Trade potential in European Union manufacturing

PurposeThis study deals with changes in European Union's (EU's) trade potential in Machinery (HS 84-85) and Transportation (HS86-89) products.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a Structural Gravity model, Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimation together with panel data for the years 2002-2018 and a two-step procedure that employs predicted values of bilateral trade to compare potential to actual trade.FindingsResults for Machinery products suggest a potential to expand trade with existing Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in the American continent, and countries of the IGAD region in Africa. In Transportation, a high trade potential with RTAs is found in the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. Policy suggestions concentrate on opportunities for enhancing trade relations through trade liberalization and agreement proliferation.Originality/valueThere are no studies to date, that examine "collective" measure of EU trade potential, that treats the EU as a single country. Changes in existing opportunities to expand trade, common for EU members, are of special interest for policy formulation, especially after the recent turmoil presented by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Greek Economic Crisis (GEC). Treating the EU as a single entity, is necessary for the formulation of an effective, common, EU trade policy. This study concentrates on the manufacturing sector to examine existing opportunities for the EU to expand trade, after the GFC and the GEC. This article deals with Machinery (HS 84 and 85) and Transportation (HS 86 through 89) products as they comprise a significant part of total EU exports, reaching 41% of total exports in 2016. Finally, this study offers a unique illustration of results through trade potential heat maps.