Browsing by Author "Emlinger, Charlotte"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Agricultural exports and retaliatory trade actions: An empirical assessment of the 2018/2019 trade conflict
    Grant, Jason H.; Arita, Shawn; Emlinger, Charlotte; Johansson, Robert C.; Xie, Chaoping (2021-01)
    We estimate the ex-post agricultural trade impacts of retaliatory measures imposed by foreign countries in response to United States' Section 232 and 301 tariffs using a theoretically consistent, monthly, product line gravity equation. Retaliation led to significant US agricultural export losses of $13.5 to $18.7 billion on an annualized basis. Considerable heterogeneity exists in the average treatment effect of retaliation. First, retaliatory trade actions presented a strong within-year seasonal impact. Nearly 70% of aggregate trade losses occurred during the US's peak export marketing season. Second, U.S. trade losses were particularly pronounced on homogeneous bulk commodities, whereas product differentiation dampened the impact of retaliation. Third, with few exceptions, the counterfactually estimated direct trade losses line up well with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) trade damage estimates for trade aid programs distributed to farmers impacted by the trade dispute. Finally, we find little evidence that U.S. exports were able to be reoriented to alternative, nonretaliating markets-an indication of high bilateral trade frictions and the destructive consequences of retaliatory trade actions.
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    Geographical indications and trade: Firm-level evidence from the French cheese industry
    Duvaleix, Sabine; Emlinger, Charlotte; Gaigné, Carl; Latouche, Karine (Elsevier, 2021-07)
    The protection of geographical indications is now an important feature of trade agreements. In this paper, we examine whether geographical indications are valued by foreign consumers and whether they have implications for trade at firm level. We use firm-product level data from French Customs and a unique dataset of firms and products concerned by Protected Designations of Origin (PDO) in the cheese and butter sector. Our estimations show that PDO varieties are perceived by consumers as varieties of higher quality than non-PDO varieties and that the prices of PDO varieties are 11.5% higher than those of non-PDO. Firms producing PDO varieties do not export higher volumes, but benefit from a better access to European markets and to countries with a similar policy about geographical indications. The inclusion of some GI varieties in trade agreements may thus constitute an opportunity for PDO producers to increase their market access.
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    International Agricultural Trade Costs and Non-Tariff Measures
    Karagulle, Yunus Emre (Virginia Tech, 2024-08-22)
    This dissertation investigates how agricultural trade frictions, such as tariffs and non-tariff measures (NTMs), impact trade competitiveness and globalization in the agricultural sector. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter argues that agricultural trade cost evolution differs from other sectors due to frequent regulations, standards, and the unique physical characteristics of agricultural products. We measure agricultural trade costs in the 21st century using a three-step estimation procedure based on structural gravity models. Our findings reveal unequal integration of world economies into agricultural trade, with heterogeneous trade costs among countries. Only high-income countries have achieved lower agricultural trade costs between 2001 to 2018. The chapter concludes by demonstrating that while standard country characteristics are important, trade policy tools such as agricultural tariff rates, trade agreements, provisions in deep trade agreements, as well as logistics and infrastructure systems, significantly impact agricultural trade costs. In the second chapter, we assess the impact of non-tariff measures on U.S. agricultural exports as these measures have become increasingly important in global agricultural trade. Despite a vast empirical literature, the universe of NTMs is large and diverse, making it difficult to understand trade and export survival in the face of restrictive non-tariff regulatory measures. Moreover, the sheer number of NTMs collected and notified makes it difficult for researchers to disentangle and quantify measures that are burdensome for exporters from those that are largely inconsequential. In this chapter, we follow a different approach and create an NTM dataset consisting of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBT) measures from the National Trade Estimate Report of the United States Trade Representative. Using this dataset, we quantify the impact of SPS and TBT measures on U.S. agricultural exports. We find that the existence of NTM measures reduces U.S. agricultural exports by 34%, an effect equivalent to an 8% ad-valorem tariff. Furthermore, we find that these NTMs do not increase the probability of U.S. agricultural exports stopping. In the third chapter, we employ a recently developed method to estimate the border effects of the USA and competitive agricultural exporters to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We use recent advances in structural gravity modeling to estimate international border effects, incorporating intra-national trade. We present the differences in border effects relative to USA exports to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in ad valorem equivalent (AVE) tariffs. Our findings reveal substantial differences in USA agricultural border effects between relatively more integrated NAFTA partners and the SSA region, equivalent to a 43% AVE tariff, while for competitive suppliers, these AVEs range from 3% to 46%. The chapter concludes with a general equilibrium experiment stimulating a 20% reduction in border effects. Results indicate significant increases in SSA's imports, as well as welfare gains for both SSA and partner countries subject to border liberalization, with larger effects observed in SSA countries.
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    Three Essays on Agricultural and Food Trade Shocks and Regional Integration
    Syrengelas, Konstantinos (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-18)
    This research investigates the impact of disruptions and regional integration on agricultural and food trade, relying on a unique international and intranational (domestic) agri-food trade dataset and structural gravity. In the first chapter, we investigate the impact of animal diseases on trade of animal-based products. We found that animal disease outbreaks decrease exports by 4% on average per year, amounting to annualized losses of 96 billion of 2019 USD. Trade quantities decline by 8% (51 million tons) on average per year. Impacts are mostly concentrated on consumer products (mainly pork), and low-income and lower-medium-income exporting countries. Our results suggest that animal diseases affect more domestic markets than foreign ones, and that dependent importers are the most sensitive to animal disease outbreaks abroad. Lastly, participation in the same RTA is found to mitigate animal diseases' trade impact, showing another potential channel through which regional integration could affect members' trade. In the second chapter, we explore the effect of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on agricultural and food trade flows. We consider the entire official lifetime of the agreement, including its 14-years phase-in period, which allow us to offer a comprehensive evaluation of one of the biggest trade agreements on agri-food trade. NAFTA is found to increase members' trade on average by 54%, corresponding to 11.9 billion of 2020 USD, annually. Trade involving Mexico, and especially Canada-Mexico, has increased substantially showing that trade agreements between developed and developing countries could be beneficial to both members. NAFTA's impact is found to be heterogeneous by products with cereals experiencing the biggest increase. Trade of products incompletely liberalized by NAFTA such as dairy, poultry, and eggs, did not increase as much as the trade of liberalized products. We do not find evidence of trade diversion, suggesting that NAFTA's agri-food trade gains did not come at the expense of trading with other partners. Lastly, NAFTA appears to be more trade enhancing (about four times more) than other agreements of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. (e.g. Canada-E.U., or Mexico-Brazil, or U.S.-Korea.) In the third chapter, we question whether trade agreements alleviate the impact of shocks on trade. More specifically, we investigate if RTAs mitigate the impact of exchange rate (ER) volatility on agri-food trade. We found that RTAs amplify the effect of ER volatility on agri-food trade. The trade impact of ER volatility on RTA members is found to be positive, suggesting that members' agri-food trade benefits from ER volatility, contrary to non-members' trade. This could result from larger profits from arbitrage due to reduced trade costs between RTA members. Our results display a strong heterogeneity according to sectors, exporters and importers' income, and level of integration of RTA. Only Partial Scope Agreements, the lowest regional integration level, amplify the effect of ER volatility on members' agri-food trade.