Impact of cross-border data flows on goods and services flows in international trade

Objective: to assess the impact of cross-border data flows on imports and exports.

Methods: static panel data models, graphical method.

Results: the paper shows that currently the issues of the digitalization impact on economic processes are insufficiently studied from an empirical point of view, and the conclusions obtained by the researchers are quite contradictory. To assess the impact of digitalization, the authors formed a model with fixed effects, the variables of which are indicators of exports and imports of goods and services of geographical macro-regions, the use of international bandwidth, oil rents, investment indicators, etc. The main conclusion is that the use of international data transmission channels has a statistically significant effect on export and import flows. Modeling in terms of geographical macro-regions showed that the impact of international data flows on export and import flows was uneven.

Scientific novelty: the negative impact of international data flows on exports in Latin America and the Caribbean and imports in Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific is shown. A quantitative assessment of the impact of cross-border data flows on international trade flows gives grounds to assert the ambiguous consequences of digital transformation in relation to international trade for certain geographical macro-regions.

Practical significance: conclusions based on the study results can become the basis for assessing the consequences of measures aimed at increasing the country’s involvement in the globalization and digitalization processes. The study results can also be used to further assess the impact of international data flows on international trade indicators during external shocks and to determine the specifics of this relationship during increased macroeconomic instability and risk.

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