Bilateral trade and shocks in political relations: Evidence from China and some of its major trading partners, 1990-2013

An extensive number of studies investigate the effects of political relations on trade by estimating a gravity model using annual (or quarterly) data. We argue that the use of low-frequency data introduces an aggregation bias because the cycle of moderate political shocks is much shorter (measured in weeks). Using monthly data from 1990 through 2013 for China, we estimate a model of political relations and conclude that political shocks are short-lived. Narrative evidence from two case studies illustrates the transitory nature of these shocks. A VAR model shows that although political shocks influence exports to China, the effects largely vanish within two months. A comparison of the monthly- and annual-frequency gravity equation regressions illustrates the effects of temporal aggregation.