Assessing the impact of political economy factors on rules of origin under NAFTA

Rules of origin are legitimate policy instruments to prevent trade deflection in a preferential trade agreement short of a customs union. Trade deflection takes place when a product imported into the preferential trade agreement through the member with the lowest external tariff is transhipped to a higher-tariff member, while yielding a benefit for the re-exporter. Yet, when captured by special interest groups, rules of origin can restrict trade beyond what is needed to prevent trade deflection. By how much do political economy factors account for the stringency of rules of origin? This study quantifies the impact of both determinants - those considered"justifiable"because they prevent trade deflection and those deemed to arise from"political economy"forces - on the restrictiveness of rules of origin under the North American Free Trade Agreement, approximated by a restrictiveness index. The main finding is that political economy forces, especially from the United States, raised significantly the restrictiveness of the rules of origin. Indeed, in industries where political-economy forces were strong prior to the North American Free Trade Agreement, as when the U.S. Most Favored Nation tariff was high or the revealed comparative advantage of Mexico (the United States) was strong (weak), more stringent rules of origin were introduced. Thus, stricter rules of origin are associated with higher production costs reducing the potential benefits of enhanced market access that is initially pursued by this type of agreement.Free Trade,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Trade Law,Debt Markets

Export performance and trade facilitation reform : hard and soft infrastructure

The authors estimate the impact of aggregate indicators of"soft"and"hard"infrastructure on the export performance of developing countries. They build four new indicators for 101 countries over the period 2004-07. Estimates show that trade facilitation reforms do improve the export performance of developing countries. This is particularly true with investment in physical infrastructure and regulatory reform to improve the business environment. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that the marginal effect of infrastructure improvement on exports appears to be decreasing in per capita income. In contrast, the impact of information and communications technology on exports appears increasingly important for richer countries. Drawing on estimates, the authors compute illustrative exports growth for developing countries and ad-valorem equivalents of improving each indicator halfway to the level of the top performer in the region. As an example, improving the quality of physical infrastructure so that Egypt's indicator increases half-way to the level of Tunisia would increase exports by 10.8 percent. This is equivalent to a 7.4 percent cut in tariffs faced by Egyptian exporters across importing markets.Environmental Economics&Policies,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Free Trade,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy

Why trade facilitation matters to Africa ?

This paper reviews data and research on trade costs for Sub-Saharan African countries. It focuses on: border-related costs, transport costs, costs related to behind-the border issues, and the costs of compliance with rules of origin specific to preferential trade agreements. Trade costs are, on average, higher for African countries than for other developing countries. Using gravity-model estimates, the authors compute ad-valorem equivalents of improvements in trade indicators for a sample of African countries. The evidence suggests that the gains for African exporters from improving the trade logistics half-way to the level in South Africa is more important than a substantive cut in tariff barriers. As an example, improving logistics in Ethiopia half-way to the level in South Africa would be roughly equivalent to a 7.5 percent cut in tariffs faced by Ethiopian exporters.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Free Trade,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy

Rules of origin for preferential trading arrangements : implications for the ASEAN Free Trade Area of EU and U.S. experience

With free trade areas (FTAs) undernegotiation between Japan and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) members and between the Republic of Korea and AFTA members, preferential market access will become more important in Asian regionalism. Protectionist pressures will likely increase through rules of origin, the natural outlet for these pressures. Based on the experience of the European Union and the United States with rules of origin, the authors argue that, should these FTAs follow in the footsteps of the EU and the U.S. and adopt similar rules of origin, trading partners in the region would incur unnecessary costs. Using EU trade under the Generalized System of Preferences with Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific partners, the authors estimate how the use of preferences would likely change if AFTA were to veer away from its current uniform rules of origin requiring a 40 percent local content rate. Depending on the sample used, a 10 percentage point reduction in the local value content requirement is estimated to increase the utilization rate of preferences by between 2.5 and 8.2 percentage points.Free Trade,Rules of Origin,Trade and Regional Integration,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy

Beyond the information technology agreement : harmonization of standards and trade in electronics

Product standards can have a dual impact on production and trade costs. Standards may impose additional costs on exporters as it may be necessary to adapt products for specific markets (cost-effect). In contrast, standards can reduce exporters'information costs if they convey information on industrial requirements or consumer tastes that would be costly to collect in the absence of standards (informational-effect). Using a new World Bank database of European standards for electronic products, the authors examine the impact of internationally-harmonized European standards on European Union imports. They find that European Union standards for electronic products that are harmonized to international standards have a positive and significant effect on trade. The results suggest that efforts to promote trade in electronic products could be complemented by steps to promote standards harmonization. This might include, for example, re-starting talks to extend the Information Technology Agreement to non-tariff measures and commitments to harmonize national standards in electronic products.Information Security&Privacy,Technology Industry,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Science Education,Labor Policies

How Much Market Access in FTAs? Textiles Under NAFTA

This paper estimates the effective market-access granted under NAFTA in textiles and apparel by combining two approaches. First, we estimate the effect of tariff preferences and rules of origin on the border prices of Mexican final goods exported to the US and of US intermediates exported to Mexico.NAFTA, Rules of Origin, regional integration

How Much Market Access in FTAs? Textiles Under NAFTA

This paper estimates the effective market-access granted under NAFTA in textiles and apparel by combining two approaches. First, we estimate the effect of tariff preferences and rules of origin on the border prices of Mexican final goods exported to the US and of US intermediates exported to Mexico.NAFTA;Rules of Origin;regional integration

Food standards and exports: evidence for China

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Using a new database on standards in China, we estimate the impact of voluntary and mandatory standards – either harmonized to international norms or purely domestic – on Chinese food exports. The dataset covers seven Chinese products over the period 1992–2008. We find that standards have a positive effect on China's export performance, as the benefits to standardization in terms of reducing potential information asymmetry and signaling enhance food safety, and quality in foreign markets seem to surpass compliance costs. Our estimation results show that the positive effect of Chinese standards is larger when they are harmonized to international measures. The results suggest that there are clear benefits to China's steps to base their domestic standards and regulations on international measures