The Lumpiness of German Exports and Imports of Goods

Joachim Wagner ()

No 438, Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation from Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies

Abstract: This paper looks at a hitherto neglected extensive margin of international trade by investigating for the first time the frequency at which German exporters and importers trade a given good with a given country. Imports and exports show a high degree of lumpiness. In a given year about half of all firm-good-country combinations are recorded only once or twice for trade with EU-countries, and this is the case for more than 60 percent of all firm-good-country combinations in trade with non-EU countries. The frequency of recorded transactions tends to decline with an increase in the number of transactions per year. This is in accordance with the presence of per-shipment fixed costs that provide an incentive for trading firms to engage in cross-border transactions infrequently. Empirical models show that for Germany the frequency of transactions at the firm-good-country level tends to decrease with an increase in per-shipment costs when unobserved firm and goods characteristics are controlled for.

Keywords: Lumpiness of trade; imports; exports; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2016-05-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eur and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The lumpiness of German exports and imports of goods (2016)
Working Paper: The Lumpiness of German Exports and Imports of Goods (2016)
Working Paper: The lumpiness of German exports and imports of goods (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0438

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