Non-Tariff Measures, Specific Trade Concerns and Tariff Reduction

Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade

that restrict trade between countries in agricultural commodities. Many of these policies are now subject to important disciplines under the 1994 GATT agreement that is administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper is organized as follows. First, tariffs, import quotas, and tariff rate quotas are discussed. Then, a series of non-tariff barriers to trade are examined, including v...

Non-Tariff Barriers and Trade Liberalization∗

This paper shows that governments have no incentive to introduce non-tariff barriers when they are free to set tariffs but they do when tariffs are determined cooperatively. We then show three results. First, with trade liberalization, there is a progression from using tariffs only to quotas, and to antidumping constraints (when quotas are jointly eliminated). Second, there is a narrowing of th...

The InvIsIble barrIers To Trade how busInesses experIence non-TarIff measures THE INVISIBLE BARRIERS TO TRADE

Non-Tariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains

We assess the literature on public and private quality standards and their impact in food markets, international trade, and global supply chains. We focus on their effects on welfare, trade, industrial organization, and labor markets and with special attention to the North-South context. We also attempt to better characterize when these measures constitute protectionism, a complicate task. We l...

The Progressive Tariff Reduction Scheme

As economists have known since Adam Smith, free trade should benefit all nations by allowing them to take advantage of gains from specialization.1 Indeed, the benefits of trade are supposed to justify unilateral liberalization: as the late British economist Joan Robinson once remarked, if your trading partner throws rocks into his harbor, that is no reason to throw rocks into your own. While un...