贸易壁垒还是催化剂？非关税措施与企业层面的贸易利润率（英）

Policy Research Working Paper Trade Barriers or Catalysts? Non-Tariff Measures and Firm-Level Trade Margins Dela-Dem Doe FiankorWoubet KassaAbraham Lartey Policy Research Working Paper11024 Abstract This paper empirically examines how standards and tech-nical regulations affect export margins in three Africancountries at the firm level. The approach involves combin-ing detailed customs transaction data at the firm-productlevel with bilateral information on non-tariff measureswithin a gravity model of trade framework. The findings affected at the intensive margin compared to medium andlarge firms, and similarly, final goods are more affectedcompared to inter-mediate goods. Moreover, in the manu-facturing sector, firms with initially higher product qualityexperience a reversal of the trade-reducing effect of stan-dards and technical regulations, whereas in the agriculturesector, this effect is less pronounced for their counterparts. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those TradeBarriersorCatalysts?Non-TariffMeasuresandFirm-LevelTradeMargins Dela-DemDoeFiankor*WoubetKassa†AbrahamLartey Keywords:Non-tariff measures, Intensive margin, Extensive margin, Product quality JEL Classification:D22, F14, L15, O13, 014, Q17, Q18 1Introduction Several rounds of trade negotiations and reforms have reduced tariffs globally to historicallylow levels (Baldwin, 2016), even more so for developing countries, including those in Africa,which often benefit from unilateral and bilateral trade preferences. Nevertheless, alongsidethese tariff reductions, there has been a notable surge in the adoption, scope, and applica-tion of non-tariff measures (NTMs) to regulate trade (WTO, 2012; Niu et al., 2020).NTMsencompass a broad range of regulatory and administrative measures, which are not tariffs The rapid proliferation of NTMs has sparked considerable interest in the trade literature(see e.g., Li and Beghin, 2012; Ronen, 2017).Their impact on trade is, however, ambiguousbecause they have the potential to influence both the demand and supply of the productsthat they affect.On one hand, they can signal quality and safety to consumers, thereby In this study, we examine the impact of NTMs, specifically standards and technical reg-ulations, on exports from Africa.To do so, we combine dis-aggregated firm-product levelcustoms transactions panel data in three African countries (i.e., Burkina Faso, Malawi, and Senegal) and panel data on NTMs within a reduced-form gravity model.Of the differentNTM types, we focus on standards and technical regulations, which are mainly sanitary andphytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) measures.1While they areprimafacieintroduced to address market imperfections such as genuine health and safety concerns,they can also disguise protectionist intents including protecting domestic producers from for- characteristics. Hence, their impact on trade margins depends on the relative magnitude ofcompliance costs and the benefits derived from reducing information asymmetry, rendering Our empirical results show that standards and technical regulations reduce firm-productlevel exports from the sample of countries used in our study.At the intensive margin, theelasticity of firm-product level exports to the count of NTMs is about 0.07%, on average. Thiselasticity rises to 0.13% and 0.17% in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, respectively.At the extensive margin of export adjustment, defined as export market entry and exit, wefind no effect. The latter findings, coupled with the significant effects at the intensive margin,imply that for African firms, NTMs increase more their variable costs of trade than their fixed In extending our results, we assess the effects of NTMs on export volumes, prices, andproduct quality following Khandelwal et al. (2013).In the agriculture sector, the decreasein export values is due to lower export prices, while in the manufacturing sector, they aredriven by a reduction in export volumes. Although we did not observe the product qualityupgrading effects of NTMs in our sample, we find that initial product quality moderates the Our work contributes to the literature on how standards and regulations shape firms’ ex-port strategies in developing countries in three main ways. First, we examine the relationshipbetween technical measures and trade using firm-level data and focussing on both the agri-culture and manufacturing sectors.Standards and regulations are more likely to affect the trade of firms in low-income countries, especially those in Africa because they tend to bemor