How Transport Markets Affect World Trade

Whether by sea, land or air, the entirety of trade is carried out by the transportation sector. We know surprisingly little, however, about the role of transportation in shaping trade networks. How do transport markets interact with the markets for world trade in goods? How does the behavior of profit-maximizing transport agents influence transport costs, and thus global imports and exports? Microeconomic Insights published a summary of recent work by Theodore Papageorgiou, an assistant professor of economics at Boston College, that studies these and other questions.