The value of agricultural tariff rate quotas to developing countries

Diffusion du document : INRA Station d'Economie et Sociologie rurales 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 Rennes Cedex (FRA)The purpose of this paper is to estimate the value of current TRQ market access to developing countries as a contribution to this debate. The value consists in the new market access which TRQs created (and the export surplus gained on these additional exports) plus the size of quota rents generated which accrue to developingcountries. As there is widespread agreement that little new market access was created by TRQs, which were mainly used to maintain existing trade flows, often originating in preferential agreements, this paper concentrates on estimating the value of rents accruing to developing countries. The results are interesting for at least two reasons

Subnational home market bias in Vietnam: Evidence from enterprise‐level data

This paper contributes to the home (market) bias literature where administrative or political borders limit trade across borders. Home bias is well documented at the national and subnational level. To sort out macro (e.g., location characteristics) and micro (e.g., enterprise characteristics) factors behind home bias, we use small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) data from Vietnam. Using the fractional multinomial logit model, we find that the proportion of SME sales outside of their home markets is positively associated with enterprise size, age, number of business association memberships and the distance of SMEs\u27 most important supplier. In contrast, the proportion of SME sales to neighbouring provinces is negatively associated with the share of SME production for final consumption. Besides enterprise‐level frictions, market characteristics matter too. The proportion of SME sales to customers in their home markets is negatively associated with home or neighbouring provinces\u27 governance quality, while the proportion of sales to customers in neighbouring provinces is positively associated with these areas\u27 governance quality. These suggest that good governance frees SME resources for use in selling to less familiar markets

Discrimination, social capital, and financial constraints: the case of Viet Nam

This paper examines the relationship among gender, social capital, and access to finance of micro, small,and medium enterprises in the manufacturing sector in Viet Nam. Our dataset is from the 2011, 2013, and2015 results of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Survey in Viet Nam. Using the Heckman technique to control for sample selection bias, the estimates do not provide evidence for discriminationagainst female-owned enterprises in the formal lending market. Specifically, female entrepreneurs havea higher probability of getting a loan and they pay lower interest rates in comparison with male entrepreneurs. No discrimination in formal credit markets may arise from the preference for informal loansover formal loans as entrepreneurs tend to borrow informal loans before applying for formal ones.Further analysis shows that social capital could facilitate loan applications: firms that have a closer relationship with government officials and other business people can get loans of longer duration

What's Behind the Inequality We Measure: An Investigation Using Latin American Data

The use of income distribution indicators in the economics literature has increased considerably in recent years. This work relies on household surveys from 18 LAC countries to take a step back from the use of these indicators, and explore what`s behind the numbers, and what information they convey. We find: a) that the way countries rank according to inequality measured in a conventional way is to a large extent an illusion created by differences in characteristics of the data and on the particular ways in which the data is treated; b) Our ideas about the effect of inequality on economic growth are also driven by quality and coverage differences in household surveys and by the way in which the data is treated; c) Standard household surveys in LAC are unable to capture the incomes of the richest sectors of society; so, the inequality we are able to measure is most likely a gross underestimation. Our main conclusion is that there is an important story behind each number. This story influences our judgement about how unequal countries are and about the relation between inequality and other development indicators, but it is seldom told or known. Perhaps other statistics commonly used in economics also have their own interesting story, and it might be worth trying to find out what it is