Issue 22(2), 2022, pp. 224-233 https://doi.Org/10.18757/ejtir.2022.22.2.5773 TU Delft OPEN EJTIRISSN: 1567-7141 http://ejtir.tudelft.nl/ The border effect in European air transport Zdeněk Tomeš1 Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Vlastimil Reichel2 Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Štěpán Veselý3 Kiwi.com, Czech Republic. This article deals with the analysis of the border effect i n European air transport. The border effect measures how trade or transport flows are diminished w h e n they cross a national border. This topic has attracted a great deal of attention within trade, but it is still little studied within transport. Existing studies have estimated that the border effect diminished air passenger transport flows by a factor of five to six. However, there have been many changes i n the European economy and transport since those studies. Our estimate based on a new data set suggested the existence of a border effect i n European passenger air traffic flows, albeit with a lower value of around two. A possible reason for the lower value is the growing integration of the European economy and the development of low-cost carriers i n Europe between 2000 and 2019. Our econometric analysis also found differences i n border effects among European countries. N o significant border effect was detected for France, but we d i d find high and significant effects for Germany, Spain, and Poland. These differences can be attributed to different intensities of intermodal competition on domestic routes. Publishing history Submitted: 28 lune 2021 Accepted: 13 lune 2022 Published: 24 lune 2022 Cite as Tomeš, Z., Reichel, V . & Veselý, Š. (2022). The border effect i n European air transport. European lournal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 22(2), 224-233. © 2022 Zdeněk Tom, Reichel Vlastimil, Veselý Štěpán This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) Keywords: border effect, air transport, gravity model, liberalization. 1 A : Department of Economics, Lipová 41a, 602 00 Brno-Pisárky, E: tomes@econ.muni.cz 2 A : Department of Economics, Lipová 41a, 602 00 Brno-Pisárky, E: reichel.v@mail.muni.cz 3 A : Lazaretní 925/9, 615 00 Brno - Zábrdovice, E: stepan.vesely@kiwi.com EJTIR 22(2), 2022, pp.224-233 Tomes, Reichel and Vesely The border effect i n European air transport 225 1. Introduction The border effect is an empirical regularity that affects both international trade and transport. National borders create an obstacle that significantly diminishes mutual exchange. The seminal paper i n the analysis of the border effect was one by M c C a l l u m (1995), who analysed trade patterns among Canadian provinces and US states. Controlling for G D P , population, and mutual distance, he concluded that, on average, Canadian provinces were 22 times more likely to trade with other Canadian provinces than with US states. This revelation attracted a great deal of attention because it seemed hard to believe that such an open border could create such a trade obstacle. M u c h subsequent research has tried to confirm or refute this result. Despite significant advances i n methodology and estimation techniques, the border effect is an important and significant determinant of international trade flows (Havránek - Iršová 2017). The literature on the border effect i n the field of international trade is very rich. In contrast, there is only scarce evidence of border effects i n international transport, although the impact of borders on transport flows has generally been recognized (Gerondeau 1997, Nash 2015). The evidence on the border effect i n land passenger transport is limited, with scarce evidence from Rietveld (2012). More evidence can be found within air transport, where two specialized studies have emerged (Klodt 2004, Hazledine 2009) with estimates for the border effect lying i n the range of five to six. There has been a conjecture that the border effect may actually have become smaller over the past two decades. The reason for this conjecture is the development of low-cost carriers, which have opened and developed many new international connections (Calzada - Fageda, 2019). In addition, the liberalization of air transport i n Europe (Mason et al. 2016) may have stimulated a decline i n the border effect. Anecdotal evidence that can support this conjecture can be derived from Eurostat figures, where from 2005 to 2017 the number of passengers at the top five international routes i n European passenger air transport grew by 45% while the top five national routes declined by 11% (EU 2005, 2017). The aim of the present paper is to estimate what the value of the border effect i n European air transport was i n 2019. It further aims to analyse whether border effects can be different for different countries. The methodology of the paper utilizes the standard augmented gravity model. The explained variable is the seat capacity on European air routes i n November 2019, regressed on G D P , population, distance, and a border dummy. In addition, other control variables were utilized, such as common language and tourist destinations. The structure of this paper is as follows. It starts with a literature review that analyses the border effect i n trade and transport. Section 3 describes the methodology and data that we utilized. Section 4 includes results and interpretations, and Section 5 concludes. 2. Literature Review The question of h o w much national borders change the volume of trade has been widely analysed. This flow of literature started with a seminal paper by M c C a l l u m (1995), who investigated the border effect i n the context of the Canada-US border. M c C a l l u m utilized data on the trade of Canadian provinces with other Canadian provinces and US states. His methodological approach was to use a gravity equation i n log-linearized form, controlling for G D P and distance. A d u m m y variable for domestic trade (Canadian interprovincial) was estimated as 3.09, which, after exponentiating,4 generated a border effect of 22. This was an unexpectedly large value. M c C a l l u m documented these effects through the example of the gravity model predicting that Ontario and Quebec should export about 10 times as much to California as to British Columbia. The distance is roughly the same, but Californian G D P is 10 times that of British Columbia. In reality, however, 4edom