
Abstract Building on the well-established empirical findings on the importance of transport infrastructure and logistics for trade, this paper empirically investigates whether the quality of transport infrastructure and logistics is a source of comparative advantage in industries for which logistics services are important. Transport infrastructure and logistics are important inputs in the supplying of goods abroad and in the sourcing of intermediates. To account for the emergence and proliferation of Global Value Chains (GVCs) that have significantly changed the way of organizing production and distribution of goods, we measure export performance by value added in exports rather than gross exports used in the empirical studies on sources of comparative advantage. Using exporter-importer-year, importer-industry-year and exporter-industry fixed effects, we find that a country's ability to provide high-quality transport infrastructure and logistics is a source of comparative advantage in the logistics intensive industries. The results are robust to an alternative measure of transport infrastructure quality and a number of alternative specifications. Even with changes in the sample of countries, the quality of transport infrastructure and logistics continues to be an important determinant of comparative advantage. These findings suggest that transport policies to improve the quality of transport infrastructure and logistics contribute to acquiring comparative advantage.
| citations This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 46 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 1% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Top 10% | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
