Non‐Reciprocal Trade Preferences and the Role of Compliance Costs in the Agricultural Sector: Exports to the EU |
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| Authors: | Mariarosaria Agostino Federica Demaria Francesco Trivieri |
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| Institution: | Mariarosaria Agostino, Federica Demaria and Francesco Trivieri are based in the Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Calabria, Cubo 1‐C, Ponte P.Bucci 87036, Rende (CS), Italy. E‐mail: for correspondence. The authors are indebted to two anonymous referees, the editor‐in‐chief David Harvey, Giovanni Anania, Luca De Benedictis and Luca Salvatici for their valuable observations and suggestions. They also thank Paola Cardamone, Anne Célia Disdier and Sophie Droguè for their useful comments. Any remaining errors are solely the authors’ responsibility. Financial support received by the ‘New Issues in Agricultural, Food and Bio‐energy Trade (AGFOODTRADE)’ (Small and Medium‐scale Focused Research Project, Grant Agreement No. 212036) research projects funded by the European Commission, and by the ‘European Union policies, economic and trade integration processes and WTO negotiations’ research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (Scientific Research Programs of National Relevance 2007) is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. |
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| Abstract: | We investigate whether non‐reciprocal preferential regimes granted by the European Union have an impact on agricultural export flows from beneficiary countries while accounting for the costs of compliance that may prevent exporters from taking full advantage of potential benefits. Compliance costs are heterogeneous and difficult to measure. We proxy their influence and specify a model that allows for a different preferential margin impact according to the proxy costs. Adopting the gravity framework and using a sample of 554 lines of agricultural products for 131 developing countries in 2002, we find that the costs of compliance play a role in making the schemes work: the lower the costs, the greater the impact of the preferential margins. Moreover, the estimated margin effect differs between different regimes. |
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| Keywords: | Compliance costs EU imports gravity model non‐reciprocal preferential trade regimes F13 Q17 Q18 |
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