1. Comentarios: Laura Márquez-Ramos "Intra-industry trade with emergent countries: what can we learn from Spanish data?" Authors: Juliette Milgram-Baleix and Ana Isabel Moro-Egido

2. Empirical Model Distj as proxy of transport costs -Assumes that -Need to obtain better transport cost measures and to use these measures to expand gravity models (Anderson and van Wincoop, 2004) -Deal with the endogeneity of the transport cost variable in this kind of equation (Anderson and van Wincoop, 2004) -“The impact of distance is always negative and very significant” (p.5): Also when other transport costs variable is included. Geographical distance may represent a series of factors such as cultural proximity, a shared history, a perception of closeness and information costs (trade costs)

3. Empirical Model CodeEU - “Dummy that takes the value 1 if the trading partner belongs to the European Union and 0 if not” (p. 4) - Baier and Bergstrand (2004) develop the first theoretical and empirical analysis of the economic determinants of FTA formation - Baier and Bergstrand (2005) show the importance of treating FTAs as endogenous when the determinants of trade flows are analysed. They show that when the endogeneity of the FTA variables is taken into account in gravity models, their effect on trade flows is quintupled.

4. Econometric Results -“Results from the OLS estimations show that technological differences unambiguously enhance intra-industry trade” (p. 6): Maybe a better technological measure is needed, why not a composed index? (Filippini and Molini, 2003) -“Another important feature is that a high GINI index enhances any kind of IIT in the case of other countries while it reduces IIT in the case of the EU” (p. 6): Negative and significant for EU and not significant for emergent countries. Why?

5. Econometric Results Heckman method (discrete framework) “Nor distance nor the GINI index have a significant impact on the probability to engage in IIT…Thus, distance, GINI and the dummies for contiguity and EU membership present the expected signs, while they fail to explain the probability of IIT to occur” (p. 7): Maybe inequality and adjacency have a higher influence on other variables, as the existence of integration agreements.

6. References  Anderson, J. E. and van Wincoop, E., 2004. Trade Costs. Journal of Economic Literature, 42, 691-751.  Baier, S.L. and Bergstrand, J.H., 2004). Economic Determinants of Free Trade Agreements. Journal of International Economics 64 (1), 29-63.  Baier, S.L. and Bergstrand, J.H., 2005. Do free trade agreements actually increase members’ international trade?, Working Paper 2005-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.  Filippini, C. and Molini, V., 2003, The determinants of East Asian trade flows: a gravity equation approach, Journal of Asian Economics, 14, 695-711.