Murky trade waters: Regional tariff commitments and non-tariff measures in Africa

Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade

that restrict trade between countries in agricultural commodities. Many of these policies are now subject to important disciplines under the 1994 GATT agreement that is administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper is organized as follows. First, tariffs, import quotas, and tariff rate quotas are discussed. Then, a series of non-tariff barriers to trade are examined, including v...

Non-Tariff Barriers and Trade Liberalization∗

This paper shows that governments have no incentive to introduce non-tariff barriers when they are free to set tariffs but they do when tariffs are determined cooperatively. We then show three results. First, with trade liberalization, there is a progression from using tariffs only to quotas, and to antidumping constraints (when quotas are jointly eliminated). Second, there is a narrowing of th...

The InvIsIble barrIers To Trade how busInesses experIence non-TarIff measures THE INVISIBLE BARRIERS TO TRADE

Non-Tariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains

We assess the literature on public and private quality standards and their impact in food markets, international trade, and global supply chains. We focus on their effects on welfare, trade, industrial organization, and labor markets and with special attention to the North-South context. We also attempt to better characterize when these measures constitute protectionism, a complicate task. We l...

Trade Restrictiveness Indices in Presence of Externalities : An Application to Non-Tariff Measures

We extend the trade restrictiveness index approach to the case of market imperfections and domestic regulations addressing them. We focus on standard-like non-tariff measures (NTMs) affecting cost of production and potentially enhancing demand by increasing product quality or reducing negative externalities. We apply the framework to the database of Kee et al. (2009) and derive ad valorem equiv...