Analyzing dependencies in geo-economics and geo-politics
Using data over the period from 1950 to 2000, we estimate a model of bilateral international trade to explore the linkages between (a) alliances, (b) joint memberships in international institutions, (c) mutual cooperation and (d) conflict, (e) mutual economic freedom, and (f) democracy and bilateral trade. We incorporate exporter and importer effects as well as reciprocity into a gravity model and cross-validate it against annual out-of-sample data. The resulting, empirical findings show the importance of second and third-order dependencies in bilateral trade data. Military alliances, membership in IGOs, international cooperation, and mutual economic freedom are shown to be strongly associated with bilateral trade. Conversely, conflict and the level of democracy do not demonstrate strong, discernable linkages to bilateral trade. © 2008 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
