The Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty : How Much Do Trade Commitments Boost Trade?

Osnago, Alberto ; Piermartini, Roberta ; Rocha, Nadia

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: TARIFFS;    BINDING OVERHANG;    POLICY SPACE;    NON-TARIFF BARRIERS;    NTBs;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8567
RP-ID  :  WPS8567

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper studies the effects of tradepolicy uncertainty on the extensive and intensive margins oftrade for a sample of 65 exporters at the Harmonized Systemsix-digit level. The paper measures trade policy uncertaintyas the gap between binding tariff commitments under tradeagreements (multilateral and regional agreements) andapplied tariffs -- what is also known as tariffs'water. The results show that trade policy uncertainty is animportant barrier to exports and its effects areheterogeneous. On average and at the current level of tariffcommitments, the paper estimates that the elimination ofwater, without any change of the applied tariff, wouldincrease the probability of exporting by 6 percent and tradevolumes by 1.3 percent. The negative impact of trade policyuncertainty on export participation is higher for countrieswith low-quality institutions and in the presence of globalvalue chains. For a sample of new acceding countries, theanalysis finds that removing water would boost theprobability of trading by 50 percent and exports by 16percent. The paper also estimates that the current system ofcommitments boosts trade by between 10 and 30 percent,compared with a world where at any moment tariffs could beraised to an arbitrarily high level.