THE EFFECT OF THE INTERNET ON TRADE FLOWS

Today’s, ICT is a key element of economic, social and cultural development of different countries. Electronic commerce is one of the aspects of objective information and communication technology revolution in economic scopes. Emerge of the Internet and its being commercial has revolutionized traditional procedures of trade in recent decades. The target of this research is evaluating the effects of Internet on trade flows. This research is on the base of a theoretical model of the effects of Internet development on trade flows, and empirically; panel data predictions were studied. In this order, 30 countries within different geographic zones in framework of FreundWeinhold model were used. The estimation of models in the context of panel data show that the increasing in number of Internet users have positive and significant effect at level 5 percent on bilateral export and trade volume in exporters and importers countries within period of 2001-2008. Results of this research, theoretically and empirically, show that Internet is efficient, and is encouragement to policy makers for preparing basis and infrastructures of Internet, because, it could increase export and society welfare.