A Study on the Determinants of Bilateral Trade

Purpose – Recently, the trade war between China and US has been escalating, which has also attracted worldwide attention. Based on this background, this paper sets China and US as an example to explore the determinants of bilateral trade between China and US. Research design, date, and methodology – A quarterly data from the 2000-Q1 to the 2017-Q4 will be used to perform an empirical analysis under some econometric approaches such as the fully modified least squares and the vector error correction estimates. Result – The results illustrate that the two economic entities of China and US have the greatest positive effect on bilateral trade between China and US. The real exchange rate has a positive effect on bilateral trade between China and US. The nominal exchange rate has a negative effect on bilateral trade between China and US in the short run. US’s average price has a positive effect on bilateral trade between China and US in the short run. China’s average price has a negative effect on bilateral trade between China and US in the short run. Meanwhile, the bilateral trade between China and US also suffers from the economic crisis happened in 2008. Even through the bilateral trade between China and US in the short run is deviate from the long-run equilibrium, there exist an error correction mechanism back to the long-run equilibrium. Conclusion – This paper provides some empirical evidences for both governments. Based on the results of this paper, both governments should take corresponding measures to promote the development of bilateral trade between China and US.