Impacts of common rules of origin on FTA utilization

This study empirically examines the impacts of sharing rules of origin (RoOs) with other ASEAN?+?1 free trade agreements (FTAs) on ASEAN–Korea FTA/ASEAN–China FTA utilization in Thai exports in 2011. Our detailed empirical analysis suggests that the harmonization of RoOs across FTAs plays some role in terms of reducing the costs yielded through the spaghetti bowl phenomenon. In particular, the harmonization to “change-in-tariff classification (CTC) or regional value content (RVC)” will play a relatively positive role in not seriously discouraging firms’ use of multiple FTA schemes. In contrast, harmonization to “CTC” or “CTC and RVC” hinders firms from using those schemes.