An Account of Global Intra-Industry Trade, 1962-2006

50 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2008

See all articles by Marius Brülhart

Marius Brülhart

University of Lausanne - School of Economics and Business Administration (HEC-Lausanne)

Date Written: February 2008

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive description of intra-industry trade patterns and trends, using data on more than 39 million bilateral trade flows. In 2006, 27 percent of global trade was intra-industry if measured at the finest (5-digit) level of statistical aggregation, and 44 percent if measured at a coarser (3-digit) level of statistical aggregation. The observed steady growth in global intra-industry trade since the early 1960s suggests a process of world-wide structural convergence: economies are becoming more similar over time in terms of their sectoral compositions. In particular since the 1990s, this trend appears to be driven to a significant extent by the international fragmentation of vertical production chains. Intra-industry trade is a high-income and middle-income country phenomenon: African trade remains overwhelmingly of the inter-industry type. Moreover, the observed increase in intra-industry trade was not accompanied by a comparable increase in marginal intra-industry trade, suggesting that trade-induced adjustment pressures remain potentially important.

Keywords: intra-industry trade, marginal intra-industry trade

JEL Classification: F1

Suggested Citation

Brulhart, Marius, An Account of Global Intra-Industry Trade, 1962-2006 (February 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1103442 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1103442

Marius Brulhart (Contact Author)

University of Lausanne - School of Economics and Business Administration (HEC-Lausanne) ( email )

Unil Dorigny, Batiment Internef
Lausanne, 1015
Switzerland
+41 21 692 3471 (Phone)
+41 21 692 3365 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.hec.unil.ch/mbrulhar/

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