Estimating the Impact of Cumulative Rules of Origin on Trade Costs: An Application to Mega-regional Free Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific Region

We investigate the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs), focusing on the impact of cumulative rules of origin (ROO) on trade costs. Using a gravity regression model, we estimate the effect of various cumulative ROO systems on the measured trade costs. We apply these estimates to static and capital accumulation computable general equilibrium models to compare the effects of mega-regional FTAs in the Asia-Pacific region—namely, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and Free Trade Areas in the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). We find that mega-regional FTAs may not be a viable alternative to a multilateral trading system or bilateral FTAs unless less restrictive cumulative ROO are adopted. Successful FTAs depend on an appropriate cumulative ROO provision system rather than their membership expansion.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership among eleven key nations of the Pacific Rim has already expanded trade and economic cooperation among the Parties. It also serves to encourage political cooperation among them and has served as a model for future 'wide and deep' free trade agreements. The chapters of this book will provide readers with a detailed understanding of the CPTPP's coverage, including provisions relating to tariff elimination, customs rules of origin, agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, telecommunications, intellectual property, investment and investor–state arbitration, financial and other services, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, electronic commerce and digital trade, small and medium-sized enterprises, competition law, labor and environmental protection, dispute settlement, and many others. No international lawyer, economist, trade negotiator, or enterprise can afford not to take advantage of the opportunities for business that the CPTPP offers. This book has been written by CPTPP negotiators, experts, and practitioners.

Impact of FTA on Trade in ASEAN and Australia Using Customs Level Data

This study examines the impact of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) on Australian trade with a particular focus on imports from ASEAN member countries to Australia. We examine the AANZFTA’s utilization by ten ASEAN countries at the six-digit trade classification level from 2012 to 2016 using Australian customs data. We implement Ando and Urata’s (2018) and Hayakawa et al.’s (2014) framework of free trade agreement (FTA) utilization based on preferential tariff margins. We also account for overlapping FTAs that are likely to impact the AANZFTA’s utilization. The results indicate that preferential tariff margins positively impact FTA utilization. However, the results also indicate that the AANZFTA’s utilization rate across ASEAN countries is low relative to Australia’s bilateral FTAs with Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. We also find evidence that co-sharing rules of origin positively impact FTA utilization.

Tariff elimination versus tax avoidance: free trade agreements and transfer pricing

We explore the new roles of rules of origin (ROO) when multinational enterprises (MNEs) manipulate their transfer prices to avoid a high corporate tax. The ROO under a free trade agreement (FTA) require exporters to identify the origin of exports to be eligible for a preferential tariff rate. We find that a value-added criterion of ROO restricts abusive transfer pricing by MNEs. Interestingly, an FTA with ROO can induce MNEs to shift profits from a low- to high-tax country. Because the ROO augment tax revenues inside FTA countries, they can transform a welfare-reducing FTA into a welfare-improving one.

Who Uses the EU's Free Trade Agreements? A Transaction-Level Analysis of the EU–South Korea FTA

The tariff preferences in FTAs do not apply automatically to all imports. Instead, importers can request to use the tariff preferences, but must then show that the imported goods fulfil the formal requirements (e.g. rules of origin) of the FTA. This is costly, which is a likely reason why tariff preferences are not always used. This research note examines preference utilization under the FTA between the EU and South Korea, which was formally ratified in 2015 (but had been provisionally applied from 2011). We use firm and transaction level data for Swedish imports from South Korea during November 2016 to answer the question ‘Who uses the EU's FTAs?’ With information on firm size, product category, import mode (direct imports or customs warehousing), preference margin, potential duty savings, and transaction size, we provide a detailed picture of when firms choose to utilize the tariff preferences. The results suggest that the differences across importers are not primarily related to firm size, as is sometimes suggested in extant literature. We also find that it is the size of the import transaction rather than the size of the preference margin that determines preference utilization.