Impact of Sanitary and Technical Measures on Brazilian Exports of Poultry Meat

The major objective of this work is to evaluate the effects of technical and sanitary measures introduced by the main world importers upon Brazilian poultry meat in the international market. The impact of the measures is estimated using a gravity model constructed with disaggregated data about bilateral poultry meat between Brazil and its major trade partners for the period from 1996 to 2009. The gravity model is estimated with a fixed effects model and the results indicate that the impact of TBT and SPS measures upon Brazilian poultry meat exports is ambiguous. The results indicated that the existence of technical and sanitary regulations related to labelling might be stimulating trade of this product, while the presence regulations related to compliance appears to reduce the volume of Brazilian exports of poultry meat. In addition, the existence of prohibitive (and/or subject to quarantine) technical and sanitary measures may present a positive impact upon the traded volume of Brazilian exports of poultry meat. This result is relevant since it indicates the importance in considering different characteristics and content of regulations to analyse the impacts of TBT and SPS measures upon trade.