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This paper examines the effect of the visits of U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State to a country on bilateral trade flows between that country and the United States. The official visits dummy variables are derived from the historical archives of the U.S. Department of State, while bilateral trade with the United States as a percentage of total trade with the world is compiled from UNCOMTRADE. The fixed effects estimation shows that the visits of U.S. officials to the country do not have a statistically significant effect on the bilateral trade variable. However, the issue of endogeneity cannot be ignored. As much as trade flows may increase after the visits of American officials to the country, these officials may be tempted to visit their major trading partners as well. This is either to ensure the smooth flow of trade, to increase the volume and value of trade, or to contain any trade disputes. This highlights an issue of reverse causality. To address the issue of potential endogeneity, we use the Endogenous Treatment model. The estimation results provide evidence that the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect on bilateral trade with the United States. This is robust even after the inclusion of other control variables identified by the literature as confounding factors for bilateral trade flows. When we examine the effect of different types of visits, the results show that bilateral meetings during the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect. These results imply that the visits of U.S. officials are taken as an opportunity to conclude trade agreements, to contain trade disputes, and to discuss the elimination of trade barriers between the two countries. This enhances the level of bilateral trade between the country and the United States. The paper has multiple policy implications tat are discussed in detail.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the effect of the visits of U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State to a country on bilateral trade flows between that country and the United States. The official visits dummy variables are derived from the historical archives of the U.S. Department of State, while bilateral trade with the United States as a percentage of total trade with the world is compiled from UNCOMTRADE. The fixed effects estimation shows that the visits of U.S. officials to the country do not have a statistically significant effect on the bilateral trade variable. However, the issue of endogeneity cannot be ignored. As much as trade flows may increase after the visits of American officials to the country, these officials may be tempted to visit their major trading partners as well. This is either to ensure the smooth flow of trade, to increase the volume and value of trade, or to contain any trade disputes. This highlights an issue of reverse causality. To address the issue of potential endogeneity, we use the Endogenous Treatment model. The estimation results provide evidence that the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect on bilateral trade with the United States. This is robust even after the inclusion of other control variables identified by the literature as confounding factors for bilateral trade flows. When we examine the effect of different types of visits, the results show that bilateral meetings during the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect. These results imply that the visits of U.S. officials are taken as an opportunity to conclude trade agreements, to contain trade disputes, and to discuss the elimination of trade barriers between the two countries. This enhances the level of bilateral trade between the country and the United States. The paper has multiple policy implications tat are discussed in detail.
Keywords: Trade, executive, official visits
INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the effect of the official visits by U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State to a country on the level of bilateral trade flows between that country and the United States. To be specific, we investigate whether the visits by American officials allow the visited country to be able to increase its trade flows with the United States as a percentage of its trade with the entire world.
The intuition of this paper is straightforward. Leaders and heads of state travel abroad for a plethora of purposes. One of the most important is to strengthen bilateral economic ties between their country and the countries they are visiting. These economic ties can be fostered by increasing trade and commercial exchange, attracting foreign capital inflows, securing foreign loans and foreign aid, containing any potential disputes or border conflicts, and facilitating travel and cultural exchange between the citizens of the two countries. In the context of this paper, these visits allow the visitors to convene with the officials of their trading partner to conclude trade agreements, to determine how commercial exchange can satisfy the demands of their consumers, to contain trade disputes, to discuss the elimination of trade barriers, and to send a strong signal from the highest levels of a country's leadership for their serious commitment to facilitate free trade flows without barriers.
In more details, official visits allow the visitors to convene with the officials of their trading partner to discuss various issues pertaining to the promotion of bilateral trade between the two countries. The visits can be a venue for both parties to conclude and sign trade agreements that can open their markets to the other party, thus expanding the commercial exchange opportunities for their respective firms. The host and the guest can also attempt to determine how commercial exchange can satisfy the demands of their consumers, thus identifying a potential market that the firms of the other country can target. In addition, these visits can be a platform for both parties to contain trade disputes that may impede the flow of products between their economies. The visits also allow the officials of both countries to discuss ways to eliminate trade barriers that can stand in the way of their attempt to enhance the level, value, and volume of bilateral trade. The visit of a high official can also send a strong signal from the highest levels of a country's leadership for their serious commitment to enact whatever policies that aim to facilitate free trade flows without barriers between the two economies. Thus, we would expect that official visits to be positively associated with bilateral trade flows.
Given this intuition, we examine empirically the effect of the official visits on bilateral trade flows between the country and the United States. To achieve this objective, the paper uses dummy variables that indicate the time and location of the visit by U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State. These variables are derived from the historical archives of the U.S. Department of State. The paper examines the effect of these variables on the value of trade with the United States as a fraction of the value of trade with the entire world. The trade variable for each country and each year during the period of analysis was compiled by the authors from the UNCOMTRADE database.
However, the key difficulty in determining a causal effect of the official visits on bilateral trade flows is the issue of endogeneity. First, the association may be spurious due to a failure to account for an unobserved channel that may determine both variables. Second, as much as trade flows may increase after the visits of American officials to the country, leaders may be tempted to visit their major trading partners as well. This is either to ensure the smooth flow of trade, to increase the volume and value of trade, or to contain any trade disputes. This highlights an issue of reverse causality.
To deal with potential endogeneity, we use the endogenous treatment model. The estimation results show that the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect on bilateral trade with the United States. When we examine the effect of different types of visits, the results show that bilateral meetings have a statistically significant positive effect. These results imply that the visits of U.S. officials are taken as an opportunity to conclude trade agreements, to contain trade disputes, and to discuss the elimination of trade barriers between the two countries. This enhances the level of bilateral trade between the country and the United States.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the literature survey, section 3 includes the detailed description of the data, section 4 includes the empirical estimation results and the robustness tests, and section 5 concludes.
LITERATURE
This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of trade flows. In this context, there is a new burgeoning literature that specifically focuses on the effect on bilateral trade flows of bilateral political relations, of the similarity of the political institutions, of political tensions, and of foreign political interference.
The first stream of studies focuses on the effect of political relationships and diplomatic ties between trading partners on their bilateral trade flows. For instance, (Nitsch 2007) examine the effect of state visits of the heads of state of France, Germany, and the United States on exports. The author finds that state and official visits are positively associated with bilateral exports, and that the effect is strong but short-lived. (Lin et al. 2017) show that state visits by African leaders to China increase Chinese exports to Africa in capital intensive manufacturing products, and significantly stimulate exports by state-owned enterprises to African countries.
(Nitsch 2019) examine the effect of the ease with which a country's citizens can enter foreign countries on the extent of bilateral trade and finds that countries which issue powerful passports experience more international trade. (Rose 2007) examines whether exports are associated with diplomatic representation abroad. The author finds that bilateral exports increase for each additional consulate abroad, and that the creation of consulates has smaller effects than that of an embassy. (Creusen and Lejour 2013) examine the role of economic diplomacy on the export market entry decisions of Dutch firms. The authors show that the presence of government support offices and trade missions entice Dutch firms to enter export markets in these countries. (Pollins 1989) finds empirical support to confirm that the effects of diplomacy on trade and commerce are significant. (Head and Ries 2010) examine the effect of sending trade missions by Canada in stimulating trade. The authors find that above-normal Canadian exports and imports are with countries to which it sent trade missions. However, trade missions have small and insignificant effect on trade.
Some studies explore the effect of political tensions, and armed conflict, on trade flows. For instance, (Fuchs and Klann 2013) examine whether countries that welcome the Dalai Lama, despite China's opposition, experience a significant decrease in their exports to China. Their results show that countries receiving the Dalai Lama at the highest political level are punished through a decline in their exports to China, but the effect disappears in the second year after a meeting takes place. (Davis and Meunier 2011) show that political tensions do not affect trade or economic exchange for the United States or Japan, as the sunk costs in existing trade and investment make governments, firms, and consumers unlikely to change their behaviour due to any deterioration in political ties. (Michaels and Zhi 2010) find that the deterioration of relations between the United States and France, and the drop in France's favourability rating in the United States, adversely affected bilateral trade.
(Glick and Taylor 2010) examine whether conflict between countries and warfare can be disruptive of economic activity, especially bilateral trade. The authors find large persistent effects of wars on trade, national income, and global economic welfare. (Nitsch and Schumacher 2004) examine the effect of terrorism and warfare on bilateral trade flows and find evidence that terrorist actions decrease the volume of trade.
Other studies explore the effect of the political systems and institutions on trade flows. For instance, (Aidt and Gassebner 2010) find that autocracies import substantially less than democracies even after controlling for official trade policies. (Mansfield et al. 2014) show that pairs of democracies set trade barriers at a lower level than mixed country-pairs composed of an autocracy and a democracy, and that democratic pairs have much more open trade relations than mixed pairs. (Morrow et al. 2014) examine whether trade flows are larger between states with similar interests, between allies, and in democratic dyads than nondemocratic dyads. Their analysis demonstrates that joint democracy and common interests increase trade in a dyad, but alliances do not. (Kono 2006) finds that democracy leads to lower tariffs, but higher core and quality nontariff barriers. (Acemoglu and Yared 2010) document that countries experiencing greater increases in militarist sentiments have had lower growth in trade, and that a pair of countries jointly experiencing greater increases in militarism has lower growth in bilateral trade.
Finally, some studies focus on foreign interference on trade flows. For instance, (Berger et al. 2013) provide evidence that CIA interventions during the Cold War were used to create a larger foreign market for American products. Following CIA interventions, imports from the US increased dramatically, and that the increased imports arose through direct purchases of American products by foreign governments.
The paper also contributes to a nascent literature on the trade effects of official visits. (Nitsch 2007) finds the state visits of the heads of state of France, Germany, and the United States are positively associated with bilateral exports. (Lavallée and Lochard 2022) show that a visit to a foreign country is associated with an increase in French exports. (Beaulieu et al. 2019) studies the effects of state visits paid by Chinese political leaders on China's trade flow with other countries. The estimation results show that trade promotion effects come two years after the visits, and that the effects are biased towards the industries and firms connected to the government. (Fan and Lu 2021) examine the effect of summit visits on bilateral trade with China. The authors find that the higher the level of the summit leaders, the greater the promotion effect. (Lin et al. 2017) show that state visits by African leaders to China increase Chinese exports to Africa in capital intensive manufacturing products, and significantly stimulate exports by state-owned enterprises to African countries.
Our paper's main contribution to this literature is that it is one of the first attempts to explore the effects of diplomatic visits by American officials on bilateral trade with the United States, while addressing the issue of potential endogeneity and examining the effect of different types of visits.
DATA
The analysis covers the period from 1960-2015 for a large set of countries'. Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the variables used in the analysis.
The dependent variable in our analysis is the value of trade (in U.S. $) with the United States divided by the value of trade (in U.S. $) with the world for each country. This variable is compiled from the UNCOMTRADE dataset from 1960-2015. We calculated the value of trade (exports+imports) of each country with the United States, and the value of trade (exports+imports) of each country with the World. Then, we use the ratio of the two variables as our dependent variable.
The variables of interest are dummy variable for the visits of U.S. Presidents and the visits of U.S. Secretaries of State to the country during the period 1960-2015. These include state visits, official working visits, summits, private visits, informal visits, meetings, and working visits. This data 1s derived from the Office of the Historian, which is affiliated to the Department of Sate of the United States of America. Figures 1-2 show world maps of the number of visits of U.S. Presidents to each country, and the number of visits of U.S. Secretaries of State to each country, respectively.
We include some control variables that are identified by the literature as determinants of bilateral trade. We use the level of development measured by logarithm of Gross Domestic Product per capita, PPP (constant 2011 international $) which is derived from the World Development Indicators. Countries with a higher level of economic development are expected to be more involved in trade and commercial exchange to be able to continue enjoying higher levels of living standards. We also include an indicator of the size of the country which is the logarithm of population. The size of the country determines whether the country needs to trade with other nations or whether domestic markets are sufficient.
We include an indicator that reflects the abundance and dependence on natural resources. We use the natural resource rents as a percentage of GDP from the World Development Indicators. The argument is that countries abundant in natural wealth will have less trade in other products as a possible consequence of the Dutch Disease.
We use an institutional indicator which is the Polity score extracted from the Polity IV Project. The Polity score captures a country's political regime on a 21-point scale ranging from -10 (strongly autocratic) to +10 (strongly democratic). The paper uses the Polity2 variable which is a modified version of the Polity variable by applying a simple treatment to convert instances of "standardized authority scores" (-66, -77, -88) to conventional polity scores within the range -10 to +10. Some studies, as stated in the literature, find that democratic countries trade more than autocratic ones. We also include a dummy if the country was not colonized, or was a British, French, or Spanish colony. The argument is that colonies have the tendency to trade more with their colonizer compared to other countries.
We also use a cultural variable that indicates whether the country shares the same language as the United States. This is a dummy variable equals tol if the country's language is English, and zero otherwise. Some studies argue that cultural proximity have significant effects on bilateral trade and economic exchange, as in (Guiso et al. 2009). We include a dummy which equals to 1 if the country has a common border with the United States, and a dummy which equals to 1 if the country is landlocked. Countries that have common borders with the United States have lower transportation costs and accordingly trade more with the United States. Countries that are landlocked are disadvantaged, as they are likely to trade less with other countries including the United States. We also include a dummy which equals to 1 if the country has a free trade agreement with the United States". Countries that signed trade agreements with the United States are more likely to engage in more bilateral trade flows with the United States.
ESTIMATION RESULTS
Baseline Results
In this section, we conduct an empirical estimation of the effect of the official visits by the U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State to the country on bilateral trade flows between the country and the United States during the period 1960-2015. Figure 3 shows the relationship between the number of official visits and bilateral trade with the United States.
To estimate these relationships empirically, we use the following gravity model as suggested by Head and Mayer (2014) which is the standard in the empirical international trade literature
Where Trade; is the value of trade with United States divided by the value of trade with the World for country i in year t. Official Visits; is the dummy variable for visits by U.S. Presidents or Secretaries of State to country i in year t. Ni is a vector of control variables in country i in year t. The vector of control variables includes those commonly identified in the literature as determinants of bilateral trade, which are discussed in the data section. The и; denotes a full set of country dummies, the o; denotes a full set of time effects that capture common shocks to bilateral trade of all countries, and ei is an error term capturing all other omitted factors, with E(ei) = 0 for all i and t.
The results of the Fixed Effects OLS estimated with robust standard errors clustered by country are included in table 2. In column 1, the variable of interest is the visits of U.S. Presidents. In column 2, the variable of interest is the visits of U.S. Secretaries of State. The results show that the visits of U.S. officials to the country do not have a statistically significant effect on the bilateral trade variable. These results imply that the visits by U.S. officials to the country are focused on issues other than the promotion of bilateral trade.
Endogeneity
The Fixed Effects OLS estimation assumes that the official visits are exogenous to bilateral trade flows. However, the problem of endogeneity cannot be ignored. First, the association may be spurious due to the failure to account for an unobserved factor which could be affecting both trade flows and official visits. Second, as much as trade flows can increase after the visits of the American officials to the country, these officials may be tempted to visit their major trading partners as well. This is either to ensure the smooth flow of trade, to synchronize their trade policies, to increase the volume and value of trade, or to contain any trade disputes. This highlights an issue of reverse causality.
To deal with potential endogeneity, we use the Endogenous Treatment model following (Endrich and Gutmann 2020). In this context, we estimate the following equation
Trade; = 6ац-1 + Xi-17 + Cit (2)
Where d is a binary indicator that takes the value 1 if a country is treated or visited by the U.S. President or Secretary of State. This model allows for the identification of causal effects, even if the selection into treatment is based on unobservable factors that also affect the outcome of interest. The identification strategy assumes the availability of one or more variables that affect treatment assignment without being directly related to the outcome of interest. This is referred to as the outcome model. To account for the endogeneity of treatment, the outcome model is complemented by a binary choice model that explains selection into treatment. This is referred to as the selection model as follows
d ·4= Zit-1 + Vit (3)
Where d·i is a latent variable assumed to be standard normally distributed. If this latent variable is above a threshold, the respective country-year is treated. In this case, Z is a vector of covariates that determine the likelihood of being selected into treatment. The vector Z does not have to overlap with the vector of covariates in the outcome model. This requires at least one variable in vector Z that is not included in vector X. This variable, or variables, needs to be significantly correlated with the likelihood of being treated, but uncorrelated with the error term of the outcome model. This variable is referred to as a treatment instrument.
In our vector Z, we include all variables that predict the probability of a country-year being treated or visited by the U.S. President or Secretary of State in a particular year. The first group of variables include Presidential dummies for U.S. Presidents Obama, Bush Jr., Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and Eisenhower. These are intended to capture differences in the general propensity to travel due to unobserved and time-invariant characteristics of the Presidents. To account for the changing propensity of American officials to travel during the time of their tenure, we control for a dummy variable that indicates whether the President is in the second term of his presidency. In this context, Lebovic and Saunders (2016) show that the second term affects the probability of bilateral visits by U.S. President and Secretary of State. We also include a dummy variable that indicates whether the President was hospitalized in a given year. This is intended to capture the physical ability of the President to travel at any given point in time. In addition, we include a dummy variable that indicates whether the country is a member of NATO. This is intended to capture the propensity of U.S. officials to enhance economic ties with the country for strategic purposes.
Table 3 shows the estimation results for the selection model and the outcome model, which are estimated simultaneously by maximum likelihood estimation. The results in table 3 show that the coefficient of the visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State are statistically significant and positive. These results imply that the official visits are used as an opportunity for the visitors to convene with the officials of their trading partner to conclude trade agreements, to determine how commercial exchange can satisfy the demands of their consumers, to contain trade disputes, and to discuss the elimination of trade barriers. This promotes bilateral trade with the United States, consistently with our intuition.
Types of Visits
Tables 4 and 5 include the results of the Endogenous Treatment model when we distinguish between the effect of different types of visits such as: incidental travel, bilateral meeting, multilateral meeting, pure ceremonial, and others. This categorization was established in Ostrander and Rider (2019). Incidental travel is defined as "A vacation, stopover in route, etc." Bilateral meeting is defined as "Event/meeting includes just the US and host country." Multilateral meeting is defined as "Event/meeting includes one or more representatives/leaders from non-host country. International conferences, multilateral celebrations/ceremonies/signings." Pure ceremonial visits occur when "The trip involves no meeting with government officials or negotiation. The trip is purely ceremonial to mark an occasion or attend a non-governmental event (perhaps funeral of famous person)" In these tables, the selection model is not included for space considerations.
Table 4 shows the results when our variable of interest is the visits of U.S. Presidents. The estimations results show a statistically significant positive coefficient for bilateral meeting and an insignificant effect for multilateral meetings. Table 5 shows the results when our variable of interest 1s the visits of U.S. Secretaries of State. The estimations results show a statistically significant positive coefficient for both bilateral meetings and pure ceremonial visits. These results imply that in a bilateral context when only the officials of both countries are meeting, we see that bilateral issues are discussed and addressed. That includes bilateral trade ties.
CONCLUSION
This paper examines the effect of the visits by U.S. officials to a country on bilateral trade flows between the country and the United States. In this context, we use variables that indicate the official visits from 1960-2015 from the historical archives of the U.S. State Department. We also use the value of bilateral trade with the United States as a fraction of trade with the entire world from the UNCOMTRADE. To deal with potential endogeneity, we use the endogenous treatment model.
The estimation results provide evidence that the official visits of U.S. Presidents and U.S. Secretaries of State have a statistically significant positive effect on bilateral trade with the United States. This is robust even after the inclusion of other control variables identified by the literature as confounding factors for trade flows. When we examine the effect of different types of visits, the results show that bilateral meetings have a statistically significant positive effect. These results imply that the bilateral meetings between U.S. officials and those of the country are taken as an opportunity to conclude trade agreements, to contain trade disputes, and to discuss the elimination of trade barriers between the two countries. This enhances the level of bilateral trade between the country and the United States.
This paper has multiple policy implications. The findings of the paper imply that one of the mechanisms for trade promotion is conducting diplomacy at the highest levels. This can be done through the official visits of American dignitaries, such as the U.S. Presidents and Secretares of State. These types of visits allow the officials in both countries to discuss trade issues, sign trade agreements, and eliminate trade obstacles. These issues can be easily resolved in this context compared to meetings with lower-level officials from both countries who do not have the same level of authority. The findings of the paper also imply that countries that wishes to promote bilateral trade with the United States, should be well prepared for the visits of U.S. officials and take this as an opportunity to address all issues pertinent to their bilateral trade. These visits are clearly used as a forum to promote bilateral trade, and being well prepared to discuss these issues will allow for a smoother and more productive interaction with their counterparts.
1 The countries included in the analysis are Taiwan, Canada, Liberia, Rwanda, Thailand, Czech Republic, Niger, Belize, USA, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Costa Rica, Malta, Ethiopia, Lao PDR, Libya, China, Turkey, Mongolia, Latvia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Republic of Moldova, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Burundi, Tanzania, Portugal, Malawi, Netherlands, Antigua and Barbuda, Macao, Gabon, Nigeria, Cuba, Swaziland, Tunisia, Bermuda, Mozambique, Oman, Bhutan, Nepal, Georgia, Angola, Armenia, Mali, Denmark, Burkina Faso, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Uganda, Comoros, Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Equatorial Guinea, Pakistan, Brunei, Kuwait, Algeria, Congo, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Eritrea, Honduras, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Haiti, Suriname, Benin, Germany, Norway, Lesotho, Central African Republic, Bahamas, Azerbaijan, Sao Tome and Principe, Singapore, Yemen, Fiji, Korea, Timor-Leste, Colombia, Albania, Djibouti, Nicaragua, Belarus, Jamaica, Madagascar, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ireland, Iran, France, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Peru, Viemam, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Bahrain, Gambia, Zambia, El Salvador, Ukraine, Spain, Croatia, Iraq, Grenada, Jordan, Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, Hong Kong, Russia, Belgium, Micronesia, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, Dominica, Qatar, Luxembourg, Slovak Republic, Indonesia, Macedonia, Austria, Lithuania, Chad, Afghanistan, Slovenia, Tonga, Cameroon, Chile, Poland, Cyprus, Argentina, Singapore, Romania, Sudan, Israel, Philippines, Ecuador, Barbados, Panama, Palau, Somalia, Seychelles, St. Lucia, Finland, Estonia, Cape Verde, Paraguay, Vanuatu, United Kingdom, Australia, Ttaly, Montenegro, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Guatemala, Guinea, Japan.
2 https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements
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