Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Trade barriers, which include transportation costs, tariffs, language barriers, and bureaucratic red tape, play a key role in the determination of trade flows. Because “direct” measures are only available for a few components, researchers have developed so-called “indirect” measures of trade costs, which estimate bilateral trade integration from cross-sectional variation in observed trade flows. The paper explores the theoretical and empirical determinants of these indirect measures of trade costs. The results suggest that, while they do capture variation in trade barriers, the indirect measures may also reflect variation in other factors, such as differences in tastes and production costs.