Suchergebnisse

AbstractWe examine the recent evolution of salient trade costs in agricultural and food markets, and changes in their composition. We review ways to measure costs and provide guidance with policy prescriptions to reduce them. We pay attention to transportation costs, border measures, and standard‐like nontariff measures. By pointing out limitations in current approaches and recent developments, we aim to improve our understanding of their effects and derive clearer prescriptions. We suggest promising directions for further research and investigation of agricultural trade costs, including on the emerging debate on gene editing and trade, transportation costs, and mainstreaming recent advances in analyzing nontariff measures.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this article argues that trade liberalization may facilitate collusion and reduce welfare. With the help of a duopoly model in which firms interact repeatedly in multiple markets, we first show that, if trade costs (i.e., tariffs/transport costs) and discount factors are not too high, efficient cartel agreements necessitate the cross‐hauling of goods, as that entails lower deviation incentives. In this setting, we then demonstrate that reciprocal trade liberalization always raises total output when trade costs are within a range whose lower bound exceeds a threshold level, but may reduce total output (and thus be pro‐collusive) when trade costs are below that threshold level.