The Impact of Regulatory Heterogeneity on Agri-food Trade

We estimate the impact of regulatory heterogeneity on agri‐food trade using a gravity analysis that relies on detailed data on non‐tariff measures (NTMs) collected by the NTM‐Impact project. The data cover a broad range of import requirements for agricultural and food products for the EU and nine of...

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Published inWorld economy Vol. 35; no. 8; pp. 973 - 993
Main Authors Winchester, Niven, Rau, Marie-Luise, Goetz, Christian, Larue, Bruno, Otsuki, Tsunehiro, Shutes, Karl, Wieck, Christine, Burnquist, Heloisa L., Pinto de Souza, Maurício J., Nunes de Faria, Rosane
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.08.2012
Subjects
agreements
Agribusiness
Agricultural products
agricultural trade
Agriculture
European Union
Exports and Imports
Food
Food products
general coefficient
gravity
Heterogeneity
Imports
International trade
patterns
Regulation
similarity
sps
Studies
Tariff
Tariffs
Trade
Trade policy
Trade restrictions
Europe
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Summary:We estimate the impact of regulatory heterogeneity on agri‐food trade using a gravity analysis that relies on detailed data on non‐tariff measures (NTMs) collected by the NTM‐Impact project. The data cover a broad range of import requirements for agricultural and food products for the EU and nine of its major trade partners. We find that trade is significantly reduced when importing countries have stricter maximum residue limits (MRLs) for plant products than exporting countries. For most other measures, due to their qualitative nature, we were unable to infer whether the importer has stricter standards relative to the exporter, and we do not find a robust relationship between these measures and trade. Our findings suggest that, at least for some import standards, harmonising regulations will increase trade. We also conclude that tariff reductions remain an effective means to increase trade even when NTMs abound.
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ArticleID:TWEC1457
We acknowledge the considerable effort in data collection by partners in the NTM‐Impact project at twelve institutions – Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agricola (Argentina), University of Sydney (Australia), University of São Paulo (Brazil), Université Laval (Canada), Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy (China), University of Bonn (Germany), Osaka University and Keio University (Japan), Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI) (Netherlands), University of Otago (New Zealand), Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (Russia) and Virginia Tech University (USA). We wish to thank John Beghin, David Orden and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions. Remaining errors are our responsibility.
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ISSN:0378-5920
1467-9701
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9701.2012.01457.x