| ID | 076876 |
| Title Proper | Persistent patterns of international commerce |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Ward, Michael D ; Hoff, Peter D |
| Publication | 2007. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | The authors examine a standard gravity model of international commerce augmented to include political as well as institutional influences on bilateral trade. Using annual data from 1980-2001, they estimate regression coefficients and residual dependencies using a hierarchy of models in each year. Rather than gauge the generalizability of these patterns via traditional measures of statistical significance such as p-values, this article develops and employs a strategy to evaluate the out-of-sample predictive strength of various models. The analysis of recent international commerce shows that in addition to a typical gravity-model specification, political and institutional variables are important. The article also demonstrates that the often-reported link between international conflict and bilateral trade is elusive, and that inclusion of conflict in a trade model can sometimes lead to reduced out-of-sample predictive performance. Further, this article illustrates that there are substantial, persistent residual exporter- and importer-specific effects, and that ignoring such patterns in relational trade data results in an incomplete picture of international commerce, even in the context of a well-established framework such as the gravity model |
| `In' analytical Note | Journal of Peace Research Vol. 44, No.2; Mar 2007: p157-175 |
| Journal Source | Journal of Peace Research Vol. 44, No.2; Mar 2007: p157-175 |
| Key Words | International Commerce ; International Conflict ; Bilateral Trade |