Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThe effect of food standards on agricultural trade flows remains unclear. We contribute to the debate with a unique dataset that contains the number of food processing firms of 88 countries from 2008 to 2013 that are certified with the International Featured Standard (IFS). Based on a theoretical framework that combines Melitz-type firm heterogeneity with quality upgrading, we estimate a gravity-model using the one-year lag of IFS as well as modern grocery distribution as an instrument to address potential endogeneity. We find that IFS increases c.p. bilateral exports on average of seven agricultural product categories in both specifications. However, the effect remains only for upper-and middle-income countries once we separate by income and turns even negative for low income countries in the IV-specification. Hence, whereas IFS increases exports on average, it has a trade-impeding effect for low-income countries. Therefore, private standards are not a sufficient development policy tool to integrate low-income countries to the world trading system without being accompanied by other measures.

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Controlling for endogeneity‐induced biases and accounting for the source of heterogeneity may both matter for the proper empirical estimation of the effect of heterogeneous standards on trade. However, existing literature on the trade effects of heterogeneity in pesticides maximum residue levels (MRLs) does not directly address the problem of endogeneity in the standards–trade relationship. Using pesticides MRL data for 53 countries over 2005–14, we thus re‐examine the trade effects of stricter (than partner) standards accounting for endogeneity using panel data methods. We find that the direction of the estimated trade effects gets reversed, thereby underlining the greater demand‐enhancing effect of more stringent regulation. We also discuss why endogeneity may bias the estimates downwards. In another original contribution, we examine the standards–trade relationship by the direction of imposition of stricter standards for a large panel. Our results suggest that stricter standards do not impede trade, irrespective of who imposes them.

The continual decline of taris through successive rounds of multilateral trade negotiations has increased the relative importance of non-tari measures (NTMs). Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) standards and technical barriers to trade (TBT) are two such NTMs, which though imposed for legitimate reasons such as alleviating information asymmetries, mitigating consumption risks and promoting environmental sustainability, can also be instruments of disguised protectionism. Literature suggests that SPS and TBT measures can have both demand-enhancing and trade cost eects (Xiong and Beghin, 2014). Standards prescribe requirements for product characteristics, production processes and/or conformity assessment to address information problems, market failure externalities and societal concerns, which may assuage consumer concerns in importing countries. Standards can also convey positive information on product quality, again enhancing demand. Existing literature has documented the positive eects of standards on trade (

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