The hypothesis that six EU Member States show a common behaviour on the implementation of food safety standards on fruit and vegetables imports is examined. To do so, we analyzed food border notifications recorded by the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). Path dependence and reputation effects of past border notifications were explored for the whole period 2001-13, and for sub-periods 2001-07 and 2008-13. Negative binomial (NB) and zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) distributions were used to deal with over-dispersion and excess of zero counts. Our findings suggest that the EU cannot be considered as a single unit when non-tariff measures are studied, although there are some signs that Member State behaviour is becoming more uniform in the most recent period.
The significance of and interest in non-tariff measures (NTMs) have increased as a consequence of the reduction in agricultural tariffs. This paper analyses the relationship between NTMs and tariffs in southern Mediterranean countries (SMCs) through two complementary analyses. First, the authors construct a taxonomy of protection for products, distinguishing between high protection, transparent protection, low protection and disguised protection. The low protection category is most widely represented, and the disguised protection category is also important. Second, the policy substitution hypothesis between tariff and non-tariff protection is tested. This hypothesis appears in the literature as the possibility that countries implement NTMs for protection purposes, as a result of the progressive reduction in the tariffs levied. Policy substitution is found in someSMCs, which is consistent with an upward trend of non-tariff protection as tariff liberalization progresses in the region.
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