Nontariff Barriers and Trade Liberalization

Nontariff Barriers

Nontariff barriers (NTBs) refer to the wide range of policy interventions other than border tariffs that affect trade of goods, services, and factors of production. Most taxonomies of NTBs include market-specific trade and domestic policies affecting trade in that market. Extended taxonomies include macro-economic policies affecting trade. NTBs have gained importance as tariff levels have been ...

The Political Economy of Nontariff Trade Barriers in Emerging Economies

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...

Trade Liberalization and Employment

This paper reviews both multi-country and country studies on the impact of trade liberalization on growth and employment in developing countries. These studies reveal sharply contrasting effects of trade liberalization on employment, suggesting that country-specifi c and contingent factors are important. In particular, differences in how trade liberalization is implemented are particularly impo...

Trade Liberalization and Financial Leverage

This paper argues that trade liberalization has a potentially significant impact on financial leverage. We compare the predictions of the trade-off model of capital structure with the pecking order model. In the first case, we suggest that trade liberalization affects the trade-off between the tax advantages of debt and expected bankruptcy costs. This implies that a reduction in domestic tariff...