Do technical barriers to trade promote or restrict trade? Evidence from China

Xiaohua BAO; Larry D. QIU

doi:10.1080/16081625.2010.9720865

Do technical barriers to trade promote or restrict trade? Evidence from China

Xiaohua BAO, Larry D. QIU

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

56 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The use of technical barriers to trade (TBT) is widespread and has increasing impact on international trade. In contrast to most other trade measures, TBT have both trade promotion and trade restriction effects. Due to their theoretical complexity and data scarcity, TBT have been considered as one of the most difficult non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to quantify. In this paper, we construct a TBT database from 1998-2006 to examine the influence of TBT imposed by China on the country's imports. When using the frequency index, we find that TBT are trade restrictive: a one unit increase in TBT will decrease import value by about 0.8%. However, when the coverage ratio is used, we find that the negative effects of TBT are not statistically significant based on the entire period. However, if the focus is shifted to data from 1998-2001, we find that TBT have trade promotion effects. A one unit increase in TBT will increase import value by about 0.2%. Finally, China's TBT (measured by both frequency index and coverage ratio) are trade restricting for agriculture goods but trade promoting for manufacturing goods.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	253-278
Number of pages	26
Journal	Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics
Volume	17
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/16081625.2010.9720865
Publication status	Published - 2010
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

We would like to thank the referee for the valuable comments and suggestions. We are grateful for the presentations at the Canadian Economic Association Annual Meeting, Asia-Pacific Trade Seminars, the first IEFS China Conference, and especially the 2010 APJAE Symposium on International Trade and the China Economy.

Funding

We wish to acknowledge the financial support from the Hong Kong Government’s Competitive Earmarked Research Grant 2008-2010 (HKU643108H), the Mrs. Li Ka Shing Fund of the University of Hong Kong, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC project No.70703021), Ministry of Education of China (NCET-10-0537) and Shanghai Education Committee (10ZS49).

Keywords

China's trade
Coverage ratio
Frequency index
Non-tariff barriers
Technical barriers to trade

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10.1080/16081625.2010.9720865

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Do technical barriers to trade promote or restrict trade? Evidence from China

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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