There have been a number of high profile food safety disputes in trade over the past decade. These include the widely publicized dispute at the World Trade Organization between the U.S. and EU over hormone treated beef. Consumers in some industrialized countries have also expressed concern over...

This paper examines how the stringency of environmental regulations impact international trade patterns. It explores the hypothesis that environmental regulation does not have a significant impact on trade. An econometric analysis is conducted for 24 countries ranging from highly developed to...

This study assesses the impact of adopting international food safety standards and regional harmonization of standards on global trade patterns of cereals, dried fruits and nuts. The paper develops econometric models to estimate the effect of aflatoxin standards in 15 importing countries on the...

The trade performance of countries in South Asia over the past two decades has been poor relative to other regions. Exports from South Asia have doubled over the past 20 years to approximately USD 100 billion. In contrast, East Asia's exports grew ten times over the same period. The low level of...

Standards and technical regulations exist to protect consumer safety or to achieve other goals, such as ensuring the interoperability of telecommunications systems, for example. Standards and technical regulations can, however, raise substantially both start-up and production costs for firms....