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Selected Works

Luca De Benedictis

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in International Economics

Distance-Varying Assortativity And Clustering Of The International Trade Network, Angela Abbate, Luca De Benedictis, Giorgio Fagiolo, Lucia Tajoli May 2018

Distance-Varying Assortativity And Clustering Of The International Trade Network, Angela Abbate, Luca De Benedictis, Giorgio Fagiolo, Lucia Tajoli

Luca De Benedictis

In this paper we study how the topology of the International Trade Network (ITN) changes in geographical space, and along time. We employ geographical distance between countries in the World to filter the links in the ITN, building a sequence of sub-networks, each one featuring trade links occurring at similar distance. We then test if the assortativity
and clustering of ITN subnetworks changes as distance increases, and we nd that this is indeed the case: distance strongly impacts, in a non-linear way, the topology of the ITN.We show that the ITN is disassortative at long distances while it is assortative …

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Implementing Propensity Score Matching With Network Data: The Effect Of Gatt On Bilateral Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Bruno Arpino, Alessandra Mattei Mar 2017

Implementing Propensity Score Matching With Network Data: The Effect Of Gatt On Bilateral Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Bruno Arpino, Alessandra Mattei

Luca De Benedictis

Motivated by the evaluation of the causal effect of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on bilateral international trade flows, we investigate the role of network structure in propensity score matching under the assumption of strong ignorability. We study the sensitivity of causal inference with respect to the presence of characteristics of the network in the set of confounders conditional on which strong ignorability is assumed to hold. We find that estimates of the average causal effect are highly sensitive to the presence of node-level network statistics in the set of confounders. Therefore, we argue that estimates may suffer …

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Islands As `Bad' Geography. Insularity, Connectedness, Trade Costs And Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Anna Maria Pinna Dec 2015

Islands As `Bad' Geography. Insularity, Connectedness, Trade Costs And Trade, Luca De Benedictis, Anna Maria Pinna

Luca De Benedictis

In this paper we explore the geographical dimension of insularity, measuring its effect on a comprehensive measure of trade costs (Novy 2012). Controlling for other geographical characteristics, connectedness (spatial proximity) and the role of historical events in shaping modern attitudes towards openness (measured through a quantification of routes descriptions in logbooks between 1750 and 1850), we give evidence that to be an island is not bad per se. Bad geography can be reversed by connectedness and open institutions.

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Network Analysis Of World Trade Using The Baci-Cepii Dataset, Luca De Benedictis, Silvia Nenci, Gianluca Santoni, Lucia Tajoli, Claudio Vicarelli Aug 2014

Network Analysis Of World Trade Using The Baci-Cepii Dataset, Luca De Benedictis, Silvia Nenci, Gianluca Santoni, Lucia Tajoli, Claudio Vicarelli

Luca De Benedictis

In this paper we explore the BACI-CEPII database using Network Analysis. Starting from the visualization of the World Trade Network, we then define and describe the topology of the network, both in its binary version and in its weighted version, calculating and discussing some of the commonly used network’s statistics. We finally discuss some specific topic that can be studied using Network Analysis and International Trade data, both at the aggregated and sectoral level. The analysis is done using multiple software (Stata, R, and Pajek). The scripts to replicate part of the analysis are included in the appendix, and can …

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On The Pro-Trade Effects Of Immigrants, Massimiliano Bratti, Luca De Benedictis, Gianluca Santoni Apr 2014

On The Pro-Trade Effects Of Immigrants, Massimiliano Bratti, Luca De Benedictis, Gianluca Santoni

Luca De Benedictis

This paper investigates the causal effect of immigration on trade flows using Italian panel data at the province level. We exploit the exceptional characteristics of the Italian data (the fine geographical disaggregation, the very high number of countries of origin of immigrants, the high heterogeneity of social and economic characteristics of Italian provinces, and the absence of cultural or historical ties) coupled with the use of a wide set of fixed effects and an `instrument' based on immigrants' enclaves. We find that immigrants have a significant positive effect on both exports and imports, but much larger for the latter. The …

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The Cobden-Chevalier Effect: Evaluating The Causal Effect Of The Most Favoured Nation Clause In Presence Of Network Interdependence, Luca De Benedictis, Silvia Nenci Dec 2013

The Cobden-Chevalier Effect: Evaluating The Causal Effect Of The Most Favoured Nation Clause In Presence Of Network Interdependence, Luca De Benedictis, Silvia Nenci

Luca De Benedictis

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the causal effect of the Network of the Cobden-Chevalier Treaties including the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause on trade flows of countries in the second half of the 19th century. This paper contributes to the literature on the topic in several ways. First, it applies up-to-date quantitative methods (i.e., nonparametric matching technique) to the study of historical phenomena. These methods permit to estimate the average MFN effect (the ``treatment") on the treated group of countries in terms of bilateral trade flows (the ``outcome"), rebalancing the control group without imposing any functional relationship …

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Can We Really Trust Offshoring Indices?, Davide Castellani, Luca De Benedictis, Daniel Horgos Jun 2013

Can We Really Trust Offshoring Indices?, Davide Castellani, Luca De Benedictis, Daniel Horgos

Luca De Benedictis

This paper argues that offshoring indices often measure something different than what we think they are. Using data from input-output tables of 21 European countries from 1995 to 2006 we decompose an offshoring index, distinguishing between a domestic (structural change) and an international component (imported inputs ratio). Regarding offshoring of business services, a large share of the index variation is driven by the domestic component. This is even more pronounced for overall service offshoring. In the case of material offshoring, by contrast, the international component drives the main variation of the indices. Our results therefore show that, regarding (business) services, …

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Dummies For Policies Or Policies For Dummies. A Montecarlo Gravity Experiment, Maria Pina Cipollina, Luca De Benedictis, Claudio Vicarelli, Luca Salvatici Dec 2012

Dummies For Policies Or Policies For Dummies. A Montecarlo Gravity Experiment, Maria Pina Cipollina, Luca De Benedictis, Claudio Vicarelli, Luca Salvatici

Luca De Benedictis

The use of the gravity model to evaluate the effect of policies in a cross-country framework is largely predominant in the international economics empirical literature. This literature usually implements importer and exporter fixed effects to account for the theoretical Multilateral Trade Resistances, while preferential trade policies are approximated through the use of dummy variables. Results from a Monte Carlo experiment confirms that the identification of trade policy impact using a gravity equation including fixed effects is severely limited. Moreover, the consequences of the error in measurement of the policy variable are magnified by the fixed effects control for unobserved heterogeneity.

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Slides - Africa In The World Trade Network, Luca De Benedictis Sep 2010

Slides - Africa In The World Trade Network, Luca De Benedictis

Luca De Benedictis

Here you find the slides of the presentation of the paper Africa in the World Trade Network held in Lausanne University at ETSG 2010, September 10th 2010

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Africa In The World Trade Network, Luca De Benedictis Aug 2010

Africa In The World Trade Network, Luca De Benedictis

Luca De Benedictis

This paper contributes to the analysis of the effect of the global financial crisis (Claessens et al., 2010) on African coutries (IMF, 2009) inspecting the effect of the crises on bilateral trade flows. The empirical analysis makes intensive use of network analysis techniques, describing the international trade of SSA countries as part of the world trade network. The paper analyzes the change in the topology of the trade network during the crisis. Single SSA countries participation to the network is reported in terms of link strength and centrality, showing if some specific countries were more radically disconnected from the giant …

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Overall Trade Specialization And Economic Development: Countries Diversify, Luca De Benedictis, Marco Gallegati, Tamberi Massimo Dec 2008

Overall Trade Specialization And Economic Development: Countries Diversify, Luca De Benedictis, Marco Gallegati, Tamberi Massimo

Luca De Benedictis

This paper provides evidence for an aspect of trade often disregarded in international trade research: countries’ sectoral export diversification. The results of our semiparametric empirical analysis show that, on average, countries do not specialize; on the contrary, they diversify. Our results are robust for different statistical indices used to measure trade specialization, for the level of sectoral aggregation, and for the level of smoothing in the nonparametric term associated with per capita income. Using a generalized additive model (GAM) with countryspecific fixed effects it can be shown that, controlling for countries’ heterogeneity, sectoral export diversification increases with income.

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