The World is not Yet Flat: Transport Costs Matter!

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 geograph...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Behrens, Kristian (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2016
Series:World Bank E-Library Archive
Online Access:Volltext
Summary: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
Physical Description:1 Online-Ressource (55 p)
DOI:10.1596/1813-9450-7862