Globalization Issues and Consumers’ Purchase Decisions for Food Products: Evidence from a Lab Experiment

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Measuring Costs And Benefits Of Non-Tariff Measures In Agri-Food Trade

This paper provides a systematic welfare-based approach to analyze the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on trade and welfare in presence of market imperfections. We focus on standard-like measures such as technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. The approach overcomes the shortcomings of the mainstream approach based on the analysis of forgone trade caused by trade costs. The latter ignores market imperfections: welfare increases when NTMs are removed and trade expands. We explain how to account for external effects and market failures in trade-focused welfare analysis, leading to a more balanced overall assessment of measures despite a potential reduction of trade flows. We show that the relationship between trade, welfare, and NTMs is complex. The optimum NTM is often not zero. An application to shrimp trade illustrates the feasibility of the proposed approach. The illustration shows that the reinforcement of a food safety standard can be socially preferable to the status-quo situation, both domestically and internationallyexternality; trade; Welfare; Non-tariff measures; NTM

Trade restrictiveness indices in presence of externalities: an application to non-tariff measures

We extend the trade restrictiveness indices (TRIs) approach to the case of market failures and domestic regulations addressing them, in presence of arbitrary tariffs and other domestic price policy distortions. We focus on standard-like non-tariff measures (NTMs) affecting cost of production and potentially enhancing domestic demand by increasing product quality or reducing negative externalities. The impact of NTMs on trade is ambiguous depending on the relative strength of the supply cost and demand enhancing effects. We apply the framework to the NTM database of Kee, Nicita, and Olarreaga (2009) and derive ad valorem equivalents for NTMs and other policy distortions. These equivalents are then used to compute TRIs. 10% of the NTM ad valorem equivalents at the 6-digit level of the Harmonized System are negative indicating a net trade-enhancing effect of these NTMs in those sectors. Consequently, TRIs computed without a protectionist presumption are smaller than their constrained counterparts not allowing for trade enhancements effects of NTMs. Accounting for externalities and anti-protective effects significantly reduces the measure of trade policy restrictiveness for most countries

Normes sanitaires et phytosanitaires et obstacles techniques au commerce: quels impacts sur les échanges internationaux de produits agricoles?

Dans le cadre des Accords sur les mesures sanitaires et phytosanitaires (SPS) et sur les obstacles techniques au commerce (OTC), l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) autorise les pays membres à adopter des mesures destinées à protéger la santé humaine, animale et végétale ainsi que l'environnement, la faune et la flore et la sécurité humaine. Ces mesures constituent des barrières non tarifaires susceptibles de jouer un rôle important dans le déroulement des négociations commerciales internationales ; les pays en développement protestent, en effet, régulièrement contre leur utilisation par les pays développés à des fins protectionnistes. L'analyse statistique de l'impact des mesures SPS et OTC sur les échanges agricoles indique qu'elles peuvent avoir un impact négatif significatif sur les importations des pays de l'OCDE, même si elles se traduisent par ailleurs par une normalisation et une certification qui facilitent les échanges. Les estimations par groupe de pays exportateurs montrent en fait que les échanges entre pays développés ne sont pas affectés de manière significative par les réglementations techniques, sanitaires et phytosanitaires, mais que celles-ci constituent un obstacle important aux exportations des pays en développement vers les pays développés

Reforming EU trade policies towards more coherence with food security objectives requires careful design as EU trade preferences do matter

Agricultural trade is a key determinant in global food security (Figure 1), but international cooperation is necessary for trade to help coping with supply shocks, to spread variations in crop yield and to dampen price volatility on global commodity markets. If regional and bilateral negotiations expand at the expense of a multilateral agreement, there is a risk of fragmentation of the trading system

Reforming EU trade policies towards more coherence with food security objectives requires careful design as EU trade preferences do matter

Agricultural trade is a key determinant in global food security (Figure 1), but international cooperation is necessary for trade to help coping with supply shocks, to spread variations in crop yield and to dampen price volatility on global commodity markets. If regional and bilateral negotiations expand at the expense of a multilateral agreement, there is a risk of fragmentation of the trading system

Trade Impact of European Measures on GMOs Condemned by the WTO Panel

In May 2003, the United States, Canada and Argentina launched a World Trade Organization (WTO) case against the European Union concerning its authorization regime for biotech products. In November 2006, the WTO condemned this regime. Using a gravity equation, we estimate the reduction of exports from the complainants to the European Union for potentially affected products. Our results suggest that the European moratorium and product-specific measures have a negative effect on trade, as well as safeguard measures adopted by Germany, Italy and Greece