An Analysis of the Determinats of Intra-Industry Trade: The Case of Spanish Foreign Trade

This paper analyzes the patterns of intra-industry trade observed in Spanish foreign trade and assesses the merits of alternative hypotheses in explaining the determinants of such trade. The results of the econometric analysis support the predictions of the theoretical models. These results show that Spanish intra-industry trade is positively correlated with per capita income, the size of the economies, the existence of a common border and EU membership, while it is negatively correlated with distance and differences in per capita income.