Regional Economics Commons^™

Institutions, Trade, And Economic Prosperity: An Examination Of The U.S. And Mexican States, Dean Stansel, Meg Patrick Tuszynski

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

We provide the first subnational-level examination of the relationship between the presence of policies and institutions that are consistent with economic freedom and trade volume. To do so, we create a new comprehensive dataset detailing export activity between each U.S. state (that is, for the volume of trade between Texas and Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, etc.) and between each U.S. state and each Mexican state (Texas and Chihuahua, Texas and Coahuila, etc.). Our empirical strategy allows us to explore what effect institutions have on both interstate trade and cross-border trade, and also what impact the national border has on …