Policy and performance in customs: Evaluating the trade facilitation agreement

Abstract

This paper links cross-country variation in trade facilitation policies to prominent indicators of national customs and logistics performance. We test the hypotheses that the policy data explain variation in the performance indicators, independent of other country characteristics that are plausibly exogenous to changes in trade facilitation policies. We use a LASSO procedure to choose among the many potential explanatory variables in the model. In general we find that country characteristics related to geography, income, and the general quality of governance better explain cross-country variation in customs and logistics performance than do the measures of trade facilitation policy.

An empirical analysis of supply and manufacturing risk and business performance: a Chinese manufacturing supply chain perspective

“…Table 1 presents a summary of the supply and manufacturing risk and respective performance areas in supply chain literature. Lamarre et al, Be et al, 2015;Hong et al, 2014;Ellinger et al, 2015;Cheng et al, 2012;Jia and Zsidisin, 2014;Li et al, 2015Production Flexibility Hoffmann et al, 2013Isoherranen et al, 2015;Harrison, 2014 Maturity of manufacturing process Hallikas and Lintukangas, 2016;Hoffmann et al, 2013;Ho et al, 2015;Indrawati et al, 2014;Isoherranen et al, 2015HR management Yeung, 2012Cheng et al, 2012 Understanding how China manages and responds to supply and manufacturing risk will have a significant impact on global trading, especially considering that China has been reported to account for one-fourth of the global gains on the import side and 30% on the export side (Hillberry & Zhang, 2018). Athukorala (2011) A plethora of studies have uncovered differences in the cultural and society contexts of…”

Making small firms happy? The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures

“…Using the same index, Beverelli et al (2015) find that TFA has significant export diversification effects, and that measures aimed at improving information play an important role. 8 Hillberry and Zhang (2015) are interested mainly in the effects of trade facilitation on the time required to import and export, and find that full implementation of the TFA can reduce the time spent in customs by 1.6 days for imports, and by 2 days for exports. In the context of individual trade facilitation provisions, they find that governance and automation are the reforms that provide the highest time savings.…”

Integrating Africa: Some Trade Policy Research Priorities and Challenges†

“…A necessary condition for sustaining and increasing participation in cross-border value chains and attracting investment is lowering trade costs and reducing uncertainty for traders regarding market entry conditions. This is particularly important for small firms, as their lower scale of production implies higher unit trade costs, given the significant fixed component of dealing with administrative requirements at the border, unpredictable variable costs generated by delays, and the differences in regulations across markets (e.g., Christ and Ferrantino, 2011;Hillberry and Zhang, 2015).…”