length How infrastructure shapes comparative advantage

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baldomero-Quintana, Luis
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104083
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Transportation; comparative advantage; Trade costs; Input-output linkages

摘要

I show that domestic trade costs shape national comparative advantage by studying planned highway upgrades in Colombia. I build a multisectoral economic geography model with multiple shipping routes, industry linkages, external economies of scale, and trade costs that depend both highways' speed and ports' usage. I discipline the model with data on customs transactions, domestic trade, and road travel times. My quantitative results show that the Ruta del Sol national highway would shift Colombia's comparative advantage toward manufacturing. These upgrades would reduce intermediate input prices, lowering unit production costs, thus inducing an boom. Manufacturing exports rise the most due to three channels. First, the road connects largest manufacturing region with ports specialized in this sector. Second, manufacturing intensively tradable intermediate inputs, and the roadworks would increase their trade. external economies of scale favor manufacturing because agglomeration forces are stronger this sector relative to others.