamic panel data specification derived from a gravity model. This dynamic approach, which has recently been employed in international goods trade models in lieu of the traditional static specification, is applied to the case of Spain using data for the countrys 15 NUTS-3 regions between 1999 and 2009. Using the system general method of moments approach, we obtained significant evidence that the flow of vehicles carrying commodities by road has a strong persistence effect when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. We also found that the quality of road transport infrastructure has a significant impact on vehicle trips. According to our findings, we suggest that this type of specification be employed in distribution models in which fixed effects and lags of the dependent variable are included to account for unobserved heterogeneity and persistence effects, respectively.

[1]  Hau L. Lee,et al.  Global Logistics Indicators, Supply Chain Metrics, and Bilateral Trade Patterns , 2005 .

[2]  R. Ramanathan.  The long-run behaviour of transport performance in India: a cointegration approach , 2001 .

[3]  John Mccallum,et al.  National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns , 1995 .

[4]  A. Rose,et al.  Does a Currency Union Affect Trade? The Time Series Evidence , 2001 .

[5]  Michael Pfaffermayr,et al.  The Determinants of Intrafirm Trade: In Search for Export-Import Magnification Effects , 2005, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[6]  M. Arellano,et al.  Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations , 1991 .

[7]  M. Lord,et al.  Regional trade patterns , 1998 .

[8]  B. Baltagi,et al.  Econometric Analysis of Panel Data , 2020, Springer Texts in Business and Economics.

[9]  Alan Campbell McKinnon,et al.  The Potential of Economic Incentives to Reduce CO2 Emissions from Goods Transport , 2010 .

[10]  Panicos O. Demetriades,et al.  Infrastructure, transport costs and trade , 1999 .

[11]  Lóránt A. Tavasszy,et al.  Incorporating Logistics in Freight Transport Demand Models: State-of-the-Art and Research Opportunities , 2012 .

[12]  Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso,et al.  Are regional trading agreements beneficial?: Static and dynamic panel gravity models , 2009 .

[13]  Joakim Westerlund,et al.  Estimating the gravity model without gravity using panel data , 2011 .

[14]  Amelia C. Regan,et al.  State-of-the art of freight forecast modeling: lessons learned and the road ahead , 2010 .

[15]  A. Venables,et al.  Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage, Transport Costs, and Trade , 2001 .

[16]  Michael Pfaffermayr,et al.  Distance, Trade, and FDI: A Hausman-Taylor Sur Approach , 2001 .

[17]  F. Klaassen,et al.  The Euro Effect on Trade is Not as Large as Commonly Thought , 2003 .

[18]  P. Harker.  Predicting intercity freight flows , 1987 .

[19]  F. Klaassen,et al.  The Importance of Dynamics in Panel Gravity Models of Trade , 2002 .

[20]  S. Klasen,et al.  Does German Development Aid Promote German Exports? , 2009 .

[21]  M. Arellano,et al.  A NOTE ON THE ANDERSON-HSIAO ESTIMATOR FOR PANEL DATA , 1989 .

[22]  S. Newton.  WORLDNET: applying transport modelling techniques to long distance freight flows , 2008 .

[23]  R. Blundell,et al.  Initial Conditions and Moment Restrictions in Dynamic Panel Data Models , 1998 .

[24]  Carlos Llano,et al.  Opening the Interregional Trade ‘‘Black Box’’: The C-Intereg Database for the Spanish Economy (1995—2005) , 2010 .

[25]  Patrick T. Harker,et al.  The state of the art in the predictive analysis of freight transport systems , 1985 .

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

[27]  Bart Jourquin,et al.  Freight transportation demand elasticities: a geographic multimodal transportation network analysis , 2001 .

[28]  I. Martínez‐Zarzoso,et al.  Augmented Gravity Model: An Empirical Application to Mercosur-European Union Trade Flows , 2003 .

[29]  Jeffrey A. Frankel,et al.  The Regionalization Of The World Economy , 1997 .

[30]  M. Nerlove,et al.  Biases in dynamic models with fixed effects , 1988 .

[31]  Michael Pfaffermayr,et al.  The proper panel econometric specification of the gravity equation: A three-way model with bilateral interaction effects , 2003 .

[32]  Moshe Ben-Akiva,et al.  Recent developments in national and international freight transport models within Europe , 2012 .

[33]  P. Cantos,et al.  Transport infrastructures, spillover effects and regional growth: evidence of the Spanish case , 2005 .

[34]  Lori Tavasszy,et al.  A DSS For Modelling Logistic Chains in Freight Transport Policy Analysis , 1998 .

[35]  Cheng Hsiao,et al.  Estimation of Dynamic Models with Error Components , 1981 .

[36]  T. Oum,et al.  CONCEPTS OF PRICE ELASTICITIES OF TRANSPORT DEMAND AND RECENT EMPIRICAL ESTIMATES: AN INTERPRETATIVE SURVEY. IN: URBAN TRANSPORT , 1992 .

[37]  Tae Hoon Oum.  ALTERNATIVE DEMAND MODELS AND THEIR ELASTICITY ESTIMATES , 1989 .

[38]  Martijn Burger,et al.  On the Specification of the Gravity Model of Trade: Zeros, Excess Zeros and Zero-Inflated Estimation , 2009 .

[39]  L. De Benedictis,et al.  Trade Potentials in Gravity Panel Data Models , 2005 .

[40]  J. Fidrmuc.  Gravity models in integrated panels , 2009 .

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

[42]  John Cantwell,et al.  Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy. , 1985 .

[43]  B. Jung.  Adjustment Dynamics of Bilateral Trade Flows: Theory and Evidence , 2009 .

[44]  David Roodman.  How to do Xtabond2: An Introduction to Difference and System GMM in Stata , 2006 .

[45]  T. Bjørner,et al.  ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS FROM BETTER FREIGHT TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT: FREIGHT TRAFFIC IN A VAR MODEL , 1999 .

[46]  Daniel J. Graham,et al.  Road Traffic Demand Elasticity Estimates: A Review , 2004 .

[47]  David Hummels,et al.  Time as a Trade Barrier , 2002, GTAP Working Paper.

[48]  K. Kalirajan.  Gravity model specification and estimation: revisited , 2008 .

[49]  GERARD DE JONG,et al.  National and International Freight Transport Models: An Overview and Ideas for Future Development , 2004 .