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Geography and Intra-National Home Bias: U.S. Domestic Trade in 1949 and 2007

Geography and Intra-National Home Bias: U.S. Domestic Trade in 1949 and 2007

112/2013 Nicholas Crafts and Alexander Klien
economic history, working papers
Journal of Economic Geography
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbu008

112/2013 Nicholas Crafts and Alexander Klien

This paper examines home bias in U.S. domestic trade in 1949 and 2007. We use a unique data set of 1949 carload waybill statistics produced by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and 2007 Commodity Flow Survey data. The results show that home bias was considerably smaller in 1949 than in 2007 and that home bias in 1949 was even negative for several commodities. We argue that the difference between the geographical distribution of the manufacturing activities in 1949 and that of 2007 is an important factor explaining the differences in the magnitudes of home-bias estimates in those years.

Economic History

Journal of Economic Geography

http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbu008