In this study, we will show how Sweden's export is affected by changes in the exchange rate during the years 1962-2011. The regression model is built on the gravity model of trade, and is tested with both OLS and fixed effects. We have collected data from Sweden’s top 30 trading partners according to Statistiska Centralbyrån in April 2017. Three historically important regimes for Swedish exchange rate have been selected to study the short time effects on Swedish export. Those periods are 1970-1975, which is the last years of the Bretton Woods system and when it fell, 1991-1994 which is the period Sweden changed from fixed exchange rate to a floating and 2001-2006 to examine Sweden’s choice of not participate in the European Monetary Union (EMU). When analyzing the result, there is no conclusion on whether the effects of the changes in exchange rates have had a negative or positive impact on the Swedish export. The results vary depending on whether OLS or fixed effects are used. / I den här studien ska vi visa hur Sveriges export påverkats av förändringar i växelkursen under tidsperioden 1962–2011. Den använda regressionsmodellen har sin grund i gravitationsmodellen och testas med OLS och fixa effekter. Studien använder sig av Sveriges 30 största exportländer enligt Statistiska Centralbyrån i april 2017. Tre historiskt viktiga händelser för svensk växelkurs har valts ut för att undersöka de kortsiktiga effekterna på den svenska exporten. Dessa perioder är Bretton Woods systemet (1970–1975), när Sverige bytte från fast till rörlig växelkurs (1991–1994) och perioden 2001–2006 för att studera effekten av Sveriges val att stå utanför EMU. När vi analyserar resultatet finns det ingen slutgiltig slutsats av huruvida förändringar i växelkursen har haft en positiv eller negativ effekt på den svenska exporten. Resultaten varierar beroende på om OLS eller fixa effekter har använts.

The aim of my thesis is the construction of estimates of interregional commodity flows for the regions of the Czech Republic, by using a gravity model. Gravity model is based on Newton's law of gravitation. Gravity models can be used in two different information contexts. The first is an information context, when the spatial interaction flows are known a priori, and the model is used to explain the trade flows' behaviour. And the second is an information context in which these interactions are totally unknown a priori and the flows must be estimated. This paper is focused on the second information context. When we estimating commodity flows we need to know the value of exports and imports for individual regions. Estimated interregional commodity flows are the results of this work. Estimated interregional flows are put into the regional input-output tables compiled by the Department of Economic Statistics. Regional input-output tables are arranged so as to reached the equality of resources and use. On the basis of the resulting tables for all regions, I conducted a input-output analysis. Input-output analysis examines the impact of model changes to investment on selected commodities, to estimated interregional flows and selected macroeconomic indicators.

In this dissertation, we use unique data set to examine bilateral Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) data and find determinant factors of bilateral FDI activities. In Chapter 1, we examine the relationships among the bilateral annual non-aggregated national level FDI, all levels of Economic Integration Agreements (EIAs) and political turnovers happened in both FDI exporting countries and FDI importing countries. In Chapter 2, we test the Tariff-Jumping FDI hypothesis and Export-Oriented FDI hypothesis. In Chapter 3, we examine and determine the key determinant factors of Cross-Hauling FDI status.

The different ways countries trade with each other have developed during the years but the purpose, free exchange in goods and services, remains intact. The main idea of trade between countries is that both parties gain from the exchange. The European Union is the world’s biggest trading block, and in the form of a customs union there are mainly two different ways in which it theoretically can affect bilateral trade flows, namely by trade diversion or by trade creation. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the European Union affects the bilateral trade flows both within the union, as well as with countries outside of it. In order to examine these effects a quantitative method will be used where a regression analysis is applied based on a gravity model, observing the years 2000–2019. The results indicate a significant positive effect of EU-membership on both trade flows with different member countries, as well as with countries without a membership. The estimations from the different regressions indicate that the bilateral trade flows between member countries increases with around 33%–40%, while bilateral trade flows with countries outside of the union increases with around 3%. / Länders sätt att handla med varandra har utvecklats genom åren men syftet, fritt utbyte av varor och tjänster, är intakt. Grundidén till handel mellan länder är att båda tjänar på utbytet. Europeiska unionen är världens största handelsblock, och som en tullunion så finns det framförallt två effekter detta kan ge på länders bilaterala handel, antingen handelsfrämjande eller handelsomfördelande. Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera hur den europeiska handelsunionen påverkar den bilaterala handeln dels med andra medlemsländer, dels med länder utanför handelsunionen. För att undersöka dessa effekter används en kvantitativ metod där en regressionsanalys genomförs med hjälp av en gravitationsmodell, där de observerade åren är år 2000–2019. Resultatet av denna studie visar ett positivt signifikant samband mellan bilateral handel med både andra medlemsländer såväl som länder utanför unionen. Estimeringarna från de olika regressionerna indikerar att den bilaterala handeln ökat mellan EU-medlemmar med cirka 33%–40% och med cirka 3% med länder utanför unionen.

Grocery stores are an important amenity in neighborhoods and access to grocery stores is important for health and well-being. While grocery store accessibility is a popular topic of research, studies measuring access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders are extremely rare. When a new store opened in the Excelsior/Outer Mission districts of San Francisco on a street lacking basic infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, the importance of this study became apparent. The Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood has a shocking number of collisions (over 1,100 between 2015 and 2019), elevated levels of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and minimal safe infrastructure for these modes compared to other residential areas in San Francisco. To account for the effects of these conditions on accessibility, a rating system to measure infrastructure for users was used in addition to the more traditional gravity model. Combining results into a composite accessibility score highlights how using only a gravity model to measure accessibility may conceal some of the nuances of accessibility as perceived by pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders. While it appears from gravity indices that stores in the Excelsior/Outer Mission are only slightly less accessible, the sensitivity analysis shows that infrastructure can have a large effect on overall accessibility. Specifically in the Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood, with its rather low infrastructure scores, the higher the weight attributed to the importance of infrastructure the lower is composite accessibility. Rather than measuring accessibility using only travel time via a gravity model or other spatial model, this study shows the importance of combining physical proximity measurements with infrastructure information to provide a more complete picture. This is particularly important for those walking, biking, or riding transit where safety is an important consideration. This study provides one such way to include the unique considerations of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders by including an infrastructure scoring system. Not only does this highlight the importance of including infrastructure measures, but it provides a framework for future infrastructure improvements around stores.

This thesis examines the impact of environmental regulations on trade competitiveness for South Asian countries. The study further investigates whether South Asian countries have become a pollutive haven of industrial exports to OECD countries during 1984-2004. The thesis also analyses whether tariff walls created by the governments to offsets stringent environmental regulations negatively affect pollutive industrial trade flows. This study has identified gaps in the literature after critically reviewing both competing trade theories and empirical literature surrounding the subject. Firstly, most of the empirical literature on the subject has focused on developed countries while ignoring less developed regions like South Asia. Second, several studies concluded trade competitiveness impact of environmental policy following a single estimation method when results are sensitive to the choice of the method used. Hence, for robust results, cross-methods analysis was imperative. Thirdly, the empirical literature on the subject focused on most pollutive industries and ignored the research on somewhat pollutive and least pollutive sectors as well as comparative analysis between those industries. This study has contributed to the literature by filling these gaps. Following the neo-classical theory, the central hypothesis of this thesis is that environmental regulations negatively affect different categories of pollutive industrial export competitiveness. By using the highest dis-aggregated ISIC level trade data and incorporating other socio-economic variables, this study has deployed comparative advantage trade models by Balassa (1965), competitiveness indicator by XU (1999), and bilateral RCA model by Grether and de Melo (2004). The study used the gravity model to control for un-observed effects over time on trade flows while capturing environmental regulations impact on pollutive industrial trade competitiveness. Accordingly, to avert endogeneity/data sensitivity issues and to ascertain robust estimates, the present research has among others computed Random Effect and Newey-West standard error models. The statistical modeling results show that while India gained trade competitiveness in most pollutive industrial trade, Pakistan and Bangladesh lost their trade competitiveness in the same category. The research finds evidence of most pollutive industries of South Asian countries increasing their bilateral RCAs and exports with OECD countries and reset of the world. A comparative analysis between most pollutive to less pollutive industries showed a lack of support for any systematic specialization patterns of trade for South Asia during 1984-2004. Nonetheless, this study findings based on gravity modeling clearly depicted a statistically significant negative impact of environmental regulations on total exports, most pollutive exports, and less pollutive industrial exports for South Asia and OECD countries. This study rejected the pollution haven hypothesis between South Asian pollutive industrial exports with OECD. It further concluded that tariff barriers created by countries to offsets environmental regulation costs would prove counterproductive to competitiveness. At the policy level, instead of lobbing for protectionism to balance out environmental regulatory costs, the governments in both developed and developing countries need to focus on forming better environmental policies fostering both competitiveness and environmental quality. Also, trade-offs between environmental regulations and competitiveness are challenging situations for South Asia and OECD countries. Therefore, sustainable production and trade policies combined with innovative and cost-effective environmental policies are needed to accomplish environmental gains and competitiveness.

The theory of optimum currency areas states that the more two countries trade with each other, the better candidates they are for a currency union. In terms of the endogeneity argument, convergence follows from joining a currency union and the integration process itself turns the countries into optimal currency areas. The potential increase in trade is regarded as one of the most important benefits of a currency union. Indirect evidence from studies on the effect of exchange rate volatility on trade does not support this claim. Rose argues that the common currency effect on trade is separate from the effect of the elimination of exchange rate variability and finds a large positive effect of a currency union on trade. Although his methodology has met with criticism, most studies find a positive estimate. A meta-analysis of the studies confirms that a common currency has a statistically and economically significant trade-creating effect. / Economics / M.Com. (Economics)

Cette thèse a pour ambition de transposer l'analyse du commerce international au niveau sub-national en examinant la structure et les déterminants du commerce entre états brésiliens, et avec les marchés internationaux. Dans un chapitre introductif, on présente les faits stylisés sur la le commerce brésilien en se concentrant essentiellement sur les caractéristiques des états brésiliens. Dans le premier chapitre, notre modèle de gravité, estime séparément les capacités d'exportation des états vers les marchés domestique et international. Les résultats montrent que les états les mieux classés en termes de capacités d'exportation vers le marché international ne se confondent pas avec les plus orientés vers le marché domestique. Dans le second chapitre, on utilise un modèle de gravité pour mettre en évidence les effets de création et de détournement de commerce ainsi qu’un un effet d’ « érosion des préférences ». Nous montrons que le MERCOSUR a permis d’augmenter le commerce des états avec les pays membres, sans effets significatifs sur le commerce inter-états ou avec les pays tiers. Les organisations internationales, suggèrent que le commerce en valeur ajoutée est une meilleure mesure pour analyser l’impact des échanges internationaux sur l’économie quand le contenu en importations des exportations est important. Dans un dernier chapitre, on calcule ainsi les valeurs ajoutées exportées des états brésiliens à partir d’un tableau Input-Output inter-états (2008) pour analyser et mesurer les spécialisations verticales entre les états. On estime également un modèle de gravité de commerce en valeur ajoutée qu’on élargit à un cadre trilatéral: l’état d’origine, l’état ré-exportateur et le pays importateur. / With the ambition of transposing trade analysis to an intra-national level, we work on the determinants and the structure of trade among Brazilian states, as well as their trade with international markets. In an introductory chapter, we present the stylized facts concerning the Brazilian trade while focusing mainly on the states’ characteristics. In chapter 1, we estimate the states’ domestic and foreign market export capacities by a gravity model of trade. Results show that the states with better foreign export capacities are not necessarily the same as those more oriented to the domestic market. Then in the second chapter, we use a gravity model to shed light on MERCOSUR’s creation and diversion effects as well as its “preference erosion” effect on trade among Brazilian states. We show that MERCOSUR increased Brazilian states’ trade with member countries, but had no significant effect on either interstate trade or Brazilian states’ trade with third countries. International organizations suggest the trade in value-added would be a “better” measure to understand the impact of trade on economy when import content in exports is important. Hence in a last chapter, we calculate the value-added exported by Brazilian states from an inter-state Input-Output table (2008) that we use to analyze and measure the vertical specialization between states. We also estimate a gravity model of trade in exported value-added that we extend to a trilateral frame: origin state, re-exporter state and importer country.

Cette thèse étudie l’impact des institutions, notamment les institutions financières, sur le commerce et les investissements internationaux. Les quatre premiers chapitres étudient les institutions financières et leur impact sur le commerce et la spécialisation internationale. Précisément, le premier chapitre étudie ces institutions et les déterminants de leur niveau de développement. Le deuxième chapitre analyse la façon dont la finance intervient sur le commerce bilatéral. Le troisième chapitre construit un modèle théorique qui vise à expliquer l’impact de la finance sur le commerce sectoriel en fonction du degré d’intensité financière de chaque secteur. Le quatrième chapitre analyse l’impact hétérogène de la finance sur les différents secteurs manufacturiers. Le dernier chapitre de la thèse utilise le terme “institution” dans un sens plus large et étudie théoriquement et empiriquement si les similitudes et différences dans les environnements institutionnels à travers les pays explique la distribution internationale des investissements directs étrangers (IDE). / This thesis examines the impact of institutions, especially the financial institutions, on international trade and foreign direct investments. The first four chapters study the financial institutions and their impact on trade and international specialization. Specifically, the first chapter examines these financial institutions and the determinants of their level of development. The second chapter examines how finance impacts bilateral trade. The third chapter builds a theoretical model and aims to explain the impact of finance on the sectoral trade as a function of the degree of financial intensity of each sector. The fourth chapter analyzes the heterogeneous impact of finance on the different manufacturing sectors. The last chapter of the thesis uses the term "institution" in a broader sense and studies theoretically and empirically whether the similarities and differences in institutional environments across countries explain the international patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Ce travail étudie, théoriquement et empiriquement, l'interaction entre le commerce international et l'investissement direct étranger (IDE), interaction qui a été un des principaux canaux de la mondialisation économique et de l'essor des chaînes de valeur mondiales dans la segmentation des activités de production. Les modèles théoriques montrent que le commerce international et les IDE peuvent se développer dans une relation de substituabilité ou de complémentarité. La nature de cette relation peut être la conséquence de facteurs exogènes, déterminants de la spécialisation des pays, ou le résultat de la stratégie endogène des firmes dans l'organisation de leurs activités à l'international. La validation empirique s'appuie sur une adaptation du modèle de gravité, en appliquant les techniques économétrique sur données de panel sur des données bilatérales pour la France au cours de la période de 1993 à 2012. Les estimations mettent en évidence une relation de complémentarité entre le commerce et l'IDE au niveau le plus agrégé. Cependant, une analyse comparative à un niveau plus désagrégé permet de trouver des indices de substituabilité et de complémentarité selon les groupes de pays partenaires. / This work investigates, theoretically and empirically, the relationship between international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), which has been one of the key channels of economic globalization, and of the development of global value chains in the international segmentation of production. Theoretical models show that international and FDI may be substitutes or complements. The nature of this relationship may be the consequence of exogenous factors, determinants of country specialization, or the result of the endogenous strategy of firms in the organization of their international activities. The empirical validation relies on an adaptation of the gravity model, using panel econometrics with bilateral data for France during the 1993-2012 period. Estimates show a complementarity relationship between trade and FDI at the most aggregated level. However, a comparative analysis at a more disaggregated level reveals some signs of substitutability or complementarity according to the group of partner countries.