In 2001 an agreement was reached at the WTO for the EU to introduce a tariff-only regime which would result in at least maintaining total market access for MFN banana suppliers. The analysis shows that, contrary to the WTO 2005 ruling, the import regime proposed by the EU in the second step of...

Building on the work by Anderson and Neary on theoretically grounded trade policy indexes, we define an aggregate measure (Mercantilistic trade preference index - MTPI) of the trade referential margins. The MTPI provides a method of aggregation that is consistent with a common objective of the...

Least developed countries (LDC) receive specific international support measures and preferential market access to high-income countries. Graduation from the LDC status is based upon consistent economic and human capital performance. Graduation is appealing for LDC countries as it signals...

Nowadays, trade negotiations afford both liberalism- and protectionism-oriented policies. Indeed, in recent decades, the developed countries have been actively engaged in negotiating many preferential agreements to integrate developing countries (DCs) into world trade and encourage their...

This paper examines the impact of preferential trading agreements (PTAs) on agricultural trade. We use a machine learning selection algorithm guided by the structural gravity model to identify the relevant PTA provisions which affect agricultural trade. Then, we quantify the trade effects of...

This article presents new evidence on the impact of Nonreciprocal Preferential Trade Policies (NRPTPs) granted by developed countries to exports from developing countries over the period 1995 to 2003. The analysis has been carried out by using three levels of data aggregation. It accounts for...

A spatial price equilibrium model with a large coverage of countries, policies and regional trade arrangements is applied to simulate preferential sugar imports of the European Union (EU) in 2015/16 under different assumptions with respect to the expansion of the sugar sectors of various least...

This report is aimed at analyzing the degree of protection faced by exporters in the EU, Japan, the United States, China, India and Brazil, and at identifying the contribution of product groups to the observed degree of market access. Data on the level of applied trade barriers provided by the...

Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have become the major route for countries to reduce trade barriers and open new markets. To fully assess the current state of market opening for agricultural products and examine the potential impacts of RTAs, access to up-to-date and consistent information on...

The producer support estimate calculated by the OECD is widely misused as an indicator of distortions created by agricultural policies. In this paper we demonstrate rigorously that a change in the relative (percentage) PSE is not an accurate indicator of the implications of policy reform for...