Port infrastructures and trade: Empirical evidence from Brazil

In this study, we analyse the impact of port infrastructure on trade by estimating a gravity equation for exports (imports) of Brazilian states towards (from) all main Brazil's trading partners. In particular, we consider exports (imports) of the 27 Brazilian states towards (from) 30 of Brazil's most important trading partners over the period 2009–2012. By estimating a set of gravity equations with the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator, we find that an increase in port infrastructure (as proxied by the piers extension in each Brazilian state normalized by that state's area) is associated to large increases in Brazilian exports, while the impact on imports is more mixed and generally lower. Our results are robust to controlling for a series of state and country fixed effects.