The Round Trip Effect: Endogenous Transport Costs and International Trade

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wong, Woan Foong
• 署名单位: University of Oregon
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20190721
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 127-+
• 关键词: freight rates; market power; import; geography; symmetry; gravity; IMPACT; STATES; MODEL

摘要

Container ships travel between a fixed set of origins and destinations in round trips, inducing a negative correlation in their freight rates. I study the implications of this round trip effect on international trade and trade policy. I identify this effect and develop an instrument using it to estimate the impact of transport costs on trade. I simulate counterfactual import tariff increases in a quantitative model and quantify the importance of endogenizing transport costs with respect to this effect: an exogenous transport costs model predicts a trade balance improvement from protectionist policies, while the round trip model finds the opposite. (JEL D22, F13, F14, L92, R41)