Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/19362 
Year of Publication: 
2002
Series/Report no.: 
HWWA Discussion Paper No. 201
Publisher: 
Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA), Hamburg
Abstract: 
Using the border effect approach, our paper examines the influence of the legal framework quality of the Central and Eastern European countries on international trade. This approach offers an evaluation of the borders' impact on trade. A market is fragmented when actual trade differs from the trade that would be expected in an economy without border-related barriers. Recent findings have emphasized informal trade barriers as obstacles to trade flows (Anderson and Marcouiller, 2002; Anderson and Young, 2000; Rauch, 2001). We introduce different measures of the legal framework quality, which appears as a significant informal trade barrier. Actually, in case of conflict between two trade partners, it proves to be difficult for a given partner to get damages. Therefore, incentives to trade could be reduced. We adopt and refine the theoretical monopolistic competition model of trade developed by Head and Mayer (2000) and estimate it focusing on imports of Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia from European Union (EU) and Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) countries. We find that legal framework quality appears as a strong determinant of export decisions of EU producers. In the opposite, the CEFTA producers seem to be less or not affected by this quality in their decisions of trade.
Subjects: 
legal framework
border effects
central and eastern European countries
JEL: 
F15
F12
P20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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