Is intraregional trade an opportunity for industrial upgrading in East Africa?

Regional integration has been promoted in Africa for decades. However, the potential effects of regional integration on Africa are still contested. To analyse whether intraregional trade can be an opportunity to stimulate product or intersectoral upgrading in East Africa, this paper compares the technological level of goods in intraregional and extra-regional trade of five East Africa countries. It finds that the five East Africa countries have performed better in exporting technology-based products to intraregional trading partners than to extra-regional ones. This result suggests the continued expansion of intraregional trade will be helpful for these nations to upgrade their existing industrial base through the growth of technology-based sectors. In addition, because they import larger amounts of technology-based products from extra-regional partners, gradual import substitution could be also an effective strategy to further diversify and upgrade industries.     

Russian Roulette at the Trade Table: A Specific Factors CGE Analysis of an Agri‐food Import Ban

In the summer of 2014 Russia imposed a ban on most agri‐food products from countries enforcing Ukraine‐related sanctions against Russia. We use a specific factors computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the short‐run impact of this retaliatory policy. The baseline is carefully designed to isolate the impacts of the ban on the European Union (EU), Russia itself and a selection of key trade partners. The modelling of the ban follows a novel approach, where it is treated as a loss of established trade preferences via reductions in consumer utility in the Armington import function. Not surprisingly, the results indicate that Russia bears the highest income loss (about €3.4 billion) while the EU recovers part of its lost trade through expansion of exports to other markets. An ex‐post comparison between simulation results and observed trade data reveals the model predictions to be broadly accurate, thereby validating the robustness of the modelling approach.     

Exchange rate uncertainty and agricultural trade: panel cointegration analysis for Turkey

This study addresses the impact of exchange rate levels and uncertainty on bilateral agricultural trade between Turkey and 20 major trading partners, using panel cointegration analysis for annual data covering the period 1980–2005. Results show that (i) the exchange rate level is less robustly linked to trade volumes than is exchange rate uncertainty, (ii) exchange rate uncertainty is associated with smaller trade volumes in both directions, but more so for imports than for exports, and (iii) income growth in Turkey is associated with greater imports, just as income growth among trading partners is associated with greater exports. These findings provide some clues for understanding the recent patterns of Turkish agricultural trade, and suggest directions for future research.     

Institutional quality and the duration of agri-food trade flows

Recent trade disruptions and their consequences on supply chains show the importance of stable trade relations for exporters' economic planning and importers' supply security. Both instability in trading partners' economic and institutional environment and differences between them are likely to exacerbate these disruptions. We investigate the role of exporters' institutional quality (IQ) and its similarity with importers' IQ in the stability of trade links. We focus on the trade links of agri-food products exported from sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries to the European Union (EU-28) and consider three dimensions of IQ: ‘government selection, monitoring, and replacement’; ‘efficiency of policy formulation and implementation’; and ‘respect of citizens and state for institutions’. Using a discrete-time duration model, we show that the duration of SSA exports to the EU-28 increases with higher exporters' IQ and similarity of trading partners' IQ. The strongest impact of exporters' IQ is associated with ‘government selection, monitoring, and replacement’. In terms of the similarity of trading partners, ‘respect of citizens and state for institutions’ has the largest impact on trade durations. Our findings suggest that the improvement of countries' IQ may boost the stability of trade relationships. Moreover, the similarity of IQs between trading partners supports the stability of trade links and should be carefully considered when establishing new trade relations.     

Do the BRICs and Emerging Markets Differ in their Agrifood Imports?

This study develops an import demand model to explore the role of income in explaining the trade performance of low‐, middle‐ and high‐income countries with a special emphasis on Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRIC economies. The study estimates the impact of the growth in per capita income on the trade of agrifood products using data from 52 countries and 20 agrifood products for the years 1990–2006. The results suggest that China, Russia and Brazil now have more income elastic import demands than other middle‐income countries. Conversely, the income elasticities of import demand in India are similar to other low‐income countries and for the most part statistically equal to zero.     

Standards as Barriers Versus Standards as Catalysts: Assessing the Impact of HACCP Implementation on U.S. Seafood Imports

The United States mandated a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) food safety standard for seafood in 1997. Panel model results for 1990 to 2004 suggest that HACCP introduction had a negative and significant impact on overall imports from the top thirty-three suppliers. While the effect for developed countries was positive, the negative effect for developing countries supports the view of "standards as barriers" versus "standards as catalysts." A different perspective emerges from individual country-level analysis. Regardless of development status, leading seafood exporters generally experienced a positive HACCP effect, while most other smaller trading partners faced a negative effect.     

The Impact of an EU–US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement on Biofuel and Feedstock Markets

We assess the impact of a potential TTIP bilateral free trade agreement on the EU and US bio‐economies (feedstock, biofuels, by‐products, and related competing crops) and major trade partners in these markets. The analysis develops a multi‐market model that incorporates bilateral trade flows (US to EU, EU to US, and similarly with third countries) and is calibrated to the OECD‐FAO baseline for 2013–2022 to account for recent policy decisions. The major policy reforms from a TTIP involve tariff and TRQ liberalisation and their direct contractionary impact on US sugar supply, EU biofuel production, and indirect negative effect on US high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) production. EU sugar and isoglucose production expand along with US ethanol and biodiesel and oilseed crushing. EU sugar would flow to the US, US biofuels and vegetable oil to the EU. We further quantify non‐tariff measures (NTM) affecting these trade flows between the EU and the US. EU oilseed production contracts, and EU crushing expands with improving crushing margins following reduced NTM frictions. Our analysis reveals limited net welfare gains with most net benefits reaped by Brazil and not the two trading partners of the TTIP.     

Importing High Food Prices by Exporting: Rice Prices in Lao PDR

Lao PDR has extensive export controls on its staple food, glutinous rice, which keep domestic prices low relative to international prices. Using price, harvest, and export data this paper analyses how glutinous rice prices in Laos PDR are related to those in its trading partners, Thailand and Vietnam. We find that rice prices in Lao PDR are more likely to rise following a good harvest year than a bad or a normal year. This is consistent with export controls being relaxed after good harvests, leading to an increase in exports early in the season and rising prices later as stocks are depleted. There is thus a case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes while keeping the long‐term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. However, since high rice prices are likely to affect the poor negatively in the short to medium term, a combination of an export tax and cash transfers is recommended during the transition period. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.     

Analyzing Trade Liberalization Effects in the Egg Sector Using a Dynamic Gravity Model

The objective of the paper is to explore potential changes in trade induced by a liberalization scenario when taking into account persistence in trading partners. Our approach is based on the development of a gravity model that takes into account the dynamics at the extensive margin of trade as well as the persistence effect of the intensity of trade. Our empirical contribution is on the egg sector, where the persistence in trading partners is acute. Our results indicate that the use of static models underestimate imports of table eggs by more than 50% in Canada, when compared with the use of panel dynamic specification. The dynamic specification helps explain why trade liberalizations often increase trade creation between countries that had already been trading partners, while new trading partnerships remain scarce following trade liberalization. Our results also confirm the importance of sunk cost and their negative impact on the probability of export market participation for developing countries. Those results raise questions regarding the benefit of trade liberalization for developing countries, in terms of accessing new market, if they do not benefit from special treatments.     

Global rice trade competitiveness: a shift‐share analysis

Changes in country shares of global rice exports from 1997 to 2008 are analyzed using an econometric, shift‐share analytical framework. This framework estimates growth rates and disaggregates these rates of change into geographical structure effects and performance effects. The performance effect is further decomposed into two subeffects accounting for adaptation to changes in the geographical structure of the marketplace and a competitiveness effect. A restricted, weighted, two‐way fixed effects model is specified for estimating the geographical structure and performance effects. Results indicate a growing concentration among a few exporting countries in the global rice market, and the competitiveness effect is often significant. Government policies affecting rice trade and the competitiveness of trading partners are important factors for the shifts in rice trade patterns. In particular, Vietnam is an emerging, major player in global rice trade in competition with Thailand.     

Trade effects of geographical indication policy: The EU case

Using a new detailed dataset on country-product information on European Union (EU) Geographical Indications (GIs), we study the impact of this food quality policy on trade margins over the 1996–2014 period. We consider the effect of GIs on both intra- and extra-EU trade margins (extensive and intensive), as well as on export (and import) unit values. Our main results show that GIs affect trade flows differently depending on whether GIs are produced by the exporter or importer country. The presence of GIs in the exporter country systematically exerts a positive trade effect on both the extensive and intensive trade margin. When registered only in the importer country, GIs seem to act weakly as a trade-reducing measure, at least at the intensive trade margin. In addition, GIs positively affect export prices, consistent with the idea that GI products are perceived by consumers as higher quality goods. Importantly, extra-EU trade margins react similarly to those on intra-EU trade. These results have clear and interesting implications concerning the EU strategy of promoting the protection of GIs worldwide.     

全球农产品贸易网络演化与中国对策

目的 面对日益严峻复杂的国际经济政治环境,理清全球农产品贸易格局演变的特征及趋势,对于及时应对国际农产品市场风险、提高国际循环利用能力具有重要意义。方法 基于社会网络分析法,利用1996—2021年世界农产品贸易数据,文章从总体—行业—加工程度3个维度分别构建了全球农产品贸易网络,定量分析了全球农产品贸易网络的格局演化及重要节点特征。结果 （1）各国间农产品贸易关联日益加深,处于核心地位的国家数量显著增加,以美国为代表的单中心主导地位被削弱,但由少数国家主导全球农产品贸易的情形并未改变。（2）中国在全球农产品贸易网络中地位显著提升,点度中心度和接近中心度均位于前列,但中介中心度处于较低水平,说明中国对全球农业资源和市场的掌控能力依然不足。（3）各国在不同细分行业中的地位呈现明显的异质性,大多数国家的进口集中于少数贸易伙伴的少数产品,加工贸易逐渐成为全球农产品贸易的主流,发展高附加值农产品贸易成为各国农业贸易长远发展的战略选择。结论 为此,应持续优化农产品贸易布局,拓展与亚洲、拉美、非洲等新兴市场的贸易,不断提升农业全球价值链地位。     

Multilateral Trade and Agricultural Policy Reforms in Sugar Markets

We analyse the impact of trade liberalisation, removal of production subsidies and elimination of consumption distortions in world sugar markets using a partial‐equilibrium international sugar model calibrated on 2002 market data and current policies. The removal of trade distortions alone induces a 27% price increase while the removal of all trade and production distortions induces a 48% increase in 2011/2012 relative to the baseline. Aggregate trade expands moderately, but location of production and trade patterns change substantially. Protectionist Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries (the EU, Japan, the US) experience an import expansion or export reduction and a significant contraction of production in unfettered markets. Competitive producers in both OECD countries (Australia) and non‐OECD countries (Brazil, Cuba), and even some protected producers (Indonesia, Turkey), expand production when all distortions are removed. Consumption distortions have marginal impacts on world markets and the location of production. We discuss the significance of these results in the context of mounting pressures to increase market access in highly protected OECD countries and the impact on non‐OECD countries.     

中国竹藤类产品出口潜力研究——基于引力模型的实证分析

基于引力模型,运用2007~2014年8年间中国对24个竹藤类产品贸易伙伴国的面板数据进行实证分析,结果表明:APEC的有关贸易安排对中国竹藤类产品贸易流量的影响较大,美国、日本、澳大利亚等APEC成员国是中国排名前3位的竹藤类产品进口国;贸易潜力测算结果显示中国对这3个国家均存在贸易不足,竹藤类产品贸易还有很大潜力可挖。基于此,提出应进一步加强中国与APEC成员国之间的合作交流,积极推进中国对美国、日本、澳大利亚等APEC成员国竹藤类产品出口向多样化和高质量化的方向发展,尽量选择与中国要素禀赋差异小的国家开展竹藤类产品的贸易等建议。     

广东水产品出口面临的技术性贸易壁垒及对策

比较分析广东水产品出口贸易和受阻情况,可发现不断增多的检测项目和日益严格的限量标准、不断升级的包装与标签要求、对出口企业实施注册登记备案制度和实施技术性贸易措施的国家不断增多是影响广东水产品出口的主要技术性贸易壁垒。根据当前广东水产品出口面临的形势和任务,广东水产品出口为更好地应对国外技术性贸易措施,应该建立与完善技术性贸易措施预警体系,完善检测技术体系,保护水生生态环境,主导或参与制定国际贸易规则,进行技术创新,提高产品质量,制定和实施市场多元化战略。     

后危机时代中国木质家具出口影响因素及贸易潜力研究——异质性随机前沿出口模型实证分析

基于2009—2016年中国木质家具出口至105个贸易伙伴国(地区)的面板数据,构建异质性随机前沿出口模型,分析后危机时代中国木质家具出口影响因素及贸易潜力。结果表明:自由贸易协定、海运及港口基础设施和互联网普及率是贸易的促进因素;贸易壁垒、汇率波动、金融服务水平、海关手续负担、贸易自由度、货币自由度和互联网安全性是贸易的阻碍因素;港口基础设施和互联网普及率增加了贸易非效率的波动,加大了出口贸易效率的不确定性;贸易壁垒、汇率波动、金融服务水平、海关手续负担、货币自由度和互联网安全性降低了贸易非效率的波动,减少了出口贸易效率的不确定性。根据贸易潜力分析结果,将中国木质家具出口市场分为4种类型并提出相应的出口贸易布局战略措施。     

中国水权交易的发展及其试点推广效应

水权交易是目前解决水资源稀缺的一项重要政策工具,亦是中国当前水资源管理改革的重要方向之一。基于中国水权交易所2016—2022年的交易数据对中国水权交易的总体概况、不同交易类型的水权交易特征进行统计描述性分析,并讨论其试点推广效应。研究表明:目前中国的水权交易以取水权交易为主,其次为区域水权交易,灌溉用水户水权交易渐趋活跃;区域水权交易主要表现为用水总量指标在区域间的重新配置,取水权交易主要表现为行业间的取水权交易,而灌溉用水户水权交易主要表现为行业内的水权交易;政府在水权交易中发挥了重要作用,随着水权交易的发展,参与主体开始出现多元化,更多的用水户开始进入水市场;中国的水权交易试点具有一定的推广效应,不仅仅表现为“量”的增多,还表现在交易方式上的创新。中国水权交易未来的发展空间在于不断创新水权交易方式并激励更多的用水户参与水权交易,需要因地制宜推进水权改革,加快推动初始水权的分配与确权工作;同时,还需要进一步完善水资源计量与监控体系,并积极推动水权交易法规制度建设,进一步推进水权交易市场的发展。     

Trends in global virtual land trade in relation to agricultural products

Trade volume of agricultural products can be used to quantify the virtual land transfers between countries. This study assessed the virtual land trade (VLT) associated with the global trade of agricultural products using specific crop yield of exporting countries and gave insights in characteristics of different products and different countries. In addition, the features of trade connections were also displayed by network analysis. The results showed that the total virtual land within global agricultural trade increased from 128 million hectare (ha) in 1986 to 350 million ha in 2016, the average annual growth rate was 5.73 %. Increases in trade of oil crops contributed the largest share to this. The proportion of exported land area in total harvested land area increased for almost all categories of agricultural products. Countries engaged in global agricultural trade could be divided into three groups, net exporters, net importers and countries with balanced VLT. The net importers could be further divided into the countries with absolutely scarce land resources and the countries with relative scarce resources. All net virtual land exporters are the countries with more land resources per capita, such as the United States, Brazil and Argentina. Income growth and changes in diet structure are main factors driving increases in VLT. The VLT network became more complex over the study period, with the number of import and export nodes increasing continuously, and the cumulative distributions of export and import node strength following power law distributions. The major links and players within national, geographic, and economic groups also changed significantly over the study period. VLT has a deep impact on society, economy and environment, appropriate policies should be taken to make these interlinkages more sustainable for both importers and exporters.     

Informal barriers and agricultural trade: does monetary integration matter?

EU enlargement and the recent sovereign‐debt crisis of Euro zone countries have revived the debate around the (European Monetary Union) EMU. In this article we ask how informal barriers to agricultural and food trade have changed since the introduction of the common European currency, and whether this evolution can be attributed to monetary integration. We focus on the foreign trade of the 11 EMU founder countries over a nine‐year period covering the creation of the EMU and find a diminishing marginal trade impact of both information and institutional barriers. We find a lower level of trade barriers, but cannot attribute this outcome to the introduction to the Euro.     

IMPORTER LOYALTY IN THE INTERNATIONAL WHEAT MARKET

Important political and institutional relationships exist between most grain-trading partners. In many cases the purpose of these relationships is to enhance importer loyalty to a particular exporter. This paper tests for loyalty in the world wheat market. Loyalty is measured by repeat purchases. An application of the Markov model is used to analyse loyalty and to explain international trade flows in wheat. Results show that in general the United States has relatively strong import loyalty compared to the other exporters such as Canada and the European Community.