"What effect does distance have on costs for economies at different locations? Exports and imports of final and intermediate goods bear transport costs that increase with distance. Production and trade depend on factor endowments and factor intensities as well as on distance and the transport intensities of different goods"--Cover.

What effect does distance ...

"The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy. Halving transport costs increases that trade volume by a factor of five. Improving the standard of infrastructure from that of the bottom quarter of countries to that of the median country increases trade by 50 percent. Improving infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is especially important for increasing African trade"--Cover.

The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy. Halving transport costs increases that trade volume by a factor of five. Improving the standard of infrastructure from that of the bottom quarter of countries to that of the median country increases trade by 50 percent. Improving infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is especially important for increasing African trade.Limao and Venables use three different data sets to investigate how transport depends on geography and infrastructure. Landlocked countries have high transport costs, which can be substantially reduced by improving the quality of their infrastructure and that of transit countries.Analysis of bilateral trade data confirms the importance of infrastructure. Limatilde;o and Venables estimate the elasticity of trade flows with regard to transport costs to be high, at about -2.5. This means that:middot; The median landlocked country has only 30 percent of the trade volume of the median coastal economy.middot; Halving transport costs increases the volume of trade by a factor of five.middot; Improving infrastructure from the 75th to the 50th percentile increases trade by 50 percent.Using their results and a basic gravity model to study Sub-Saharan African trade, both internally and with the rest of the world, Limao and Venables find that infrastructure problems largely explain the relatively low levels of African trade.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to investigate the effects of geography on economic performance. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

By relating theoretical arguments to specific landscapes Sarah Curtis develops the basis for a geographical analysis of health problems and proposes a range of strategies for reducing disadvantage and societal inequalities.

Afghanistan is a landlocked country which relies heavily on the road and air transport sub sector. The country mountain terrains, low quality infrastructure, and artificial and institutional barriers to trade add to geographical disadvantage of Afghanistan, and increased the cost of moving goods internationally. Pakistan and Iran provide Afghanistan the most direct route to the sea and international market through the ports of Karachi and Bandar Abbas respectively. In compare to Iran Pakistan has the most advantageous position in Afghan transit trade, by offering the most nearest route to international market through Karachi seaport. The fundamental object of this present research is to measure the geographical disadvantage of Afghanistan, and to estimate the total trucking cost between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to indicate how distance, infrastructure, time, bribe, and geography increase the transport costs.

We study the impacts of changes in international trade and domestic transport costs on the internal geography of countries in the presence of geographical asymmetries. To do so, we develop a two-country four-region model in which one country has a region that exhibits a 'geographical advantage' in terms of better access to the other country's markets. Our analysis reveals that, in equilibrium, the space-economies of the trading partners are interdependent and that agglomeration in one country reduces the occurrence of agglomeration in the other, thus showing that physical geography suffices to build strong connections between the two space-economies. We also show that remoteness need not be a geographical disadvantage since a landlocked region may well be the location that attracts the larger share of firms. This is so when internal transport costs are high and, therefore, act as a barrier to competition from abroad.