This paper documents a decreasing trend in the geographical concentration of EU agrofood imports. Decomposing the concentration indices into intensive and extensive margins components, we find that the decrease in overall concentration indices results from two diverging trends: the pattern of trade diversifies at the extensive margin (EU countries have been sourcing their agri-food products from a wider range of suppliers), while geographical concentration increases at the intensive-margin (EU countries have concentrated their imports on a few major suppliers). This leads to an increasing inequality in market shares between a small group of large suppliers and a majority of small suppliers. We then move on to exploit a database of food alerts at the EU border that had never been exploited before. After coding it into HS8 categories, we regress the incidence of food alerts by product on determinants including exporter dummies as well as HS8 product dummies. Coefficients on product dummies provide unbiased estimates of the intrinsic vulnerability of exported products to food alerts, as measured at the EU border. We incorporate the product risk coefficient as an explanatory variable in a regression of geographical concentration and show that concentration is higher for risky products.
This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.
Th e empirical literature on the relationship between democracy and growth has yielded confl icting results. Cross-country studies have failed to identify a signifi cant impact of democracy on growth, while within-country studies have found a strong positive eff ect of the transition to democracy on growth. We reconcile the confl icting evidence by showing that the positive eff ect of democratic transitions results from regime change as opposed to democratization. We identify over 100 transitions in the last half-century with various outcomes: to and from democracy, some partial, and some failed. Th e variety of experiences allows us to compare the growth outcome of democratic transitions with that of other transitions rather than with a no-transition counterfactual. Conditioning on regime change fi lters out selection eff ects and shows that transition to democracy yields no growth dividend compared to other types of regime change. We also show that countries that democratize slowly do not gain from regime change. Th ese results suggest that the growth dividend from political transition results from swift regime change rather than from democratization. JEL codes: N40, O43
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
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