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The Role of Non-tariff Measures in the Agri-Food Sector: Positive or Negative Instruments for Trade?

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Positive Integration - EU and WTO Approaches Towards the "Trade and" Debate

Part of the book series: European Yearbook of International Economic Law ((Spec. Issue))

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Abstract

The contribution shows the state of the art of “trade and non-tariff measures” debate in the agri-food sector. It provides an overview on trends in trade and in the level of policy interventions over the last decades, in order to shed lights on potential cause-effect relations. Comparing the evolution of trade and of non-tariff measures (NTMs) in agri-food sector, it appears that the pervasiveness of NTMs is likely to be strictly related to changes in trade patterns. Although the main scope of NTMs is to correct market inefficiencies, they may have a twofold role: trade catalysts or trade barriers. The potential relationships between trade and NTMs, however, differ across involved countries, products under regulation, and types of measure. Indeed, evidence from the empirical literature support either the “standards as catalysts” and the “standards as barriers” points of view. Our contribution aims at outlining how NTMs and trade influence each other.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Martin (2018).

  2. 2.

    Anderson and Martin (2005).

  3. 3.

    Martin (2018).

  4. 4.

    Trebilcock and Pue (2015).

  5. 5.

    Bagwell and Staiger (2011).

  6. 6.

    Anderson and Nelgen (2012) and Ivanic and Martin (2014).

  7. 7.

    Fernandes et al. (2017).

  8. 8.

    Xiong and Beghin (2014).

  9. 9.

    UN Comtrade (2017). See comtrade.un.org/data/ (last accessed 29 September 2017).

  10. 10.

    Martin (2018).

  11. 11.

    According to the United Nations’ country classification (2017), we consider Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), New Zealand, and the United States (US) as Northern (developed) countries, and emerging economies of the group of BRIICS (Brazil, Russian Federation, China, Indonesia, India, South Africa), as well as other countries of Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Peru) and of the Northern and Central Africa (Congo, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) as Southern (developing) countries. They cover 77% of the global gross domestic product (GDP): in 2015, developed economies, BRIICS countries, Egypt, and Peru are listed as top 25% economies for level of GDP. All these economies have benefited from a general growth in global welfare from 1995 to 2015: in particular, Bolivia and Congo have more than quadrupled their GDPs, while Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia have tripled their GDPs (CEPII, 2017). See www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd.asp (last accessed in 9 June 2017).

  12. 12.

    UN Comtrade (2017). See comtrade.un.org/data/ (last accessed 29 September 2017).

  13. 13.

    Henson et al. (2000).

  14. 14.

    Disdier et al. (2015).

  15. 15.

    Henson and Loader (2001).

  16. 16.

    Disdier et al. (2015) and Santeramo et al. (2019a).

  17. 17.

    See rtais.wto.org/UI/Charts.aspx# and ptadb.wto.org/ptaList.aspx (last accessed 12 January 2018).

  18. 18.

    OECD (2015).

  19. 19.

    Grant and Lambert (2008).

  20. 20.

    Koo et al. (2006), Lambert and McKoy (2009), and Sun and Reed (2010).

  21. 21.

    See www.globaltradealert.org/ (last accessed 15 March 2018).

  22. 22.

    Arita et al. (2017).

  23. 23.

    Fernandes et al. (2017).

  24. 24.

    Grant and Arita (2017).

  25. 25.

    UNCTAD (2012), p. 1.

  26. 26.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  27. 27.

    Greenville (2015).

  28. 28.

    Anderson and Nelgen (2012), Ivanic and Martin (2014), Santeramo et al. (2018), and Santeramo and Lamonaca (2019a).

  29. 29.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  30. 30.

    Dal Bianco et al. (2016) and Grant and Arita (2017).

  31. 31.

    UNCTAD (2012), p. 7.

  32. 32.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  33. 33.

    Grant and Arita (2017).

  34. 34.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  35. 35.

    UNCTAD (2012).

  36. 36.

    We analyse product categories, coded according to the Harmonised System (HS) 2-Digit Chapter Headings: meat (02), fish (03), dairy produce (04), edible vegetables (07), edible fruits and nuts (08), cereals (10), oil seeds and oleaginous fruits (12), preparation of meat and fish (16).According to the United Nations’ country classification (2017), we consider Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), New Zealand, and the United States (US) as Northern (developed) countries, and emerging economies of the group of BRIICS (Brazil, Russian Federation, China, Indonesia, India, South Africa), as well as other countries of Latin America (Argentina, Plurinational State of Bolivia, Peru) and of the Northern and Central Africa (Congo, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) as Southern (developing) countries.

  37. 37.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  38. 38.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  39. 39.

    Jongwanich (2009).

  40. 40.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  41. 41.

    Athukorala and Jayasuriya (2003).

  42. 42.

    Henson et al. (2000).

  43. 43.

    Mehta and George (2003).

  44. 44.

    UNCTAD (2012).

  45. 45.

    E.g. Otsuki et al. (2001a, b), Wilson et al. (2003), Wilson and Otsuki (2004), Chen et al. (2008), Disdier and Marette (2010), Xiong and Beghin (2011), Drogué and DeMaria (2012), and Melo et al. (2014).

  46. 46.

    In line with Wacziarg (2001), countries’ trade openness ratio is computed as the sum of domestic agri-food imports and exports compared to the annual GDP. Domestic agri-food imports and exports refer to product categories meat (02), fish (03), dairy produce (04), edible vegetables (07), edible fruit and nuts (08), cereals (10), oil seeds and oleaginous fruits (12), preparation of meat and fish (16).

  47. 47.

    See trains.unctad.org/Forms/Analysis.aspx (last accessed 15 September 2017).

  48. 48.

    Swinnen (2016).

  49. 49.

    Xiong and Beghin (2014).

  50. 50.

    Swinnen (2017).

  51. 51.

    Sheldon (2012).

  52. 52.

    Swinnen (2016).

  53. 53.

    Xiong and Beghin (2014).

  54. 54.

    Crivelli and Gröschl (2016) and Swinnen (2016).

  55. 55.

    Xiong and Beghin (2014) and Crivelli and Gröschl (2016).

  56. 56.

    Swinnen (2016).

  57. 57.

    Swinnen (2017).

  58. 58.

    E.g. Cioffi et al. (2011), Santeramo and Cioffi (2012), Peterson et al. (2013), and Dal Bianco et al. (2016).

  59. 59.

    E.g. Sun et al. (2014) and Shepotylo (2016).

  60. 60.

    E.g. de Frahan and Vancauteren (2006) and Cardamone (2011).

  61. 61.

    E.g. Xiong and Beghin (2011) and Beckman and Arita (2016).

  62. 62.

    Santeramo (2019) and Santeramo and Lamonaca (2019b, c).

  63. 63.

    Santeramo et al. (2019b).

  64. 64.

    E.g. Essaji (2008), Anders and Caswell (2009), and Disdier and Marette (2010). Few exceptions are Wilson et al. (2003), Chevassus-Lozza et al. (2008), and Shepherd and Wilson (2013), who provide mixed evidence on the trade effects of NTMs.

  65. 65.

    E.g. Harrigan (1993), Fontagné et al. (2005), Yue and Beghin (2009), and Beckman and Arita (2016).

  66. 66.

    de Frahan and Vancauteren (2006).

  67. 67.

    E.g. Schuster and Maertens (2013), Melo et al. (2014), and Santeramo and Lamonaca (2019b, c).

  68. 68.

    E.g. de Frahan and Vancauteren (2006).

  69. 69.

    E.g. Jongwanich (2009), Jayasinghe et al. (2010), Peterson et al. (2013), and Crivelli and Gröschl (2016).

  70. 70.

    Schlueter et al. (2009), p. 1489.

  71. 71.

    E.g. Otsuki et al. (2001a, b), Wilson et al. (2003), Scheepers et al. (2007), Chen et al. (2008), Wei et al. (2012), and Ferro et al. (2015).

  72. 72.

    E.g. Olper and Raimondi (2008) and Arita et al. (2017).

  73. 73.

    E.g. Jongwanich (2009) and Fernandes et al. (2017).

  74. 74.

    E.g. Cardamone (2011) and Shepherd and Wilson (2013).

  75. 75.

    E.g. Peterson et al. (2013) and Dal Bianco et al. (2016).

  76. 76.

    Henson and Loader (2001), Grant and Lambert (2008), Sun and Reed (2010), and Arita et al. (2017).

  77. 77.

    Dal Bianco et al. (2016) and Grant and Arita (2017).

  78. 78.

    Martin (2018).

  79. 79.

    Santeramo (2019).

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  1. University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy

    Fabio G. Santeramo & Emilia Lamonaca

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  1. Fabio G. Santeramo
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Correspondence to Fabio G. Santeramo .

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    Rike Krämer-Hoppe

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Santeramo, F.G., Lamonaca, E. (2020). The Role of Non-tariff Measures in the Agri-Food Sector: Positive or Negative Instruments for Trade?. In: Krämer-Hoppe, R. (eds) Positive Integration - EU and WTO Approaches Towards the "Trade and" Debate. European Yearbook of International Economic Law(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25662-3_3

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