The World is Not Yet Flat : Transport Costs Matter!

Behrens, Kristian ; Brown, W. Mark ; Bougna, Theophile

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: transport costs;    trucking rates;    geographic concentration;    international trade exposure;    input-ouput links;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7862
RP-ID  :  WPS7862

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The paper provides evidence of theeffects of changes in transport costs on the geographicconcentration of industries. The analysis uses micro-levelcommodity flow data and micro-geographic plant-level data toconstruct industry-specific ad valorem trucking rates andcontinuous measures of geographic concentration. Thefindings show that, controlling for international tradeexposure and input-output links, increasing trucking ratesare significantly associated with declining geographicconcentration. The effect is large: changes in truckingrates explain around 20 percent of the observed decline ingeographic concentration of Canadian manufacturingindustries between 1992 and 2008.