Who Embraces Technical Barriers to Trade? The Case of European REACH Regulations

Technical Barriers to Trade are on the rise at a time when the ghost of protectionism looms large across the world economy. They are allegedly trade restrictive and some of them are more burdensome than others, particularly to foreign suppliers. The leading question of this study is who embraces technical barriers to trade better than others and why. This study examines how different countries have reacted to the REACH regulations of the European Union and what factors have motivated some, if not all, of them to harmonize their domestic policies with REACH regulations. With a random-effects ordered logistic regression analysis, this study finds strong statistical support for two out of three diffusion mechanisms – that is, transnational communication and competition pressure for exports market. The causal relationship between intergovernmental institution and the level of harmonization is found statistically insignificant. These findings imply that technical regulations, if understood correctly through communication and/or motivated by strong commercial incentives, can create upward pressure for global regulatory harmonization.