Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Modeling The Effects Of Distance And Spatial Dependence In International Trade, Jesse Oakes Piburn

Masters Theses

The gravity model has been widely used estimate the effect that distance has in international trade; however, two important areas have seen little attention in the literature, namely, the influence of using a more accurate measure of distance and how distance effect estimates change when controlling for spatial dependence in observed trade flows. Using transportation networks to measure distance and estimating both a spatial lag and spatial error gravity model, Canadian provincial exports to the lower 48 states in the United States were analyzed to address these previously ignored issues. It was found that the traditional distance measure of great …