scholarly journals The Impact of Aid for Trade Facilitation on the Costs of Trading

Author(s):  
Matthias Busse ◽  
Ruth Hoekstra ◽  
Jens Koeniger
Kyklos ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Busse ◽  
Ruth Hoekstra ◽  
Jens Königer

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 765-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sena Kimm Gnangnon

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the empirical literature of the macroeconomic effect of trade facilitation reforms by examining the impact of the latter on tax revenue in both developed and developing countries. The relevance of the topic lies on the fact that at the Bali Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2013, Trade Ministers agreed for the first time since the creation of the WTO (in 1995) on an Agreement to facilitate trade around the world, dubbed Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). The study considers both at-the-border and behind-the border measures of Trade Facilitation. Design/methodology/approach To conduct this study, the authors rely on the literature related to the structural factors that explain tax revenue mobilization. The authors mainly use within fixed effects estimator. The analysis relies on 102 countries (of which 23 industrial countries) over the period 2004-2007 (based on data availability). A focus has also been made on African countries, within the sample of developing countries. Findings The empirical analysis suggests evidence of a positive and significant effect of trade facilitation reforms on non-resources tax revenue, irrespective of the sample of countries considered in the analysis. Research limitations/implications This finding should contribute to dampening the fear of policymakers in developing countries, including Africa that the implementation of the TFA would entail higher costs, without necessarily being associated with higher benefits. An avenue for future research would be to extend the period of the study when data would be available. Originality/value To the best of the authors knowledge, this study had not been performed in the literature of the determinants of tax revenue mobilization, although fact-based analysis was performed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinzhu Zhang ◽  
Fangfang Li ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Baodong Cheng

With the reduction of traditional tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, trade facilitation measures, such as improved port efficiency and the customs environment, have become increasingly important for improving the structure of export growth and exploring the trade potential of forest products. Our research divided China’s export growth of forest products into extensive margins (variety), quantity margins (quantity), and price margins (quality), and discussed how trade facilitation impacted China’s forest product export growth structure from the perspective of ternary margins. An evaluation system of trade facilitation was constructed, and principal component analysis was used to measure the levels of trade facilitation of 13 countries which had large trade flows of forest products with China along the “Belt and Road”. In addition, we used transnational panel data and the extended gravity model to analyze the impact of their trade facilitation on the ternary margins of China’s export growth. In order to overcome the endogeneity of the model, the 2 stage least squares (2SLS) method was used and the first-order lags of trade facilitation indicators were selected as instrument variables. The decomposition results of ternary margins showed that the “low price and high quantity” export growth pattern had remained in China’s forest products trade, and the 2SLS regression results indicated that the improvement of trade facilitation had a significantly positive impact on the quantity margins and price margins, but no significant impact on the extensive margins. It is suggested that China should make differentiated investments to countries along the “Belt and Road” based on their different levels of trade facilitation, in order to promote constant improvement of product quality and optimization of export growth structure in the forest products industry.


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