Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/104759 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
WTO Staff Working Paper No. ERSD-2014-16
Publisher: 
World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva
Abstract: 
We estimate the effects of trade facilitation on the extensive margins of trade. Using OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators - which closely reflect the Trade Facilitation Agreement negotiated at the Bali WTO Ministerial Conference of December 2013 - we show that trade facilitation in a given exporting country is positively correlated with the number of products exported by destination and with the number of export destinations served by product. To address the issue of causality, we employ an identification strategy whereby only exports of new products, or exports to new destinations, are taken into account when computing the respective margins of trade. Our findings therefore imply a positive causal impact of trade facilitation on the extensive margins of trade. The results are, to a large extent, robust to alternative definitions of extensive margins, to different sets of controls variables and to various estimation methods. Simulating the effect of an increase to the regional or global median values of trade facilitation, we are able to quantify the potential extensive margin gains of trade facilitation reform in different regions.
Subjects: 
Trade facilitation
Export diversi cation
International trade agreements
WTO
JEL: 
F13
F14
F17
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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