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 look at studies investigating public and private standards and across various quantitative approaches and countries. These standards have complex effects. The evidence is mixed regarding standards as catalyst for or impediment against trade and development, reflecting the complexity of these effects and their specificity to industries and countries. The analysis of standard-like nontariff measures and their impacts does not lead to sweeping prescriptions for policy reforms. We identify more modest prescriptions and make some recommendations for fruitful research directions. *Beghin is Marlin Cole professor of international agricultural economics in the economics department and the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University; Maertens is associate professor and head of the division of Bioeconomics in the faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; and Swinnen is professor of economics and director of the LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The authors thank an editor and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft.