Disentangling Market Access Effects of Preferential Trading Arrangements with an Application for ASEAN Members under an ASEAN–EU FTA

The paper develops two synthetic measures at the HS‐10 level to depict effective market access for a country receiving preferential access and applies these to the market access ASEAN members would receive following the implementation of an FTA with the EU. First, the measures show that current effective market access for ASEAN EBA members is cut in half by the preferences granted by the EU to countries that compete with these countries in the EU markets. Second, the measures show that about one‐quarter of the preferential margin under the proposed FTA for EBA members would be lost as a result of preferential access granted to ASEAN GSP members. Third, disaggregated estimates of the restrictiveness of rules of origin confirm that rules are more restrictive for products with higher preferential margins and that ASEAN countries usually face tougher rules of origin in the EU because of the composition of their exports.     

The Most and the Least Favoured Nations: Norway's Trade Policy in Perspective

This article reviews some recent developments in Norway's trade policy, in the light of the WTO's Trade Policy Review of Norway, 2004. A main focus is on the relationship between MFN trade policy and Norway's numerous preferential trade arrangements. In spite of a growing number of free trade agreements the paper suggests that Norway's trade regime has not become more discriminatory. The reason is that cuts in MFN tariffs as well as improvements in GSP have eroded preference margins in manufacturing faster than the coverage of free trade agreements has expanded. As a result of liberalisation, the trade regime for manufacturing has become less discriminatory, not more. While Norway is on the whole a liberal‐minded supporter of the world trade system, it has twice in recent history reacted with protectionism. Around 1980, a restrictive quota regime for clothing was implemented. This has later been dismantled, contributing to sharply increased imports from developing countries. For agriculture, Norway has currently high protection, and tariff preferences are limited. It is likely that agricultural protection will be gradually reduced due to the WTO, as well as through free trade agreements and improvements in GSP.     

Failure to Deliver: The Investment Effects of US Preferential Economic Agreements

Global trade and investment rules are increasingly determined by bilateral and regional agreements, which are widely expected to increase economic ties between the signatories. Even though the United States is a relative newcomer to these narrower economic agreements, it has signed several different types with dozens of partner countries. These agreements, which often require partners to make costly policy changes, are nonetheless attractive because they provide preferential access to the US market and promise increased inward investment. In this paper, we compare the investment effects of three different types of agreements and find little evidence that existing international agreements (trade and investment framework agreements, bilateral investment treaties or preferential trade agreements) tend to increase investment from the United States. After exploring other potential explanations, we conclude that US treaty partners may have unrealistic expectations for agreements to increase direct investment.     

Convergence in the Americas: Some Lessons from the DR‐CAFTA Process

The proliferation of trade agreements in the Americas is a major cause for concern as it might fragment or inhibit the emergence of a hemispheric trading system. In addition to establishing a free trade area between the US and six countries in Latin America, the DR‐CAFTA consolidates a set of trade arrangements among those six Latin American countries. The approaches and techniques employed to achieve this consolidation should be studied by policy analysts and negotiators of broader hemispheric‐wide negotiations since the DR‐CAFTA is in fact a microcosm of the spaghetti bowl of trade agreements now existing in the Americas. This paper points out the potential consequences of the proliferation of trade agreements in the Americas and provides an analysis of the convergence techniques and approaches used in the DR‐CAFTA, in particular in the areas of market access and rules of origin.     

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and its Rules of Origin: Generosity Undermined?

This paper describes the United States recently enacted Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and assesses its quantitative impact on African exports. The AGOA expands the scope of preferential access of Africa's exports to the United States in key areas such as clothing. However, its medium‐term benefits – estimated at about US$100‐$140 million, an 8−11 per cent addition to current non‐oil exports – would have been nearly five times greater (US$540 million) if no restrictive conditions had been imposed on the terms of market access. The most important of these conditions are the rules of origin with which African exporters of clothing must comply to benefit from duty‐free access.     

Rules of Origin and the EU‐Med Partnership: The Case of Textiles

This paper analyses the impact of rules of origin on patterns of trade in the context of the pan‐European system of diagonal cumulation. The paper first highlights the importance of rules of origin in all preferential trading arrangements while arguing that those rules can easily lead to trade suppression and/or trade diversion. We then focus on the introduction of the pan‐European system in 1997 and show evidence to suggest that the introduction of the system materially impacted on trade between the EU, and its CEFTA, EFTA and Baltic states partner countries. The main body of the paper then empirically explores the impact of the lack of cumulation in the textile industry on the countries of the Southern Mediterranean. The results suggest that rules of origin may indeed substantially constrain trade between non‐cumulating countries, possibly by as much as 70–80 per cent in aggregate. While preferential trading agreements thus serve to increase intra‐PTA trade through the liberalisation of trade barriers, they may also be doing so by effectively raising external barriers to trade through the use of constraining rules of origin. To the extent that they do so increases the likelihood of trade diversion and trade suppresion.     

Sweet and Sour Changes in Trade Regimes

Sugar is an important export for a number of developing countries, especially in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions. In many of these countries, preferential access to the EU market has been a key factor to develop their sugar sectors. The recent and proposed changes to the international sugar trade regimes, particularly in the EU, are threatening this preferential access. We study the possible implications of such changes on ACP countries’ sugar production and exports by using a spatial price equilibrium model specifically developed for the sugar market. The results suggest that the effects of these changes are likely to vary according to the prevailing level of world sugar market price and according to whether ACP countries are current exporters to the EU.     

欧盟、北美优惠性原产地规则对我国的借鉴

经济全球化的加剧使得中间品贸易越来越频繁,最终产品的国籍变得越来越模糊。在我国参与组建更多区域性优惠贸易协定时,优惠性原产地规则显然成为一项重要的贸易政策工具。欧盟与北美两大地区的原产地规则已在世界范围内造成广泛影响,为我国原产地规则的制定提供了有益的参考。在简单介绍原产地规则后着重研究了欧盟与北美的优惠性原产地规则。在分析我国原产地规则的基础上,从欧美的实践总结出几点启示,即我国应逐步完善制度性管理规则,逐渐协调和统一原产地规则并结合自身目标综合使用标准。     

EU Trade Preferences and Export Diversification

Since at least the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has offered various kinds of non‐reciprocal trade preferences for developing countries. Originally, these trade preferences had at least two policy goals: (i) to increase export volumes for developing countries and thereby boost their export earnings and (ii) to facilitate export diversification. While extensive research has confirmed that the first of these goals is typically met, the second goal seems to have been largely forgotten by researchers as well as in policy circles. The aim of this paper was therefore to analyse the impact of the EU's non‐reciprocal trade preferences for developing countries on export diversification. Our estimation results suggest that some trade preference programmes, such as the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), lead to increasing ranges of export products. By contrast, preferences offered to Mediterranean countries typically have no significant effects, and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) preferences actually have negative effects towards the end of our time period, suggesting that ACP countries may respond to preferences by specialising into fewer goods.     

How Do US Economic Sanctions Affect EU's Trade with Target Countries?

We investigate the impact of US economic sanctions on EU's trade using a panel data approach expressed in a two‐level framework. Both multilateral and unilateral sanctions involving the US and the EU have a negative impact on EU trade (total, imports and exports). We argue that unilateral sanctions, if extensive in nature, would have a depressing impact on target countries’ trade, especially in the stage after sanctions have been imposed. Over time, both multilateral and unilateral sanctions lead to an increase in a target country's exports to the EU, lending support to the third‐country effect of sanctions.     

TTIP – Probleme und Chancen

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is the most important trade policy decision that European leaders have faced in many years. The new generation of free trade agreements, including TTIP, aim at deep economic integration. Thus, they are essentially focused upon the removal or alignment of standards, regulations and administrative procedures that impede international trade and investment. Therefore, TTIP goes beyond the dimensions of traditional preferential trade agreements in the sense that it not only concerns tariffs and non tariff barriers to trade in goods, but it also concerns trade in services and the foreign investment environment. Regulatory cooperation under TTIP might thus well extend into core domains of public policy, including health and food safety or environmental regulation. Regulation, however, confers both benefits and costs to society. A proper assessment of TTIP must therefore also consider the benefits of regulation to society and must embed regulatory cooperation between the EU and US into a firm democratic framework. The potential of such an agreement is substantial, due to improved market access, regulatory cooperation and greater global reach, while the downside risk is limited. While some of the arguments critical of TTIP are justified, others seem rather excessive and seem intent on stirring up unnecessary anxiety among the population. An objective and constructive discussion is crucial to ensure that the needs of the population are heard during the negotiation process and that an agreement capable of achieving majority support can be concluded. The debate over TTIP has to consider not only the economic effects of increased trade but also the legal and political dimensions of the trade agreement.     

Trade Effects of the European Union's Service Directive: Contrasting ex ante Estimates with Empirical Evidence

One of the top priorities to improve the European Union's growth performance is the creation of a single market for services. The directive on services adopted by the Parliament and the Council by the end of 2006 aims at removing barriers to the free movement of service providers on the internal market. Previous studies quantified ex ante sizable effects of implementing the directive in its original form. This paper is a first attempt to evaluate ex post the trade effects induced by a directive – which excludes the country‐of‐origin principle – by performing a difference‐in‐difference‐(in‐differences) estimator on a sample of EU‐ and non‐EU countries in the period 2004 to 10. We account for non‐tariff trade barriers and the endogeneity of regional trade agreements and find that the service directive adds to a reallocation of business services trade within the EU. Accounting for the trade effect of past deregulations, the EU directive fosters a deeper integration of the new member states into the European service value‐added‐chain and promotes business service exports from third countries towards the EU significantly more than trade of country pairs in the control group. The reorientation of the EU‐15 towards the new members is in turn associated with less intense intra‐EU‐10 businesses, while business trade between EU‐15 members is not significantly affected.     

The EU's Free–trade Agreements with Developing Countries: A Case of Wishful Thinking?

Since the middle of the1990s the EU has vigorously pursued a policy of replacing non– reciprocal preferences for the developing countries in the Mediterranean, Latin America and with South Africa, with bilateral free–trade agreements. This article examines the content of these agreements and the empirical evidence on their likely effects and concludes that they are ‘broad’ but ‘shallow’ agreements. The static effect are likely to be very small or negative while the potential dynamic gains are problematic, especially regarding the concept of a ‘lock in’ to trade liberalisation, unless there are greater commitments to trade related issues by both sides and especially by the EU.     

Chile's Trade and Regional Integration Policy: An Assessment

This paper examines the economics, politics and political economy of Chile's trade and regional integration (RI) policies, and reaches the following conclusions. First, Chile is likely to obtain static and dynamic benefits from a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US, though the benefits depend crucially on the extent to which its market access to the US improves and on the costs of implementing the intellectual property rights agreement and of enforcing the rules of origin. Second, potential benefits are more doubtful with respect to FTAs with MERCOSUR and the Andean Pact and Central American countries.Third, Chile should complement its ongoing negotiations with the EU by negotiating FTAs with key Asian countries.Fourth, Chile should bind all its tariffs at the WTO at the applied MFN uniform tariff rate. Fifth, the uniform MFN tariff should be reduced below six percent after 2003.     

Preferential Rules of Origin and the Multilateral Trading System: Pro-Development Policy Options

With the proliferation of regional trade agreements since the late 1980s and early 1990s, preferential rules of origin have also proliferated. The discussion on these rules has gradually shifted from a purely technical discussion (“how to establish the origin of goods not wholly obtained in one country”, and hence, “how to apply trade preferences in these cases”) to a wider discussion also touching upon the transaction costs caused by having a “spaghetti bowl” of rules, and the actual or presumed neo-protectionist use that is being made of them. In the context of the discussion on possible policy options for developing countries simultaneously involved in (or negotiating) regional and multilateral trade agreements, this article will first give a brief overview of the findings of the recent empirical literature. Some indications are then presented as to what such policy options could look like. This paper was first presented at the Ad-hoc Expert Group Meeting on The Development Interface between the Multilateral Trading System and Regional Trade Agreements, Session III Regulatory Provisions in RTAs, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 15-16 March 2007. It is partly based on P. De Lombaerde, L. J. Garay : Preferential Rules of Origin: EU and NAFTA Regulatory Models and the WTO, in: The Journal of World Investment & Trade, Vol. 6, No. 6, 2005, pp. 953-994; and L. J. Garay, P. De Lombaerde: Preferential Rules of Origin: Models and Levels of Rulemaking, in: S. Woolcock (ed.): Trade and Investment Rulemaking: The Role of Regional and Bilateral Agreements, Tokyo 2006, UNU Press, pp. 78-106.     

The FTA Music Is Playing in Asia: After ECFA,Will Taiwan Join the Dance?

In the context of stalled multilateral trade negotiations, major trading economies are seeking free trade agreements (FTAs) to secure their market access objectives. Nowhere is this dynamic stronger than in East Asia, where a web of bilateral and plurilateral agreements is stitching together piecewise an Asian free trade area that could plausibly rival the EU and NAFTA trade blocs and where the possibility of a formal pan-Asian agreement has been raised. Taiwan has been largely excluded from this dynamic. However, with the June 29, 2010 signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, the possibility of Taiwan joining the FTA dance in East Asia would appear to have been greatly strengthened as the advocates had anticipated. This article considers the economic and trade implications of Taiwan's participation versus non-participation in an emerging East Asian trade bloc. We support our analysis with simulations using the GTAP computable general equilibrium model. The article finds that the benefits to Taiwan of participating in such a bloc have increased, as have the opportunity costs of exclusion, since the share of East Asian partners in its trade has risen.     

Free trade agreements in a small,open country: The case of Norway

Negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) has been a high political priority for Norway. Today, it has agreements with 41 countries outside the European Union (EU)/the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), resulting in one of the world's most extensive FTA networks. FTAs cover about 10% of Norway's trade—a share likely to increase in the future. These agreements eliminate tariffs on a substantial number of traded products and have gradually become more comprehensive, covering an expanding range of non‐tariff areas. Hence, they may have trade‐promoting effects beyond tariff reductions as such. On the other hand, the non‐tariff provisions often do not go further than what has already been dealt with in other international agreements or practised domestically, so their overall effect may be limited.     

New Bilateralism in the Asia–Pacific

This paper reviews recent changes in the geographic pattern of regional trading agreements (RTAs), focusing on examples from the Asia–Pacific area. The general pattern is one of new bilateral agreements combined with a trend towards continentalism. The new trend towards bilateralism can be explained largely by a fear of countries being excluded from their major markets as other countries secure preferential and superior access to these markets. This pattern is creating many intersections between RTAs with consequential multi–tiered preferences and multiple systems of trade rules. Viewed dynamically, however, this pattern may have positive effects on world trade. It mitigates the effects of large continental RTAs and may lead to coalescence or enlargement of RTAs. The paper reviews models which ask the important question as to whether this process will progress all the way to free trade for the world economy.     

European Union Market Access Conditions and Africa's Extensive Margin of Food Trade

This paper examines the impact of two European Union (EU) market access regulations in the food sector presumed to simultaneously affect firms’ decisions to export food products to the EU. We analysed EU pesticide standards on African exports alongside a complementary non‐tariff measure in the form of a minimum entry price regulation, which aims to protect EU growers of certain fruits and vegetables against international competition. Analysis was based on Africa's exports of tomatoes, oranges, and lime and lemon to the EU between 2008 and 2013, using the gravity model of trade. Our results show that EU market access conditions constitute significant barrier to the formation of new trade relation between the EU and Africa. In addition, initiation of trade relationships is contingent not only on market access conditions but also on domestic market constraints in Africa. These results imply that negotiating preferential entry prices duties and the removal of domestic market restraints as well as strengthening domestic capacity to comply with EU standards to enhance continuous market access for the continent could stimulate food trade along the extensive margin.     

The Dilemma of Enlargement for the European Union's Regional Policy

The integration of the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe into the European Union creates a dilemma for the EU's regional policy. The EU's expenditure on regional policy (its ‘active’ regional policy) has been guided by political reactions to deepening or enlarging the EU, not by a rational strategy for regional policy. In contrast, the strong EU instrument of state aid control, developed for competition policy (its ‘reactive’ regional policy) has been relatively successful in avoiding a national race of regional subsidies among the member states. We show that a shift from active regional policy to reactive, competition‐oriented, regional policies is the preferred way for the established member states to handle the challenge of enlargement. At the same time, however, this shift is politically difficult for the accession countries to accept, despite the fact that this shift might prove better for them economically. This regional policy dilemma is one of the major obstacles for the full integration of the accession countries into the EU.