The world is not yet flat: transport costs matter !

Kristian Behrens (), W. Mark Brown and Theophile Bougna

No 7862, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The paper provides evidence of the effects of changes in transport costs on the geographic concentration of industries. The analysis uses micro-level commodity flow data and micro-geographic plant-level data to construct industry-specific ad valorem trucking rates and continuous measures of geographic concentration. The findings show that, controlling for international trade exposure and input-output links, increasing trucking rates are significantly associated with declining geographic concentration. The effect is large: changes in trucking rates explain around 20 percent of the observed decline in geographic concentration of Canadian manufacturing industries between 1992 and 2008.

Keywords: Economic Geography; International Trade and Trade Rules; General Manufacturing; Construction Industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-17
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The World Is Not Yet Flat: Transport Costs Matter! (2018)
Working Paper: The world is not yet flat: Transport costs matter! (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7862

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