Impacts of natural resource traceability programs: evidence from the United States’ seafood import monitoring program

International trade in natural resource commodities has been tied to declining socio-environmental conditions in production locations. Increasingly, governing bodies have turned to unilateral traceability programs to harmonize environmental and social standards at the production local with those of the importer. The United States’ Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) is one such program that covers the largest seafood import market by value and aims to reduce imports of seafood products from Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing or that are fraudulently labeled. We evaluate the impact of the SIMP on import prices as an indicator of program costs and supply chain changes. Comparing observed import prices to forecasts of counterfactual prices in a causal impact framework, we find an average 13.55% increase in import price, or a lower bound $411 million increase in import value, in the first year of implementation. Examining potential heterogeneity, we find variation in the timing of impact across processed and unprocessed products. Impact also differs across species groups. Observed significant price increases for some tunas and crustaceans likely reflect cost pass-through and changes to sourcing decisions aligned with program goals. Our findings suggest that unilateral traceability programs can be costly but support socio-environmental sustainability.