Global Trade and the Maritime Transport Revolution

David Jacks and Krishna Pendakur

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2010, vol. 92, issue 4, 745-755

Abstract: What is the role of transport improvements in globalization? We argue that the nineteenth century is the ideal testing ground: maritime freight rates fell on average by 50% while global trade increased 400% from 1870 to 1913. We estimate the first indices of bilateral freight rates and directly incorporate these into a standard gravity model. We also take the endogeneity of bilateral trade and freight rates seriously and propose an instrumental variables approach. The results are striking: we find no evidence that the maritime transport revolution was the primary driver of the late-nineteenth-century global trade boom. (c) 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2010
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