Trade costs, barriers to entry, and export diversification in developing countries, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Research > Document Search > Report Details

Trade costs, barriers to entry, and export diversification in developing countries

Author:	Dennis, Allen; Shepherd, Ben;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4368
Country:	World;	Date Stored:	2007/09/25
Document Date:	2007/09/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	The World Region
Report Number:	WPS4368	SubTopics:	Transport Economics Policy & Planning; Housing & Human Habitats; E-Finance and E-Security; Mining & Extractive Industry (Non-Energy); Educational Technology and Distance Education
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: This paper finds that a 1 percent reduction in the cost of exporting or the cost of international transport is associated with an export diversification gain of 0.3 percent or 0.4 percent respectively. Lower domestic market entry costs can also promote diversification, but the elasticity is weaker (-0.1). To obtain these results, the authors construct new measures of export diversification for 118 developing countries using highly detailed 8-digit mirror data from the European Union. The analysis also incorporates new export cost data from the World Bank's Doing Business database, covering document preparation, inland transport, administrative fees, and port/customs charges. Findings are highly robust, including to the use of geography and colonial history as instruments for trade and entry costs. Both the signs and relative magnitudes of these effects are consistent with predictions from a heterogeneous firms model of trade with asymmetric costs.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 42 pages	Official version*	0.53
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/6B27YW62B0