Entrepôt Trade and Smuggling in West Africa: Benin,Togo and Nigeria

Official trade statistics indicate very little intra‐African trade, but this is often because of the prevalence of unrecorded trade, particularly smuggling. This paper explores smuggling from Benin and Togo into Nigeria. Nigeria has very high import tariffs and bans on certain products. Togo and Benin have deliberately maintained low import barriers to facilitate an Entrepôt role vis‐à‐vis Nigeria and land‐locked Sahelian countries. Togo competes at a geographic disadvantage relative to Benin for access to the Nigerian market and compensates with lower transit taxes. The volume and composition of cross‐border trade is analysed using data obtained from Benin and Togo customs authorities, as well as interviews with traders and customs officials in both countries. Benin and to a lesser extent Togo are the origin of a very large volume of transshipment of precisely those products which are heavily protected in Nigeria, such as used cars, cloth and rice. It is common knowledge in Benin and Togo that these imports, although declared for domestic consumption or transit to other countries, are in fact overwhelmingly intended for Nigeria. Smuggling is a major source of income and employment in Benin and Togo, but provides a fragile and unreliable foundation for economic development.     

The Role of Public–Private Partnerships in Facilitating Cross‐Border Logistics: A Case Study at the U.S./Canadian Border

Private enterprise carries out the complex operations of cross‐border logistics that are the lifeblood of global supply chains. Yet, the efficiency of these activities depends on government agencies that provide the logistics infrastructure for global trade. Thus, public–private partnerships (PPPs) play an important role in facilitating improvements in cross‐border logistics. While private enterprise and the public sector are key stakeholders in the quality of cross‐border logistics, research that examines PPPs in logistics management is relatively sparse. To address this gap, the current study aims to develop empirically based theoretical insights into the nature and role of PPPs in the context of cross‐border logistics. The study employs a grounded‐theory analysis of case study data collected at the U.S./Canadian border. Findings show that private enterprise collaborative capability and public interagency cooperation determine the performance of PPPs which, in turn, influence the quality of cross‐border logistics.     

Trade Facilitation and Export Diversification

This paper shows that improved trade facilitation can help promote export diversification in developing countries. We find that 10 per cent reductions in the costs of international transport and domestic exporting costs (documentation, inland transport, port and customs charges) are associated with export diversification gains of 4 and 3 per cent, respectively, in a sample of 118 developing countries. Customs costs play a particularly important role in these results. Lower market entry costs can also promote diversification, but the effect is weaker (1 per cent). We also find evidence that trade facilitation has stronger effects on diversification in poorer countries. Our results are highly robust to estimation using alternative dependent and independent variables, different country samples, and alternative econometric techniques. We link these findings to recent advances in trade theory that emphasise firm heterogeneity, and trade growth at the extensive margin.     

Trade Costs and Changes in Canada's Trade Pattern

This paper measures the size and composition of non‐tariff trade costs such as transport, wholesale, and network costs incurred in Canada's merchandise trade using Statistics Canada's latest ‘trade margins’ statistics. It examines how changes in these trade costs have influenced Canada's merchandise trade pattern and the course of economic integration. Our results show that as tariffs have been substantially reduced and largely abolished, costs associated with transport and distribution services now appear much larger than remaining customs duties; therefore, liberalisation in services might be the next key step in promoting greater merchandise trade. Further, reducing transport and other trade‐related costs has helped ‘reverse’ the ‘home market effect’, expanding Canada's domestic demand and production for exports of differentiated products.     

Informal export barriers and poverty

This paper investigates the poverty impacts of informal export barriers like transport costs, cumbersome customs practices, costly regulations and bribes. In low-income countries, these informal barriers act as export taxes that distort the efficient allocation of resources, lower wages and agricultural income, and increase poverty. I investigate the case of Moldova, a very open economy where poverty is widespread, agriculture is a key sector, formal trade barriers are low, and informal export barriers are widespread. I find that improving export practices would benefit the average Moldovan household across the whole income distribution. Poverty would also decline, affecting 100-180 thousand individuals.     

Public Export Credit Guarantees and Foreign Trade Structure: Evidence from Austria

Foreign trade is usually not based on cash transactions, but rather sales on credit are the rule. The resulting monitoring costs for lenders and the risk of default on accounts receivable are part of the costs associated with cross‐border goods transactions. Relative to domestic trade credit, cross‐border credit creates trade barriers due to differences in language, business practice, jurisdiction and payment enforceability between trading partners. Export credit insurance has long been a domain of public export credit agencies. Only since the early 1980s private insurance is gaining ground. Using disaggregated panel data for goods exports from Austria over the period 1996 to 2002, we show that public export credit guarantees have a less than proportional positive effect on international trade volume. They predominantly affect the country structure of foreign trade but leave the industry specialisation almost unchanged.     

The Impact of Services Trade Restrictiveness on Trade Flows

This paper uses recent OECD data on services trade restrictions (STRI) to analyse the relationship between services trade policies and cross‐border trade in services. A standard gravity model is enhanced by the STRI indices in a cross‐section regression analysis. Services trade restrictions are negatively associated with both imports and exports of services. The surprisingly strong effect on services exports is probably explained by a negative relationship between the STRIs and sector performance indicators. Consequently, services suppliers from less open countries are less competitive abroad. Bilateral differences in regulation are also found to curtail services trade over and above the impact of the trade liberalisation level. At the margin, regulatory differences have a larger effect on trade flows the lower the level of the STRI.     

Export Survival in Global Production Chains

In this paper, we examine the survival capacity of trade relationships in cross‐border production chains. Our main contribution is to show that there are differences in the probability of export interruption between intermediate and final stages along the global value chain, finding a lower sensitivity of intermediate goods to the increasing competition from lower‐income countries. In addition, the paper also makes a methodological contribution by using time‐discrete duration models with product‐country random effects to control for unobservable heterogeneity and by including interactions in the model, in order to identify the sources of these differences. Our estimates show that variables such as EU membership, export experience, product and market diversification, initial trade value, destination market size, geographical proximity and economic proximity reduce the likelihood of export failure more for intermediate than for final goods, being the differential impact particularly higher for the two first variables. These results would suggest that factors that reduce uncertainty and search costs and increase trust and reliability among production partners are particularly relevant for intermediate stages, fostering the probability of remaining an active member of global production chains.     

Trade in Services and TFP: The Role of Regulation

What determines total factor productivity (TFP) growth in services: is it services trade or services–trade regulation? To respond to this question, we use four indicators of international trade in services since 1990 to 2005, namely foreign direct investment (FDI) inward stock, services imports, domestic sales of foreign affiliates (FATS) and FDI inflows, to examine what type of services trade forms a direct determinant. Subsequently, we analyse what type of sector‐specific regulation has played an inhibiting effect on services TFP growth. Such analysis contrasts with former studies in which mainly factor inputs and economy‐wide regulation are used to explain services TFP. This paper provides evidence that neither trade nor entry barriers are robust determinants to explain cross‐country differences. Instead, regulations on operational procedures affecting the variables costs structure of the firm seem to play a more important role in explaining TFP growth between countries, particularly in combination with information and communication technology (ICT) capital.     

我国海关在贸易摩擦中的地位重构

我国在应对贸易摩擦的过程中,商务部等政府机构与行业组织占据着主导地位,海关则主要负责在幕后提供统计数据及进出口商品监测预警。但随着形势的变化,我们需要对海关的地位进行重构,而海关又具备了重构的条件。为此,我们应将海关正式纳入到贸易摩擦的应对机制之中,赋予其更多的话语权,并在现有法律框架内充分利用法律条文上的空间,努力寻找海关在应对贸易摩擦的不同阶段可以介入的渠道或途径,积极整合海关现有职能和拓展非传统职能,以大量的实践来为海关地位的提升奠定物质基础,从而为法理基础的最终实现做好铺垫。     

“一带一路”背景下中国与欧亚经济联盟贸易效率及贸易潜力研究

以中国对EEU成员国出口贸易为视角,运用SFGM模型,选取2009—2018年的中国与欧亚经济联盟的数据对贸易效率及贸易潜力进行了测度。研究结果表明,欧亚经济联盟各成员国的经济规模、双边政府廉洁、贸易自由度、物流绩效、OFDI、共同边界等对中国出口具有显著的促进作用,通货膨胀也对出口起到促进作用,但作用不显著。双边的地理距离、是否内陆国、关税税率、汇率等对中国出口欧亚经济联盟具有明显的抑制作用,汇率也具有抑制作用,但不显著。根据研究结论提出针对性的政策建议,即加强双边合作,提升清关效率,完善基础设施质量,便利贸易和运输效率,提高物流服务质量;进一步降低关税和非关税壁垒,提高商品运输的效率,清除双方隐性贸易壁垒;加强政府对金融机构的监管力度,加大信贷资金配置规模;积极推动中国与EEU成员国建立自贸区;实现双边资本、信息等资源的共享,从而提高贸易效率,减少贸易阻力。最终着眼于命运共同体及全球价值链视域,推动双边贸易发展。     

中国和美国服务业出口竞争力比较分析

本文在界定服务业出口竞争力评价体系的基础上,对中、美两国服务业出口竞争力进行了4个方面的比较分析。通过比较两国服务业净出口额、服务业出口国际市场占有率、服务业贸易竞争优势指数和服务贸易显性比较优势指数4个指标得出:美国在技术密集型的服务业上有极强的出口竞争力,而中国在技术密集型服务业上具有显性比较劣势,并且中国在传统服务业运输和旅游业上的出口竞争力在逐渐减弱,但是中国技术密集型服务业的出口竞争力在增强。最后,本文借助波特的"钻石模型"对中国和美国服务业出口竞争力进行了进一步分析并提出了相应的对策建议。     

Declining Protection in Developing Countries: Fact or Fiction?

This paper explores whether and to what extent evident trade reform, falling average tariffs and rising exports in recent decades overstate the extent to which protectionism has declined in developing countries, especially low‐income developing countries. It identifies remaining significant protection, especially of final manufactured goods; this being associated with the presence of peak tariffs, escalating tariff structures by stage of production and replacement of old forms of non‐tariff protection with new instruments of non‐tariff protection. It also identifies significant protection arising from high international trade costs induced by inefficiencies in transportation, ports and customs, and from the growth of exports to preference‐receiving, export markets.     

中国—东盟运输服务贸易一体化的现状、水平与发展前景

通过分析中国-东盟运输服务贸易的现状和一体化水平,发现中国与东盟国家运输服务贸易在硬件建设上获得了较大的进步,但软件一体化的建设较晚;中国与东盟各国的运输服务贸易增长很快,但长期处于逆差的状态;中国—东盟的运输服务贸易一体化水平较高,且中国对东盟进口的密集度大于出口的密集度,未来一体化有上升的趋势。展望未来,由于中国与东盟国家近年来物流基础设施的发展、自由贸易区的如期建立、双边货物贸易的发展、物流水平、设施和环境有所改善等因素客观上决定了中国与东盟国家未来的运输服务贸易一体化将进一步深化。     

Market Structure and Market Access

We explore an issue at the nexus of domestic competition policy and international trade, the interaction between goods trade and market power in domestic trade and distribution sectors. We examine the effect of variations in conditions of domestic competition in services on trade volumes in goods in the cases of both linear and nonlinear import demand, including standard form CES‐based gravity models of bilateral trade flows. Theory suggests a set of linkages between service‐sector pricing and goods trade supported by econometrics involving imports of 22 OECD countries vis‐a‐vis 69 exporters. Competition in distribution services affects the volume of trade in goods. Additionally, because of interaction between tariffs and pricing, the market structure of the domestic service sector becomes increasingly important as tariffs are reduced. Indeed, depending on the degree of competition, market access concessions on tariffs may be effectively undone in some cases by changes in margins. For exporters, we find that service competition in destination markets matters most for exporters from smaller, poorer countries. Our results also suggest that while negotiated agreements leading to cross‐border services liberalisation may boost goods trade as well, they may also lead to a fall in goods trade when such liberalisation involves FDI leading to increased service sector concentration.     

Migration and servicification: Do immigrant employees spur firm exports of services?

Services play an increasingly important role in production, employment and international trade but are subject to substantially higher trade costs relative to manufactured goods. Knowledge of how these trade costs can be mitigated is important for facilitating trade of services. In this paper, we analyse the role of immigrant employees as facilitators of firm exports of services, a role that remains largely unexamined. We bridge the gap in existing research by drawing on new data for nearly 30,000 Swedish firms during the period 1998–2007 within a heterogeneous firm framework. The results have important policy implications. As the multilateral approach to facilitating trade is challenged and more countries are imposing measures to restrict the cross‐country mobility of people, policymakers may need to find new ways to promote exports of services. Our results indicate that immigrant employees spur firms' export of services activities: hiring one additional foreign‐born worker can increase services exports by approximately 2.5 per cent, on average, with a stronger effect found for skilled and newly arrived immigrants. Therefore, policymakers could leverage the findings of this study to implement initiatives that utilise high‐skilled immigrants to promote services exports.     

保税物流金融运营模式设计与分析

基于我国不同类型的海关特殊监管区域在沿海和内陆纷纷设立,并为各类国际贸易商品和服务的"引进来"和"走出去"搭建起重要的运营平台,同时,在针对各个特殊区域的特性与运营环境进行系统分析的基础上,创新性地提出了保税物流金融新概念,设计了四大类海关特殊监管区域相应的保税物流金融运营模式,探析了各种运营模式对应的业务运营概况,为我国海关特殊监管区域进行有效的保税物流金融运营提供了有益的指导。     

贸易便利化能否提升中国企业产能利用率——来自“一带一路”沿线国家的证据

贸易便利化环境的改善为企业提升产能利用率带来了新契机。文章通过构建贸易便利化对产能利用率的理论框架,采用中国企业层面数据,检验“一带一路”沿线国家贸易便利化对产能利用率的微观影响。结果表明：沿线国家贸易便利化显著提升了中国制造业企业产能利用率;从贸易便利化类别来看,沿线国家口岸及物流效率对企业产能利用率的效应最大,其次为规制环境、金融及电子商务、海关及边境管理;从企业所属行业、所在地区与出口决策来看,沿线国家贸易便利化对进口中间品高依赖度企业、内陆地区企业及非出口企业的产能利用率效应更大;沿线国家贸易便利化产生的出口扩张效应、中间品进口替代效应、生产率改进效应是提升企业产能利用率的重要渠道。     

初级产品出口关税的作用探析

长期以来,相对于其他商品而言,初级产品出口价格的不断下降给许多仍靠少数出口产品获取外贸收入的发展中国家带来了一系列的挑战,使其成为国际贸易中长期存在且备受关注的焦点之一。因此,许多发展中国家便采取课征初级产品出口税的政策以图解决其所面临的问题。本文在分析初级产品出口关税对出口国及其贸易伙伴的影响基础上,着重论述了采取出口税政策解决出口价格波动带来挑战的利弊,并在最后以一些实证研究的实例说明了这一政策实施效果的不确定性。     

Regulatory barriers to trade in services: A new database and composite indices

This paper presents new data on services trade regulation for 46 countries in 22 services sectors over 6 years (2014–2019). The data consist of qualitative information which is scored and weighted to produce composite indices. They cover market access and national treatment restrictions with respect to all GATS modes of supply, but also behind the border domestic regulation such as licensing, non-transparent regulatory procedures and competition policy. The database is updated annually. The trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) are significantly correlated with services trade flows, but also with the performance of the sectors subject to the restrictions including logistics performance indicators, interest spreads, density of ATMs and secure servers, broadband penetration and outcomes such as legal rights and the time to resolve insolvency.