This thesis investigates the relation between trade and convergence for Turkey and EU-15 in the period 1980-2008. The countries and time period are selected because Turkey has intensive trade relation with EU-15, and these economies had experienced conversion in their economic structures and adopted liberal economic policies, as well as liberal trade policies in this period. Using panel data methods two equations are estimated / an income dispersion equation for the impact of bilateral trade on per capita income differences and a gravity model of trade for the impact of per capita income differences on bilateral trade. Overall findings of this study give strong evidence for the hypothesis that trade causes convergence, whereas weaker support for the thesis that convergence causes trade.

<p>This thesis investigates the determinants of Taiwan’s import changes and the underlying factors of the decreasing Swedish export to Taiwan between 1994 and 2005.</p><p>The empirical study includes 36 countries from both the Pacific Rim and OECD. Based on a modified gravity model of trade, the regression model aims to examine how GDP growth in the exporting country, exchange rate changes, common language, and membership in APEC affect Taiwan’s import volume. The result shows estimates with expected signs, with 49.8 percent of the vari-ance in Taiwan’s changed import volume explained by the exogenous variables. Exchange rate change and language are statistically significant.</p><p>Data on commodity groups of importance for Sweden and Taiwan are also ex-amined, and they show that Taiwan has changed its import demand and has started to import goods other than those Sweden in previous years strongly exported to Taiwan. Taiwan’s regional trading partners have also gained export shares at the expense of Swedish exports.</p><p>The results are in line with theory and it will be hard for Sweden in the future to compete with the increasing regional trade of East Asia where common lan-guage and culture are of big importance.</p>

<p>This Bachelor thesis analyses whether the Swedish trade has been affected by the in-troduction of the European Monetary Union and the common currency Euro. Com-paring Sweden with Finland and Netherland, two countries with similar economic situation but who chose to adopt the euro as their currency, makes the result clearer.</p><p>Using a modified gravity model based on Flam and Nordström’s (2006) and Rose and Glick’s (2002) gravity models has made it possible to see how the Euro has affected trade in the three chosen countries. By using a panel regression the possibility for standard errors have been minimized.</p><p>After running a regression for all three countries together the conclusion is that the Euro has had a positive effect on the export. Also when running regressions for each country separately the positive effect of the Euro is clear. How much the Euro itself has affected trade in the chosen countries are hard to tell. There are many reasons for the past years increasing trade and the introduction of the Euro is only one of them. Due to a simplication of the gravity models used in this thesis the full extent of the Euro influence can not be seen here.</p><p>The effect of the Euro on Swedens trade is a subject that has been discussed for many years. An introduction of the Euro in Sweden would most likely increase Swedens trade even more, but even without the Euro Swedens trade has increased over the past years.</p> / <p>Denna kandidatuppsats analyserar huruvida den svenska handeln har blivit påverkad av införandet av den Europeiska Monetära Unionen och den gemensamma valutan Euro. Jämföra Sverige med Finland och Nederländerna, två länder med en liknande ekonomisk situation men som valde att införa Euron som sin valuta, gör resultatet klarare.</p><p>Användandet av en modifierad gravitations modell baserad på Flam och Nordströms (2006) och Rose och Glicks (2002) gravitations modeller har gjort det möjligt att se hur Euron har påverkat handeln i de tre valda länderna. Genom att använda panel regressioner har risken för standard fel minimiserats.</p><p>Efter att ha gjort regressionen för alla tre länder tillsammans är slutsatsen att Euron har haft en positiv effekt på export. Även i regressionerna för de enskilda länderna syns Eurons positiva effekt tydligt. Hur mycket Euron själv har ökat handeln i de valda länderna är svårt att säga. Det finns många anledningar varför handeln ökat de senaste åren och Eurons införande är bara en av dem. På grund av att gravitations modellerna som använts i uppsatsen är förenklade kan inte Eurons fulla effekt ses här.</p><p>Effekten av Euron på Svensk handel är ett ämne som har diskuterats i många år. En introduktion av Euro i Sverige skulle troligtvis öka Sveriges handel ytterligare, men även utan Euron har Sveriges handel ökat de senaste åren.</p>

Populations and land development have the potential to shift as economies change at a rate that is faster than currently employed for updating a transportation plan for a region. This thesis uses the Foursquare location-based social networking check-in data to analyze the origin-destination travel demand for Austin, Texas. A doubly-constrained gravity model has been employed to create an origin-destination model. This model was analyzed in comparison to a singly-constrained gravity model as well as the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's 2010 Urban Transportation Study's origin-destination matrices through trip length distributions, the zonal origin-destination flow patterns, and the zonal trip generation and attraction heat maps in an effort to validate the methodology. / text

This study applies the gravity trade model to assess South Africa-Angola trade potential in the agricultural sector. A step-by-step example of the model's empirical implementation is also provided. It is found that the gravity model, with foundations in the physical sciences, is a useful instrument for the analysis of bilateral trade flows. A panel data analysis is used to disentangle the time invariant country-specific effects and to capture the relationships between the relevant variables over time. The study also finds that the fixed effects model is to be preferred to the random effects gravity model. Furthermore, a number of variables, namely, size of the economies, the oil price and exchange rates added to the standard gravity equation, are found to be important determinants of bilateral trade flows. Overall, the simulation results indicate that there is a potential for trade in the agricultural sector between these two countries. / Thesis (M.Com. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The objectives of this research are to examine the demand for processed foods by emerging markets and to assess demand determinants and potential import growth. Processed foods are the fastest growing segment of U.S. agricultural exports and hence it is imperative to understand the underlying factors behind this growth. Based on a “modified gravity model,” we estimate U.S. exports of processed foods to 10 low and middle-income countries from 1980-2002 using fixed effects method. A classical linear regression model estimates U.S. exports to 60 low and middle-income countries. Results from the classical model indicate that population and income have a positive effect on the demand for processed foods by low and middle-income countries. As expected, exchange rates, tariffs and distance have an inverse relationship with U.S. exports. Empirical results from the fixed-effects model are similar, with the exception of population. The empirical results of this research imply that among emerging markets, middle-income countries that have open trade policies and are in relative close proximity to the U.S. offer better opportunities for U.S. exports of processed foods.

This study applies the gravity trade model to assess South Africa-Angola trade potential in the agricultural sector. A step-by-step example of the model's empirical implementation is also provided. It is found that the gravity model, with foundations in the physical sciences, is a useful instrument for the analysis of bilateral trade flows. A panel data analysis is used to disentangle the time invariant country-specific effects and to capture the relationships between the relevant variables over time. The study also finds that the fixed effects model is to be preferred to the random effects gravity model. Furthermore, a number of variables, namely, size of the economies, the oil price and exchange rates added to the standard gravity equation, are found to be important determinants of bilateral trade flows. Overall, the simulation results indicate that there is a potential for trade in the agricultural sector between these two countries. / Thesis (M.Com. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Estimating the risk associated with species and pathogen movements involves considerable uncertainty. One key uncertainty concerns the extent and frequency of human-mediated species and pathogen movements relative to the distribution of recipient ecosystems. Baitfish use in Ontario, Canada is one of many pathways with the potential to introduce and spread biota to beyond their current geographic range. To determine the biological risk associated with baitfish use, models were used to estimate the probability of species occurrences throughout pathway levels, from the commercial harvest level, to retail tank and angler purchases, to movement and release by the end-user (i.e., the angler). Vector activity, as the primary contributor of species movements and introductions associated with this pathway, was modeled within a spatial interaction framework that incorporated landscape structure (e.g., the distribution of angling populations, lake size and sportfish richness, and their physical separation via least-cost routing of transportation networks) to predict the extent of movement. Agent-based models of vector activity were used to relate vector movements to region-specific probability thresholds of risk activity. Model outputs were used to estimate the movement and introduction of species and pathogens to lake ecosystems resulting from a variety of infection scenarios. Species results identified a pronounced reduction in the probability of non-target species occurrences throughout pathway levels. However, the occurrence of biological invaders and other non-target fishes at retail levels implied incidental bycatch throughout the pathway. Relatively short, frequent vector movements associated with incidentally purchased species were very likely, yet would not contribute to species range expansions due to the homogeneity of biological communities at those levels. However, rarer, yet considerably lengthier, vector movements associated with key species and pathogens implied the potential for low-probability, long-distance species and pathogen movements resulting from human activities.

Estimating the risk associated with species and pathogen movements involves considerable uncertainty. One key uncertainty concerns the extent and frequency of human-mediated species and pathogen movements relative to the distribution of recipient ecosystems. Baitfish use in Ontario, Canada is one of many pathways with the potential to introduce and spread biota to beyond their current geographic range. To determine the biological risk associated with baitfish use, models were used to estimate the probability of species occurrences throughout pathway levels, from the commercial harvest level, to retail tank and angler purchases, to movement and release by the end-user (i.e., the angler). Vector activity, as the primary contributor of species movements and introductions associated with this pathway, was modeled within a spatial interaction framework that incorporated landscape structure (e.g., the distribution of angling populations, lake size and sportfish richness, and their physical separation via least-cost routing of transportation networks) to predict the extent of movement. Agent-based models of vector activity were used to relate vector movements to region-specific probability thresholds of risk activity. Model outputs were used to estimate the movement and introduction of species and pathogens to lake ecosystems resulting from a variety of infection scenarios. Species results identified a pronounced reduction in the probability of non-target species occurrences throughout pathway levels. However, the occurrence of biological invaders and other non-target fishes at retail levels implied incidental bycatch throughout the pathway. Relatively short, frequent vector movements associated with incidentally purchased species were very likely, yet would not contribute to species range expansions due to the homogeneity of biological communities at those levels. However, rarer, yet considerably lengthier, vector movements associated with key species and pathogens implied the potential for low-probability, long-distance species and pathogen movements resulting from human activities.

This thesis investigates why and how macroeconomic volatility in source countries interacts with their FDI outflows. The study focuses on FDI flowing out from OECD countries to less developed countries in the ASEAN region. Using a panel data encompassing 52 country-pairs over the period 1996-2011, I find a negative correlation between FDI outflows and macroeconomic volatility in source countries. More specifically the empirical results suggest an adverse relationship between inflation and output volatility (business cycles fluctuations) and FDI flows – the more macroeconomic volatility in developed economies the lesser FDI flows to less developed economies, which is explained by Keynesian theories. These findings derive from a gravity model approach, which enabled me to control for host country determinants. In order to estimate these relationships I adopted a random effects model and a tobit model. The reason behind the use of these two models derives from the different views within this branch of research because of censored FDI statistics. The thesis is inspired by Éric Rougier’s et al. work on how macroeconomic volatility in European countries interacts with FDI flows to the MENA region (2012).