Blockchain technology, a distributed and decentralized ledger, has gained significant prominence in the sphere of information technology for introducing new innovations in international trade. It ensures safety and can reduce trade costs by removing the middleman from the trade process. Studies examining the effects of blockchain on international trade are scarce. This research aims to fill this research gap. By using time series world data for the period 2009–2018, this study empirically examines the link between blockchain and international trade. It uses a cointegration test and a generalized linear model (GLM) test to analyse the data. The robust findings of this research reveal that blockchain has positive effects on international trade. The findings further displays that blockchain accelerates and facilitates international trade and that there exists a unidirectional causality from blockchain to international trade. The research findings are of great significance for policymakers in developing policies to foster the use of blockchain applications as a facilitator of international trade.
AbasimiI.LiX.KhanM. I. (2018). The impacts of institutions on International Trade in Ghana’s economic perspective. International Journal of Academic Research in Economics and Management Sciences, 7(4), 3–43.
2.
AyecheM. B.BarhoumiM.HammasM. A. (2016). Causal linkage between economic growth, financial development, trade openness and CO2 emissions in european countries. American Journal of Environmental Engineering, 6(4), 110–122.
3.
BeluM. G. (2019). Application of blockchain in international trade: An overview. Romanian Economic Journal, 22(71), 2–15.
4.
BottonN. (2018). Blockchain and trade: Not a fix for Brexit, but could revolutionise global value chains(ECIPE Policy Brief No. 1/2018). European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE).
5.
ChangS. E.ChenY. C.WuT. C. (2019). Exploring blockchain technology in international trade. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 119(8), 1712–1733.
6.
CivelekM. E.ÖzalpA. (2018). Blockchain technology and final challenge for paperless foreign trade. Eurasian Academy of Sciences Eurasian Business & Economics Journal, 15, 1–8.
DavidsonS.De FilippiP.PottsJ. (2018). Blockchains and the economic institutions of capitalism. Journal of Institutional Economics, 14(4), 639–658.
9.
DerindagO. F.YaryginaI. Z.TsarevR. Y. (2020). International trade and blockchain technologies: implications for practice and policy. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 421(2), 1–5.
10.
DickeyD. A.FullerW. A. (1979). Distribution of the estimators for autoregressive time series with a unit root. Journal of the American statistical association, 74(366a), 427–431.
11.
DoanhN. K.HeoY. (2007). Impacts of intellectual property rights on trade flows in asean countries. Journal of International and Area Studies, 14(1), 1–15.
12.
ElliottG.RothenbergT. J.StockJ. H. (1996). Efficient tests for an autoregressive unit root. Econometrica, 64(4), 813–836.
13.
EvansO. (2019). Blockchain technology and the financial market: an empirical analysis. Actual Problems of Economics, 1(211), 82–101.
14.
GanneE. (2018). Can Blockchain revolutionize international trade?World Trade Organization.
15.
GrangerC. W. (1969). Investigating causal relations by econometric models and cross-spectral methods. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 37(3), 424–438.
16.
HaberS.StornettaW. S. (1991). How to time-stamp a digital document. Journal of Cryptology, 3, 99–111.
17.
HaqM.LuqmanM. (2014). The contribution of international trade to economic growth through human capital accumulation: Evidence from nine Asian countries. Cogent Economics & Finance, 2(1), 1–13.
18.
HansenB. E. (1992). Testing for parameter instability in linear models. Journal of policy Modeling, 14(4), 517–533.
19.
JanssenM.WeerakkodyV.IsmagilovaE.SivarajahU.IraniZ. (2020). A framework for analysing blockchain technology adoption: Integrating institutional, market and technical factors. International Journal of Information Management, 50, 302–309.
20.
JouiniJ. (2015). Linkage between international trade and economic growth in GCC countries: Empirical evidence from PMG estimation approach. The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 24(3), 341–372.
21.
JumaH.ShaalanK.KamelI. (2019). A survey on using blockchain in trade supply chain solutions. IEEE Access, 7, 1–20.
22.
KarbalaeiA.Md-YusufM.HoC. S. (2014). Trade competitiveness determinants in emerging markets and developed countries. Capital Markets Review, 22(1&2), 27–40.
23.
KeenM. M.SyedM. M. H. (2006). Domestic taxes and international trade: some evidence(IMF Working Paper No. 6–47). International Monetary Fund.
24.
LaneP. R.Milesi-FerrettiG. M. (2008). International investment patterns. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(3), 538–549.
25.
LiuZ.LiZ. (2019). A blockchain-based framework of cross-border e-commerce supply chain. International Journal of Information Management, 52, 102059.
26.
LoebbeckeC.LueneborgL.NiederleD. (2018). Blockchain technology impacting the role of trust in transactions: Reflections in the case of trading diamonds. Paper presented at the 26th European Conference on Information Systems: Beyond Digitization—Facets of Socio-Technical Change, ECIS. http://ecis2018.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2038-doc.pdf
27.
McDanielC. A.NorbergH. C. (2019). Can blockchain technology facilitate international trade?(Mercatus Research Paper, pp. 1–23). Mercatus Center, George Mason University.
28.
MátyásL. (1997). Proper econometric specification of the gravity model. World Economy, 20(3), 363–368.
29.
MihajlovM.Toshevska-TrpchevskaK.KikerkovaI. (2019). Towards the application of blockchain technology for improving trade facilitation in CEFTA 2006. Ekonomska misao i praksa, 1, 209–222.
30.
NakamotoS. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
31.
NoferM.GomberP.HinzO.SchiereckD. (2017). Blockchain. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 59(3), 183–187.
32.
PhillipsP. C.PerronP. (1988). Testing for a unit root in time series regression. Biometrika, 75(2), 335–346.
33.
QinX.NdiegeB. O. (2013). Role of financial development in economic growth: Evidence from savings and credits cooperative societies in Tanzania. International Journal of Financial Research, 4(2), 115–126.
34.
QiuH.LiuY.SubrahmanyaN. A.LiW. (2012). Granger causality for time-series anomaly detection. In 2012 IEEE 12th international conference on data mining (pp. 1074–1079). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDM.2012.73
35.
SaberiS.KouhizadehM.SarkisJ.ShenL. (2019). Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management. International Journal of Production Research, 57(7), 2117–2135.
36.
SimionescuM. (2014). The relationship between trade and foreign direct investment in G7 Countries a panel data approach. Journal of Economics and Development Studies, 2(2), 447–454.
37.
StockmanA. C. (1981). Effects of inflation on the pattern of international trade. The Canadian Journal of Economics, 18(3), 587–601.
38.
TodaH. Y.YamamotoT. (1995). Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes. Journal of econometrics, 66(1–2), 225–250.
39.
WooldridgeJ. M. (2015). Introductory econometrics: A modern approach. Nelson Education.
40.
World Economic Forum, (2018). Trade tech—A new age for trade and supply chain finance. https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/trade-techa-new-age-for-trade-and-supply-chain-finance
41.
ZhengZ.XieS.DaiH. N.ChenX.WangH. (2018). Blockchain challenges and opportunities: A survey. International Journal of Web and Grid Services, 14(4), 352–375.
