IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/4401.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific

Author

Listed:
  • Helble, Matthias
  • Shepherd, Ben
  • Wilson, John S.

Abstract

The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.

Suggested Citation

  • Helble, Matthias & Shepherd, Ben & Wilson, John S., 2007. "Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4401, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4401
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/11/14/000158349_20071114150918/Rendered/PDF/wps4401.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hiau LooiKee & Alessandro Nicita & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2009. "Estimating Trade Restrictiveness Indices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 172-199, January.
    2. Baldwin, Richard & Taglioni, Daria, 2006. "Gravity for Dummies and Dummies for Gravity Equations," CEPR Discussion Papers 5850, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    4. Andrei A. Levchenko, 2007. "Institutional Quality and International Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 791-819.
    5. Wolfe, Robert, 2003. "Regulatory transparency, developing countries and the WTO," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 157-182, July.
    6. Francois, Joseph & Manchin, Miriam, 2013. "Institutions, Infrastructure, and Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 165-175.
    7. Javorcik, Beata S. & Narciso, Gaia, 2008. "Differentiated products and evasion of import tariffs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 208-222, December.
    8. Freund, Caroline L. & Weinhold, Diana, 2004. "The effect of the Internet on international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 171-189, January.
    9. John S. Wilson & Catherine L. Mann & Tsunehiro Otsuki, 2005. "Assessing the Benefits of Trade Facilitation: A Global Perspective," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 841-871, June.
    10. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    11. Henri L. F. De Groot & Gert‐Jan Linders & Piet Rietveld & Uma Subramanian, 2004. "The Institutional Determinants of Bilateral Trade Patterns," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 103-123, February.
    12. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    13. Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2006. "Notes on CEPII’s distances measures," MPRA Paper 26469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 2002. "Insecurity And The Pattern Of Trade: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 342-352, May.
    15. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    16. Ray Fisman & Roberta Gatti, 2006. "Bargaining for Bribes: The Role of Institutions," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    18. Raymond Fisman & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from "Missing Imports" in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 471-500, April.
    19. Jean-François Arvis & Gaël Raballand & Jean-François Marteau, 2010. "The Cost of Being Landlocked : Logistics Costs and Supply Chain Reliability," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2489, December.
    20. Carolyn L. Evans & James Harrigan, 2003. "Distance, time, and specialization," International Finance Discussion Papers 766, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Roberta Gatti, 2004. "Explaining corruption: are open countries less corrupt?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(6), pages 851-861.
    22. Carolyn L. Evans & James Harrigan, 2005. "Distance, Time, and Specialization: Lean Retailing in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 292-313, March.
    23. William Greene, 2004. "The behaviour of the maximum likelihood estimator of limited dependent variable models in the presence of fixed effects," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 7(1), pages 98-119, June.
    24. Priya Ranjan & Jae Young Lee, 2007. "Contract Enforcement And International Trade," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 191-218, July.
    25. Francois, Joseph F, 2001. "Trade Policy Transparency and Investor Confidence: Some Implications for an Effective Trade Policy Review Mechanism," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 303-316, May.
    26. Gatti, Roberta, 1999. "Corruption and trade tariffs, or a case for uniform tariffs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2216, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lili Yan Ing & Olivier Cadot, 2016. "Facilitating ASEAN Trade in Goods," Working Papers DP-2016-20, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    2. Francois, Joseph & Manchin, Miriam, 2013. "Institutions, Infrastructure, and Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 165-175.
    3. Thomas Orliac, 2012. "The economics of trade facilitation [L'économie de la facilitation des échanges]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03681980, HAL.
    4. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2009. "Behind-the-Border Trade Facilitation in Asia-Pacific: Cost of Trade, Credit Information, Contract Enforcement and Regulatory Coherence," Working Paper Series 209, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    5. Velea, Irina & Cadot, Olivier & Wilson, John S., 2010. "Do private inspection programs affect trade facilitation ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5515, The World Bank.
    6. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Intraregional Trade Costs in Asia: A Primer," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 18(2), pages 1-23, December.
    7. Prabir De, 2009. "Global economic and financial crisis: India’s trade potential and future prospects," Working Papers 6409, Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), an initiative of UNESCAP and IDRC, Canada..
    8. Vaqar, Ahmed & Ghulam, Samad, 2011. "Trade facilitation for economic corridors in South Asia: the perspective of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 31368, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias Helble & Ben Shepherd & John S. Wilson, 2009. "Transparency and Regional Integration in the Asia Pacific," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 479-508, March.
    2. Bianka Dettmer & Andreas Freytag & Peter Draper, 2013. "Check-in, departure and arrival times: Air cargo in Southern Africa?," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-018, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    3. Murat Genç & David Law, 2014. "A Gravity Model of Barriers to Trade in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 14/05, New Zealand Treasury.
    4. Bengt Söderlund & Patrik Tingvall, 2014. "Dynamic effects of institutions on firm-level exports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(2), pages 277-308, May.
    5. Álvarez, Inmaculada C. & Barbero, Javier & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Zofío, José L., 2018. "Does Institutional Quality Matter for Trade? Institutional Conditions in a Sectoral Trade Framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 72-87.
    6. Wessel, Jan, 2019. "Evaluating the transport-mode-specific trade effects of different transport infrastructure types," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 42-57.
    7. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2009. "Behind the Border Trade Facilitation in Asia-Pacific: Cost of Trade, Credit Information, Contract Enforcement and Regulatory Coherence," Working Papers 6709, Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), an initiative of UNESCAP and IDRC, Canada..
    8. Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Giray Gozgor & Chi Keung Marco Lau, 2017. "Institutions and gravity model: the role of political economy and corporate governance," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 7(3), pages 421-436, December.
    9. Shepherd, Ben & Wilson, John S., 2009. "Trade facilitation in ASEAN member countries: Measuring progress and assessing priorities," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 367-383, September.
    10. Heyman Fredrik & Tingvall Patrik Gustavsson, 2015. "The Dynamics of Offshoring and Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(4), pages 1975-2016, October.
    11. Egger, Peter H. & Ehrlich, Maximilian v. & Nelson, Douglas R., 2020. "The trade effects of skilled versus unskilled migration," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 448-464.
    12. Chor, Davin, 2010. "Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 152-167, November.
    13. Richard Pomfret & Patricia Sourdin, 2010. "Why do trade costs vary?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 146(4), pages 709-730, December.
    14. (ed.), 0. "Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16053.
    15. Anthony Briant & Pierre-Philippe Combes & Miren Lafourcade, 2014. "Product Complexity, Quality of Institutions and the Protrade Effect of Immigrants," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 63-85, January.
    16. Francois, Joseph & Manchin, Miriam, 2013. "Institutions, Infrastructure, and Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 165-175.
    17. Bailey, Michael & Gupta, Abhinav & Hillenbrand, Sebastian & Kuchler, Theresa & Richmond, Robert & Stroebel, Johannes, 2021. "International trade and social connectedness," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    18. Anderson, James E. & Borchert, Ingo & Mattoo, Aaditya & Yotov, Yoto V., 2018. "Dark costs, missing data: Shedding some light on services trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 193-214.
    19. José de Sousa & Julie Lochard, 2008. "Trade and colonial status," Post-Print halshs-00323598, HAL.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/781v6i5nuc9v6okbq7i1iqqsk1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Gamberoni, Elisa & Lanz, Rainer & Piermartini, Roberta, 2010. "Timeliness and contract enforceability in intermediate goods trade," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2010-14, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Theory&Research; Free Trade; Emerging Markets; Debt Markets; Trade Policy;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4401. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.