Competing Liberalizations: Tariffs and Trade in the 21st Century

This paper proposes a unique overview of trade policies trends since the launch of the Doha Round, based on detailed data on tariffs and trade covering 130 countries. We show that regionalism has delivered limited effective liberalization so far, leading to only a 0.3 percentage point (p.p.) cut in the worldwide average applied tariff duty between 2001 and 2013. WTO commitments (1.0 p.p. average cut) and unilateral liberalizations on a most-favored-nation (MFN) basis (1.3 p.p.) mattered far more on average, with more uneven consequences. As a result, we reckon that trade policy changes between 2001 and 2013 more than halved the worldwide welfare gains to be expected from the tariff-cutting provisions of the hypothetical Doha Agreement. If all ongoing RTA negotiations were concluded, expected gains would fall to one-third of their 2001 level

Analysis of the Role of Tariff Concessions in East Asia

While there are many studies focusing on the impacts of various trade policy agreements across the world in the recent years, there is not much focus in the literature on the extent to which these agreements are implemented later, in terms of the aspects agreed upon therein. In this paper, we firstly identify the past achievements of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in East Asian regions in terms of tariff removals and suggest future rooms for further economic benefits from trade liberalization in the region. Secondly, we provide the tariff concession dataset in the GTAP Data Base, which distinguishes the tariff removals agreed in these EPAs in East Asia but not implemented yet, from the existing overall tariffs in the benchmark year. As the standard GTAP Data Base only incorporates enforced tariff reductions through the base year applied tariffs, to analyse future trade integration, it might be worth it to integer commitments that are not yet implemented. We do that at the HS6 levels for East Asian EPAs that allows us to compare the economic impacts of partial versus complete implementation of the trade liberalization agreed in East Asian EPAs. Our results suggest that taking those commitments into account economically matters and that such satellite dataset might be taken as actual baseline for future policy simulations.JEL Classification Codes: D58, F13, F14, F15, F17The earlier version of this study was presented at the 18th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis on 17-19 June, 2015 in Melbourne

Essays on tariff trade policies in the 21st century

L'objectif de cette thèse consiste à analyser et quantifier les effets de la politique commerciale tarifaire sur l'activité économique et le pouvoir d'achat des pays qui la mettent en oeuvre depuis le début du XXIème siècle. Le chapitre un détaille la construction de la base MAcMap-HS6, qui propose un équivalent ad valorem (i.e. un pourcentage) des droits de douane appliqués sur chaque produit commercé par l'ensemble des pays du monde à leurs partenaires. Le chapitre deux propose une évaluation quantitative, en équilibre général, des conséquences de l’accession du Vietnam à l'Organisation Mondiale du Commerce (OMC), en 2007. Via des analyses contrefactuelles, le chapitre trois présente les conséquences économiques des politiques tarifaires en place depuis 2001, implémentées sur la période ou en négociations. Les impacts des changements des droits de douane dans le secteur agricole sont étudiés dans le chapitre quatre. Le chapitre cinq analyse les impacts économiques des négociations commerciales bilatérales initiées dès 2012 par les plus grands pays du monde sur les pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne. Enfin, le dernier chapitre étudie les conséquences des représailles commerciales potentiellement subies par l'UE suite à la mise en place d'une taxe carbone, pénalisante pour les exportations de ses partenaires.The objective of this thesis is to analyze and quantify the effects of tariff trade policy on the economic activity and purchasing power of countries that have been implementing it since the beginning of the 21st century. Chapter one details the construction of the MAcMap-HS6 database, which proposes an ad valorem equivalent (i.e. a percentage) of the customs duties applied on each product imported by all the countries of the world to their partners. Chapter two proposes a quantitative evaluation, in general equilibrium, of the consequences of Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007. Through counterfactual analyses, chapter three presents the economic consequences of the tariff policies in place since 2001, implemented over the period or under negotiation. The impacts of tariff changes in the agricultural sector are studied in chapter four. Chapter five analyzes the economic impacts of the bilateral trade negotiations, initiated as early as 2012 by the world's largest countries, on Sub-Saharan African countries. Finally, the last chapter examines the consequences of trade retaliation potentially suffered by the EU following the implementation of a carbon tax, which could penalize its partners' exports

Per-unit duties: friends or foes for developing exporters?

Protectionist instruments such as tariffs may distort the price of traded goods. In this paper, we explore the impact of specific (per-unit) duties on the patterns of agricultural trade. Specific duties are showed to encourage countries to export products with higher prices, leading to an “Alchian Allen effect” on unit values. Their restrictive effect on trade values is smaller for developed countries as compared to developing countries. It can be explained by the quality specialization of these countries, but also by the low level of quality differentiation of their exports. Our results highlight the discriminating nature of specific duties for low-income countries

Per-unit duties: friends or foes for developing exporters?

Protectionist instruments such as tariffs may distort the price of traded goods. In this paper, we explore the impact of specific (per-unit) duties on the patterns of agricultural trade. Specific duties are showed to encourage countries to export products with higher prices, leading to an “Alchian Allen effect” on unit values. Their restrictive effect on trade values is smaller for developed countries as compared to developing countries. It can be explained by the quality specialization of these countries, but also by the low level of quality differentiation of their exports. Our results highlight the discriminating nature of specific duties for low-income countries

Nutrition Transition and the Structure of Global Food Demand

International audienceEstimating future demand for food is a critical aspect of global food security analyses. The process linking dietary changes to wealth is known as the nutrition transition and presents well-identified features that help to predict consumption changes in poor countries. This study proposes to represent the nutrition transition with a nonhomothetic, flexible-in-income, demand system. The resulting model is estimated statistically based on cross-sectional information from FAOSTAT. It captures the main features of the nutrition transition: rise in demand for calories associated with income growth; diversification of diets away from starchy staples; and a large increase in caloric demand for animal-based products, fats, and sweeteners. The estimated model is used to project food demand between 2010 and 2050 based on a set of plausible futures (trend projections and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios). The main results of these projections are: (1) global food demand will increase by 47%, less than half the growth in the previous four decades; (2) this growth will be attributable mainly to lower-middle-income and low-income countries; (3) the structure of global food demand will change over the period, with a doubling of demand for animal-based calories and a much smaller 19% increase in demand for starchy staples; and (4) the analysis of a range of population and income projections reveals important uncertainties: depending on the scenario, the projected increases in demand for animal-based and vegetal-based calories range from 74 to 114% and from 20 to 42%, respectively

Mega Deals: What Consequences for sub-Saharan Africa?

The sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are excluded from the mega-deals, free trade agreements (FTA) currently under negotiations between several developed economies (EUUSA, EU-Japan, China-Japan-Korea…). As Sub-Saharan African exports remain dependent on these large markets, Sub-Saharan African countries could undergo important economic impacts,. Using a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Model (CGEM), we find that mega-deals would have a negative impact on the welfare of SSA countries. Regional integration (through the negotiation of the “Tripartite” FTA, which gathers, 26 African countries) might limit these losses, but could not overcome them. A continental regional trade agreement (RTA) involving all SSA countries would slightly counterbalance the negative impacts of the mega-deals. We also show that openness of SSA countries towards Asia could be a potential solution to avoid trade diversion

Vietnam's Accession to the WTO: Ex-Post Evaluation in a Dynamic Perspective

Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on January 11, 2007 has represented the outcome of decades of efforts to modernise its economy. In this paper, we propose a new general equilibrium assessment of Vietnam’s accession to WTO using a dynamic approach and benefiting from the ex-post perspective offered one year after the membership acceptation. We rely on a dynamic global model incorporating duty-drawbacks and taking into account tariff changes at the HS6 level. A particular attention is paid on the sensitivity to dynamics assumptions and labour market closure. Our results show that gains for Vietnam linked to WTO accession are positive for trade in merchandises, but highly dependent on the evolution of textile and apparel sectors, whose exports were boosted by the commitments.Computable General Equilibrium Models;Trade policy;World trade organisation;Vietnam

La demande alimentaire mondiale en 2050

L’accroissement de la population mondiale et l’augmentation des niveaux de vie constituent des défis pour l’agriculture de demain, tant en termes de capacités d’offre que de gestion des externalités liées à ces transformations (émissions de gaz à effet de serre, pollution des eaux…). Anticiper les modifications des habitudes alimentaires pour mieux définir les politiques économiques à mettre en place dès à présent est donc un enjeu majeur, notamment si l’on veut assurer la sécurité alimentaire au niveau mondial. La transition nutritionnelle, processus expliquant les changements de régimes alimentaires associés au développement et à la croissance des revenus, présente des caractéristiques bien identifiées aidant à prédire les modifications de consommation dans les pays pauvres et émergents. Cette Lettre du Cepii propose une quantification de ce phénomène, permettant d’anticiper les modifications du régime alimentaire mondial et les changements associés de la demande agricole entre 2010 et 2050. En retenant le niveau de développement économique comme déterminant principal de la demande alimentaire, nous estimons une augmentation de la demande mondiale de calories de l’ordre de 46 % d’ici à 2050, avec un doublement de la consommation de calories d’origine animale

PER-UNIT DUTIES: FRIENDS OR FOES OF DEVELOPING COUNTRY EXPORTERS?

Protectionist instruments such as tariffs can distort the prices of traded goods. This paper explores the impact of specific (per-unit) duties on patterns of agricultural trade. Specific duties may encourage countries to export higher priced products, leading to an “Alchian-Allen effect” on unit values. Their restrictive effect on trade values is smaller for developed compared to developing countries. It can be explained by the specialization of these countries on low-priced products and by the low level of quality differentiation among their exports. Our results highlight the discriminating nature of specific duties for low-income countries