Does Bilateral Trust Affect International Movement of Goods and Labor?

Eva Spring () and Volker Grossmann
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Eva Spring: University of Fribourg

No 7385, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Trust in the citizens of a potential partner country may affect the decision to trade with or to migrate to a foreign country. This paper employs panel data to examine the causal impact of such bilateral trust on international trade and migration patterns. We apply instrumental variables (IV) approaches that capture the exogenous variance of bilateral trust separately with eight indicators of genetic ("somatic") distance between country-pairs. These indicators work equally well at the first stage. However, second-stage results very much depend on the exact measure employed as instrument. Overall, we find little evidence that bilateral trust affects international movements of goods and labor. More generally, we highlight the potential fragility of IV estimations even when the instruments seem plausible on theoretical grounds and when standard statistical tests confirm their validity.

Keywords: somatic distance; instrumental variables; international migration; international trade; bilateral trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F22 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-mig and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Forthcoming - published as "Does Bilateral Trust Across Countries Really Affect International Trade and Factor Mobility?" in: Empirical Economics, 2016, 50 (1), 103-136

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Bilateral Trust Affect International Movement of Goods and Labor (2013)
Working Paper: Does Bilateral Trust Affect International Movement of Goods and Labor? (2013)
Working Paper: Does Bilateral Trust Affect International Movement of Goods and Labor? (2013)
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