EUROPEAN ACCESSION AND THE TRADE FACILITATION AGENDA

2010 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 227-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN S. WILSON ◽  
XUBEI LUO ◽  
HARRY G. BROADMAN

This paper examines the impact of improved trade facilitation measures and institutional capacity in a set of economies in transition Europe. Our results suggest that behind-the-border barriers play an important role in determining bilateral trade flows (controlling for the effects of tariffs, development levels, distance, and regional characteristics of exporters and importers, among other factors). For European Union (EU) members that joined the Union in 2004 and less developed and candidate members raising capacity in port efficiency and information technology infrastructures halfway to the EU-15 average, trade could expand by US$49 billion and US$62 billion respectively. In the context of the economic crisis and fragile recovery, as well as efforts to strengthen Europe integration, efforts to facilitate trade with investments to raise capacity in trade facilitation should be considered as part of policy steps going forward.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
AISDL

In a globalized economy, countries actively participate in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to bring their advantageous products to the global market through cross-border transport to satisfy customers. Trade Facilitation (TF) has become key to address the difficulties faced by traders in cross-border transport. In the trend of global TF, Vietnam has always been committed to implement TF measures by simplify customs procedures and improving customs clearance efficiency at the border crossing in order to help traders reduce their trading costs. This paper mainly considers the impact of TF measures on Vietnam‘s trade flow under the effect of FTAs. Using the gravity model extended with quantitative measures of customs environment, regulatory environment, and service infrastructure, this paper estimates the impact of TF on bilateral trade flows with Vietnam. The results show that port and customs effects have positive impacts on Vietnam's trade flows. The results also show that these impacts are consistent despite the existence of FTAs. The implementation of TF measures always requires coordination of countries to produce the best results. Indeed, the increase in trade flows between countries will bring economic benefits. And when the reforms of TF are strictly implemented, reducing trade costs will increase trade volume. In a nutshell, TF has gradually become one of the important factors of economic growth.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Billon ◽  
Ernesto Rodriguez-Crespo

This paper studies the impact of internet, mobile phones and broadband use on bilateral trade flows of 33 sub-Saharan countries over the period 2004-2014. We use a gravity model in which in addition to standard variables we investigate the joint impact of ICT use and trade facilitation on intra-trade flows. We find positive and significant effects for mobile phone subscriptions for the exporting country; positive impacts of broadband for both the exporting and importing countries and positive influence of internet use for the importing country. We also find a negative impact of trade facilitation on bilateral trade and an inverse relationship between ICT use and trade facilitation suggesting that the lack of trade facilitation might be hindering the potential benefits of ICT use in intra-Sub-Saharan African trade.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-107
Author(s):  
Irena Kikerkova ◽  
◽  
Elena Makrevska Disoska ◽  
Katerina Toshevska-Trpchevska ◽  
Jasna Tonovska

The paper makes an indetail overview of the structure of the trade exchange of goods of Macedonia and explores the determinants of its bilateral trade flows using the gravity model. The analysis includes data on 40 trade partners of Macedonia in the period from 2005-2019. The used variables in the model are: GDP per capita difference, population, distance and relative endowments of factors of production (capital, land and labour). In most of the analyzed regressions the coefficients on determinants such as GDP per capita difference and population are positive and their impact upon the bilateral trade (as dependent variable) is statistically significant. Intensity of Macedonian trade decreases in regard of the distance from a trade partner and increases in partner’s size – the country tends to trade more with lager countries. In our analysis we included three dummy variables such as: membership in the EU and in CEFTA-2006 and common language. The impact of the possible membership in the EU is clearly positive and statistically significant. Being a candidate country for full EU membership, Macedonia trades more with EU trade partners rather than with the neibouring countries, members of CEFTA-2006. Keywords: bilateral trade, gravity model, trade partners, Republic of North Macedonia, European Union, CEFTA-2006


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Maria Cipollina ◽  
Federica Demaria

Nowadays, trade negotiations afford both liberalism- and protectionism-oriented policies. Indeed, in recent decades, the developed countries have been actively engaged in negotiating many preferential agreements to integrate developing countries (DCs) into world trade and encourage their economic growth, but many of these schemes contrast with the complex rules, often imposed on international markets, that still are an obstacle for exporters. Their presence and related costs reduce the importance of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in increasing trade flows. This article attempts to assess the impact of preferential trade policies on trade flows controlling for different non-tariff barriers (NTBs), using a structural gravity model. The analysis uses disaggregated data, registered in the year 2017, on EU imports (defined at level HS-6 digit) from a large number of exporters (187 developed and developing countries) and also includes the intra-EU trade. Our results show robust and positive estimates for the impact of preferences on bilateral trade flows, however, higher non-tariff barriers are likely to play a role in reducing both the extensive margins of trade, and so tariff preferences alone are not sufficient to access international markets. The impact of NTBs on the intensive margin of trade is ambiguous; some measures may act as catalysts and therefore increase trade, and others may act as an additional cost of trade and thus hinder trade.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258356
Author(s):  
Javier Barbero ◽  
Juan José de Lucio ◽  
Ernesto Rodríguez-Crespo

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade flows using a state-of-the-art gravity model of trade. Using the monthly trade data of 68 countries exporting across 222 destinations between January 2019 and October 2020, our results are threefold. First, we find a greater negative impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade for those countries that were members of regional trade agreements before the pandemic. Second, we find that the impact of COVID-19 is negative and significant when we consider indicators related to governmental actions. Finally, this negative effect is more intense when exporter and importer country share identical income levels. In the latter case, the highest negative impact is found for exports between high-income countries.


Author(s):  
Łukasz Klimczak ◽  
Jelena Trivić

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that had an influence on bilateral trade flows among the CEFTA countries with special emphasize: 1) on the role of CEFTA agreement and its preceding network of bilateral free trade agreements, and 2) on the role of institutions in facilitating intra-regional trade. In order to assess the impact of these variables on trade, we employed an augmented gravity model based on panel data of the CEFTA countries in fifteen years period (2000-2014). The results of the research suggest that there was a positive and statistically significant role of the CEFTA agreement on trade between its parties but the influence of the preceding bilateral free trade agreements was even higher. Results also showed that institutions can play an important role as trade facilitators, but mainly in the importing country while in the exporting country only three of six variables showed to have a positive sign.


Author(s):  
Céline Carrère ◽  
Marcelo Olarreaga ◽  
Damian Raess

AbstractWe explore the impact of the introduction and design of labor clauses (LCs) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows over the period 1990–2014. While it is not a priori clear if the inclusion of LCs in PTAs will decrease or increase bilateral trade, we expect the direction of trade to matter, that is, we expect to observe the (negative or positive) impact of LCs in the South-North trade configuration. We also expect, in that configuration, stronger LCs to yield stronger (negative or positive) effects on bilateral trade flows. Using a novel dataset on the content of labor provisions in PTAs, we find in line with our first expectation that while the introduction of LCs has on average no impact on bilateral trade flows, it increases exports of low and middle-income countries with weaker labor standards in North–South trade agreements. Consistent with our second expectation, this positive impact is mostly driven by LCs with institutionalized cooperation provisions. In contrast, LCs with strong enforcement mechanisms do not have a statistically significant impact on exports of developing countries in North–South PTAs. The results are inconsistent with the ideas that LCs are set for protectionist reasons or have protectionist effects, casting doubt on the logic for the reluctance of many developing countries to include LCs in their trade agreements.


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