We use the new International Trade and Production Database for Estimation to obtain benchmark gravity estimates for an unprecedented range of 170 industries. We document differences and similarities of standard gravity variables across four broad sectors: Agriculture, Mining and Energy, Manufacturing, and Services. We test the robustness of our main estimates against some key data and estimation approaches from the related literature. The findings from these experiments confirm the robustness of our main findings and reinforce some stylized facts, while highlighting possible caveats for gravity estimation in other contexts.
Capitalizing on the latest developments in the gravity literature, we utilize two new datasets on sanctions and trade to study the impact of economic sanctions on international trade in the mining sector, which includes oil and natural gas. We demonstrate that the gravity equation is well suited to model bilateral trade in mining and find that sanctions have been effective in impeding mining trade. Our analysis reveals that complete trade sanctions have reduced bilateral mining trade by about 44 percent on average. We also document the presence of significant heterogeneity in the effects of sanctions on mining trade across mining industries and across sanction episodes/cases, depending on the sanctioning and sanctioned countries, the type of sanctions used, and the direction of trade flows. We take a close look at the impact of recent sanctions on Iran and Russia.
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