Trade Costs and the Agglomeration of Production

The object of this paper is to study the evolution of trade costs and of the agglomeration of production, as well as their relation. The Home Market Effect prescribes increasing agglomeration when trade costs decrease because it is supposed to strengthen. We study the joint variation of trade costs and agglomeration in all the sectors that we consider, and specifically in those which support the home market effect hypothesis. We employ an original approach based on the combination of different bootstrap distributions. Our analysis yields insights into the evolution of trade costs and agglomeration in Europe in the last decade.