“…Deltas, Desmet, and Facchini (), developing a simple model of comparative advantage, conclude that due to the decrease in trade among the two spokes, the hub will increase trade with both the spokes. For concerns related to empirical studies, the main contributions are from De Benedictis, De Santis, and Vicarelli (), who analysed the effects of the east enlargement of the EU in a gravity model; Deltas, Desmet, and Facchini (), on the hub‐and‐spoke system formed by Israel, the US and Europe; Hur, Alba, and Park () and Lee, Park, and Shin (), who use a panel of bilateral trade from 1960 to 1999 to investigate the average effect of being a hub in bilateral trade between the countries. These studies consider the hub‐and‐spoke characteristics in a three‐country setting, where the effects of the hub on bilateral trade are determined by a dichotomic variable related to whether the country is a hub or not a hub, finding mixing evidence.…”