Assessing the Benefits of Trade Facilitation: A Global Perspective

摘要

Understanding the relationships between trade facilitation and trade flows is of growing interest, in part with the start of talks on trade facilitation in the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organisation. As tariff rates of protection have fallen, assessing how other factors affect trade has increasing policy relevance. The relationship between trade flows and trade facilitation is complex, because a country's trade flows will change not only through its own reforms but also the reforms of its trading partners. Differences in the relative magnitude of trade facilitation efforts on trade, as calculated by category of trade facilitation effort or group of trading partners, could help focus and clarify development agendas. This paper defines and measures trade facilitation, and then estimates the relationships between trade facilitation and trade flows, considering the relationships from a variety of perspectives.