Abstract

The determinants of world wheat trade, 1963-2010: A gravity equation approach

Abstract: The international configuration of the world wheat trade has undergone sig-nificant transformations over the past fifty years. The volume of total wheattrade has increased fivefold, new exporting leaders have appeared and a largeimport market has emerged in less developed countries. The aim of this paper is to iden-tify the main drivers of those changing patterns. For that purpose, we estimated a grav-ity equation based on data for bilateral trade flows. Information on the wheat trade wasobtained from the UN-COMTRADE database (2014). We also accessed other sourcesto include explanatory variables such as gross domestic product (GDP) of the export-ing and importing countries, GDP per capita, wheat production, different measures ofcultural distance and proximity, current trade agreements, etc. The results are discussedand interpreted using a cliometric approach.