Non‐Tariff Measures,Specific Trade Concerns and Tariff Reduction

This paper studies the determinants of the recent proliferation of Specific Trade Concerns raised at the WTO on non‐tariff trade measures (NTMs), with a focus on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBTs). Even though NTMs are imposed de jure to protect consumers from unhealthy products, they increase trade costs de facto. So, when tariff protection lowers, NTMs become effective barriers to trade and the exporting countries can complain at the dedicated committee at the WTO (STCs). Therefore, we study whether STCs are raised by exporting countries as a consequence of tariff reductions in importing countries, that is when non‐tariff measures become barriers to trade. Using a recent database on STCs over the period 1996–2010, we find empirical evidence that SPS and TBT concerns are raised by exporting country as a consequence of importer's tariff cut.     

Regionalism Within Multilateralism: The WTO Trade Policy Review of Canada

The World Trade Organisation published a Trade Policy Review of Canada in 2003. In this paper, we discuss the WTO Review and augment the discussion by presenting original data and reviewing the empirical literature. The WTO concludes that Canada's trade regime is open and transparent but maintains barriers in a few important sectors. We subject this claim to empirical scrutiny, comparing Canada's actual imports to a multilateral benchmark based on the gravity equation. We show that Canada imports about what should be expected given the size of its economy and its location. In a second benchmarking exercise, we show that Canada's anti‐dumping initiations are in proportion to its imports and that Canada's exports are targeted less by other countries’ anti‐dumping investigations than what might be expected based on Canadian export levels. Like many other countries, Canada has pursued trade liberalisation through the World Trade Organisation while simultaneously signing multiple regional trade agreements. Our summary of the recent literature indicates that Canada's regional trade agreements have generated more trade creation than trade diversion. Canada has also spurred imports from the least developed countries by unilaterally eliminating tariffs and quota barriers on 48 of the world's poorest countries in January 2003. We also discuss Canadian progress in opening its agriculture and clothing industries. Overall, we conclude that Canada appears committed to advancing globalisation through multilateral trade liberalisation supplemented by unilateral and bilateral initiatives.     

Multilateral,Regional and Bilateral Trade‐Policy Options for the United States and Japan

We have used the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade to simulate the economic effects on the United States, Japan, and other major trading countries/regions of the Doha Round of WTO multilateral trade negotiations and a variety of regional/bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) involving the United States and Japan. We estimate that an assumed reduction of post‐Uruguay Round tariffs and other barriers on agricultural and industrial products and services by 33 per cent in the Doha Round would increase world welfare by $686.4 billion, with gains of $164.0 billion for the United States, $132.6 billion for Japan, and significant gains for all other industrialised and developing countries/regions. If there were global free trade with all post‐Uruguay Round trade barriers completely removed, world welfare would increase by $2.1 trillion, with gains of $497.0 billion (5.5 per cent of GNP) for the United States and $401.9 billion (6.2 per cent of GNP) for Japan. Regional agreements such as an APEC FTA, an ASEAN Plus 3 FTA, and a Western Hemisphere FTA would increase global and member country welfare but much less so than the Doha multilateral trade round would. Separate bilateral FTAs involving Japan with Singapore, Mexico, Chile and Korea, and the United States with Chile, Singapore and Korea would have positive, though generally small, welfare effects on the partner countries, but potentially disruptive sectoral employment shifts in some countries. There would be trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on some non‐member countries for both the regional and bilateral FTAs analysed. The welfare gains from multilateral trade liberalisation are therefore considerably greater than the gains from preferential trading arrangements and more uniformly positive for all countries.     

The political economy of non‐tariff measures

This paper examines the extent to which non‐tariff measures (NTM s) are set for protectionist purposes. Our main focus is on developing countries. Overall results show that NTM s reflect protectionist forces, in particular for those that have been subject to trade concerns at the World Trade Organization (WTO ). For the other measures, there is no evidence that protectionism is the driving force behind their adoption, suggesting that their determinants may be associated with legitimate goals such as consumer health and safety. Furthermore, transnational lobbying, defined as the participation of national business groups at the Ministerial Conferences—the highest authority of the WTO —is positively associated with the probability of adopting NTM s.     

Sanitary and phytosanitary measures in international trade: policy considerations vs. economic reasoning

Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are one form of non‐tariff international trade barrier with the objective of requiring consumer and intermediate goods to be safe and to provide information to protect consumers from deceptive practices. However, such barriers could severely restrict trade. The central strategy of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) SPS Agreement is to use science to distinguish between those SPS measures consistent with the Agreement and those in violation of the Agreement. SPS measures belong to what is known as trans‐science questions or questions which can be asked of science and yet which cannot be answered by science. Because of the presence of scientific uncertainty, science policies adopted by members should be identified by the WTO. WTO panels should not, however, establish scientific policies. Prohibitive measures would seem rather incompatible with the role the WTO assumed trying to promote free trade. Rather, facilitating the distribution of available information regarding SPS and food safety risk, or a lack of it, to consumers in importing countries would help them to make better informed decisions according to their own preferences and risk aversion.     

How to Balance the Outcomes of the Economic Partnership Agreements for Sub‐Saharan African Economies?

Since 2002, the Sub‐Saharan African countries ( except South Africa which already has a free‐trade agreement with the EU ) have embarked on free‐trade agreement negotiations with the European Union. These arrangements will replace the Cotonou scheme, which requires these countries to eliminate their tariffs on ‘substantially’ all their European imports. Based on a general equilibrium analysis, this study estimates the potential effects of these agreements by considering different levels of reciprocity in the commitments of the Sub‐Saharan African countries. It shows that the ‘standard’ EU proposal, whereby Sub‐Saharan African countries would cut tariffs on 80 per cent of their European imports, would not be enough to balance the outcome of the Economic Partnership Agreements. As a result of the asymmetries between European and African protections and supply‐side capacities, African countries could experience a balance of trade deficit of USD 1.8 billion associated with a 0.1 per cent decrease in GDP. This proposal, which also induces an industrial restructuring to the benefit of the agro‐processing industries, will create a significant fiscal burden. A lesser level of commitment could largely mitigate these unfavourable results; by reciprocating tariff eliminations on only 60 per cent of their European imports, African countries would reduce the trade imbalance and fiscal losses induced by these agreements by 21 and 51 per cent respectively.     

Trade Protection During the Crisis: Does it Deter Foreign Direct Investment?

This paper looks empirically at the implications that protectionist measures implemented during the current crisis may have had for a country’s ability to attract foreign direct investment. The research utilises data on such measures that are available from Global Trade Alert, combined with bilateral FDI data between OECD countries and a large number of partner countries for 2006 to 2009. This allows us to examine the short‐run effect that protectionist measures may have had on bilateral FDI flows. The verdict from this analysis is clear: a country that implements new protectionist measures may expect that this may result in lower foreign direct investment inflows into the economy. The point estimates from our preferred specifications suggest that, depending on the empirical model, the implementation of a trade protection measure is associated with about 40 to 80 per cent lower FDI inflows. Trade protection does not appear to have any implications for the country’s FDI outflows, however. The negative effect on FDI inflows does not appear to be due to direct investment measures but rather to actions related to intellectual property rights protection and other more trade‐related measures.     

技术贸易壁垒下中美纺织品贸易竞争力及影响因素研究

采用国际市场占有率、显性比较优势指数及贸易互补性指数分析了中美两国纺织品在国际市场中的竞争地位及各纺织品类贸易互补性强度,并将美国发布的纺织行业技术通报(TBT)作为技术变量纳入随机前沿引力模型,进一步实证分析中美纺织品贸易的影响因素。结果表明:中国纺织品国际竞争优势强于美国,尤其表现在纺织制成品类;出口角度看,两国在纺织制成品类上呈现显著贸易互补性,进口角度看,两国在纺织原料上具有较强互补性。在影响因素中,技术壁垒、进口国经济、出口国人口及两国距离负向抑制中美纺织品贸易,出口国经济、进口国人口及人均收入之差正向促进中美纺织贸易发展。     

Factors underlying sanitary and phytosanitary regulation for food and agricultural imports notified by WTO members

The impact of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures has been extensively studied in the trade literature. However, there is very scant research on the factors underlying the World Trade Organization (WTO) members’ regulatory process. The aim of this paper is to fill that gap, examining the main determinants for the development of SPS regulation considering the notifications presented by WTO members. A negative binomial regression was estimated, where the dependent variable was the number of SPS measures notified during the period 1995–2012 by WTO members, while the explanatory variables were related to each country: (1) agricultural production value; (2) agricultural imports weight; (3) health concerns; (4) agricultural import tariffs; and (5) scientific and legal capacities. The results provide evidence that legal and scientific capacities are major factors in the number of notifications presented by WTO members. On the other hand, those countries with a higher relative weight of the agricultural sector in the economy or of agricultural products in their imports have notified fewer SPS measures. This leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to reinforce actions that strengthen institutional and technical capacities for further convergence.     

Trading with Conditions: The Effect of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures on the Agricultural Exports from Low‐income Countries

Market access for agricultural products is increasingly determined by capability to comply with a wide array of regulatory measures. From a trade perspective, one of the most important aspects of such regulatory measures is their potential distortionary effect, as their cost of compliance is often asymmetrical across countries. This paper investigates the effect of the European Union's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures on the exports from low income countries. This study finds that SPS measures result in relatively higher burden for low income countries but that membership in deep trade agreements seems to reduce the difficulties related to compliance with SPS measures. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that while many middle and high income countries have the internal capacity to comply with SPS measures, most low income countries do not.     

技术性贸易壁垒政策择优:一个局部均衡的分析框架

技术性贸易壁垒由于其维护国家安全、保护人类和动植物安全和健康、保证产品质量以及保护环境等方面的正当理由 ,成为了贸易保护主义的庇护所。各进口国频繁使用技术性贸易壁垒来保护本国产业和市场 ,有时候保护的成本是很高的 ,甚至超过了保护的收益所得。本文用一个单一产品市场局部均衡的分析框架 ,演示利用成本收益分析对SPS措施进行政策择优的过程 ,该方法提供了分析不同收益和成本以及贸易限制、价格和福利关系的框架。结论是 ,进口国应该权衡成本和收益 ,技术性贸易壁垒政策的实施要考虑经济效率 ,经济学的分析可以为此提供理论依据。     

Trade Policy and the Obama Administration

During his primary campaign, President Obama took an aggressive stance on trade, suggesting a protectionist drift in U.S. trade policy. However, it seems more likely that policy will focus more on enforcement of existing rights than on protectionist initiatives. The major influences on trade policy are likely to be multilateral approaches to trade problems, broad foreign policy concerns, the impact of trade policy on recovery from the current recession, and global climate change initiatives. Holdover initiatives on the World Trade Organization's Doha round and bilateral agreements will be joined by global climate change as the principal policy issues for the next few years.     

Reforming the WTO to Defuse Potential Trade Conflicts in Genetically Modified Goods

Arguably genetic modification is one of the most important technological change seen to date. Its effects on both human health and the environment are both profound and controversial. In particular consumers, mainly in the EU, have concerns regarding the long term effects of consuming genetically modified foods on their health. They are also concerned regarding the effect that genetically modified organisms will have on bio‐diversity and choice in the long run. Differing regulatory regimes towards genetically modified goods in the US and EU could lead to damaging trade conflicts. Current agreements covering trade in foods such as the SPS and TBT allow a way of diffusing conflicts. The primary aim of these agreements is, however, to prevent governments from protecting domestic producers by applying capricious barriers to foreign competition. This paper sets out to show that rather than modifying these two agreements it would be better to deal with new issues surrounding consumer preferences explicitly by negotiating a new international agreement.     

基于WTO规则的环境贸易壁垒研究

在当今国际贸易中,许多国家特别是发达国家频繁地将基于WTO规则的环境贸易壁垒作为新的贸易保护手段和政策加以运用。环境贸易壁垒表现形式多种多样,其实质是发达国家对发展中国家设置的贸易屏障,使之在国际贸易中遭受进出口双重贸易障碍。中国作为WTO最大的发展中国家成员,必须制定跨越环境贸易壁垒的应对战略。     

Labour and Environmental Standards: The ‘Lemons Problem’ in International Trade Policy

Environmental and labour standards have become an important international trade issue. This article examines and ranks alternative trade policy responses available to an importing country with concerns over such standards. While a full import embargo may sometimes be preferable to allowing unrestricted access to unlabeled noconforming imports, a partial embargo that allows imports which demonstrably conform to the standard is always a better policy; and labeling solutions, which separate conforming and non‐conforming imports, are typically better still. Consequently, full import embargoes based on non‐conformity with labour or environmental standards are poor policy choices and should generally remain prohibited by WTO rules.     

Third‐country Effects of Regional Trade Agreements

Does regionalism negatively impact non‐members? To answer this question, we examine the effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) on imports from non‐members and the tariffs that they face. Using data from six RTAs in Latin America and Europe, we do not find evidence that implementation of the regional agreements is associated with trade diversion from third countries to regional members. Using detailed industry data on preference margins and most‐favoured nation (MFN) tariffs for three trade agreements in Latin America over 12 years, we find that greater preference margins do not significantly reduce imports from third countries. We also look at the effect of preferences on external tariffs. We find evidence that preferential tariff reduction tends to precede the reduction of external MFN tariffs in a given sector, offering evidence of tariff complementarity. Overall, the results suggest that regionalism does not significantly harm non‐members.     

SPS壁垒的评判标准探讨

文章解析了SPS兴起的经济学基础,梳理了SPS措施与技术性贸易措施及绿色贸易措施的关系,进而根据WTO相关规则原创性地提出了评判正当SPS措施的8条标准,并且分析了这些标准背后隐藏的问题。文章提出,我国针对SPS措施和SPS壁垒应采取不同的应对策略:积极"遵从"国际贸易中正当的SPS措施;向WTO争端解决机制"申诉",运用法律和谈判手段解决SPS壁垒;对于我国和其他发展中国家面临的客观"SPS壁垒",国际组织应尽快澄清SPS协议中的模糊规定,提高SPS协议的执行度;同时,国际组织和发达国家要积极援助发展中国家,提高他们的遵从能力,发展中国家也要积极主动参与国际标准的制定,从游戏规则的被动接受者转变为制定者。     

技术性贸易壁垒的现状、发展趋势及其应对

从WTO成员所发布的TBT协定和SPS协定通报的总体特点,对世界主要国家和地区的TBT和SPS通报情况和热点问题进行了总结,分析技术性贸易壁垒的发展趋势,认为发达国家日益增长的SPS措施是影响我国主要技术性贸易壁垒,道德壁垒、信息技术壁垒和知识产权壁垒将是今后较长时间内最难突破的新的技术性贸易壁垒形式。面对技术性贸易壁垒走向制度化、广泛化、扩散化的发展趋势,我国应建立和完善技术性贸易壁垒预警与快速反应机制,采取相应的措施提高我国相关产业的应对能力。     

Bilateral ‘WTO‐Plus’ Free Trade Agreements: The WTO Trade Policy Review of Singapore 2004

The World Trade Organisation's 2004 Trade Policy Review of Singapore (WTO‐TPR Singapore 2004) depicts the small and outward‐oriented economy as one of the most open countries to international trade and investment. The review highlights the benefits of the outward‐oriented strategy that has enabled the Singapore economy to weather recent external shocks such as the Asian financial crisis to the SARS and to the recent unfavourable conditions in the Middle East. In particular, the report commended Singapore's efforts on its liberalisation of the services sector and its economic benefits to consumers and global trade. However, the WTO‐TPR Singapore 2004 highlights several key areas of concerns: (a) the commitment to multilateral agreements with the rising number of bilateral free trade agreements signed by Singapore and (b) the lack of growth of total factor productivity, a key indicator for long‐run efficiency of the economy. The paper addresses the above key concerns raised in the WTO's TPR of Singapore in terms of its commitment to global trade in terms of WTO‐plus bilateral FTAs, which intends to support a multilateral trading system, and its overall industrial strategies to raise its competitiveness.     

Carbon,Trade Policy and Carbon Free Trade Areas

This paper discusses both the potential contribution that trade policy initiatives can make towards the achievement of significant global carbon emissions reduction and the potential impacts of proposals now circulating for carbon reduction motivated geographical trade arrangements, including carbon‐free trade areas. We first suggest that trade policy is likely to be a relatively minor consideration in climate change containment. The dominant influence on carbon emissions globally for the next several decades will be growth more than trade and its composition, and in turn, the size of trade seemingly matters more than its composition given differences in emission intensity between tradables and non‐tradables. We then note that differences in emissions intensity across countries are larger than across products or sectors and so issues of country discrimination in trade policy (and violations of MFN) arise. We next discuss both unilateral and regional carbon motivated trade policy arrangements, including three potential variants of carbon emission reduction based free trade area arrangements. One is regional trade agreements with varying types of trade preferences towards low carbon‐intensive products, low carbon new technologies and inputs to low carbon processes. A second is the use of joint border measures against third parties to counteract anti‐competitive effects from groups of countries taking on deeper emission reduction commitments. A third is third‐country trade barriers along with free trade or other regional trade agreements as penalty mechanisms to pressure other countries to join emission‐reducing environmental agreements. We differentiate among the objectives, forms and possible impacts of each variant. We also speculate as to how the world trading system may evolve in the next few decades as trade policy potentially becomes increasingly dominated by environmental concerns. We suggest that the future evolution of the trading system will likely be with environmentally motivated arrangements acting as an overlay on prevailing trade and financial arrangements in the WTO and IMF, and eventually movement to linked global trade and environmental policy bargaining.