Description
Extensive efforts have been put into the study of non-tariff measures (NTMs), given the increasing importance of NTMs. Exploring the impact of NTMs on trade flows is critical and challenging. The attention on the subject matter has grown even so after the advent of the China-US trade war. NTMs are recorded only in the form of ‘information’ whether a specific NTM is imposed by an importing country. This has left for a wide scope study on the quantification of NTM in such a way that it can be compared such as that to the effect of tariffs. Also, the dual effects of NTMs on trade flows are challenging to analyze. The research work in this thesis focused on three phases. The first phase is the review of NTMs with a particular focus on China and the US practices. The second phase is to calculate the bilateral advalorem equivalents (AVEs) of NTMs with time variation. The last phase is to estimate the effect of NTMs on China and the US imports from a unified theoretical and empirical framework. In Phase 1 (Chapter 2) of this thesis, we extensively review the literature related to NTMs and analyze the past NTM practices of China and the US. We reaffirm that the use of NTMs has principally adverse effects on trade between China and the US, although some studies indicate positive effects of NTMs on trade in some specific cases. Besides, we review the past NTM practices of China and the US against each other. Thisgives an indication on what possible NTMs could be on the table for these two countries in the China-US trade dispute and even in the future. In Phase 2 (Chapter 3) of this thesis, we tackle the restriction for many NTM studies and extend earlier work by measuring the bilateral AVEs of NTMs for 80*79 trading relations at the Harmonized System (HS) six-digit product level over the period 1997-2018. The results suggest that the bilateral AVEs of NTMs as importers and exporters are increasing over this period, with NTMs replacing the effectively applied tariff rates as a more important source of trade protection measures. Based on the estimated bilateral AVEs of NTMs for China and the US in Chapter 3, we provide a theoretical framework that contributes to the empirical literature on the trade effect of trade policies in Phase 3 (Chapter 4). We find that NTMs have a more significant adverse effect than tariffs on imports for both countries. The results obtained from the framework can be taken as a maintained hypothesis, which can be applied ex ante to verify potential trade policy shocks.
| Period | 1 Jul 2019 → 21 Jul 2023 |
|---|---|
| Examinee | Yujie Shi |
| Examination held at | |
| Degree of Recognition | International |