IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rco/dpaper/458.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Missing Tariffs

Author

Listed:
  • Feodora Teti

    (ifo Institute, LMU Munich, CESifo)

Abstract

Many studies use tariffs to measure changes in trade policy. This paper shows that standard sources for tariffs suffer from substantial measurement error due to misreporting and the resulting false imputation: Countries fail to report tariffs every year and missing data are more prevalent for preferential than for most favored nation (MFN) tariffs. WITS, the main data provider for tariffs, falsely interpolates missing preferential tariffs with MFN tariffs. This practice leads to artificial spikes in bilateral time series data and, hence, induces massive measurement error. I introduce a new global tariff dataset at the six-digit product level for 197 countries and 30 years that combines five different sources for tariffs and proposes a new interpolation algorithm taking the misreporting into account. Lastly, I show using gravity that correcting for the messy data increases the estimates of the trade elasticity by 2.89 times.

Suggested Citation

  • Feodora Teti, 2023. "Missing Tariffs," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 458, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    • Handle: RePEc:rco:dpaper:458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/uploads/discussion_paper/458.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hillberry, Russell & Hummels, David, 2013. "Trade Elasticity Parameters for a Computable General Equilibrium Model," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1213-1269, Elsevier.
    2. Andreas Dür & Leonardo Baccini & Manfred Elsig, 2014. "The design of international trade agreements: Introducing a new dataset," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 353-375, September.
    3. Caliendo, Lorenzo & Feenstra, Robert & Romalis, John & Taylor, Alan M., 2015. "Tariff Reductions, Entry, and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for the Last Two Decades," CEPR Discussion Papers 10962, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Borchert, Ingo & Larch, Mario & Shikher, Serge & Yotov, Yoto V., 2021. "The International Trade and Production Database for Estimation (ITPD-E)," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 140-166.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Teti, Feodora & Yalcin, Erdal, 2019. "Rules of origin and the profitability of trade deflection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    2. Jacopo Timini & Nicola Cortinovis & Fernando López Vicente, 2022. "The heterogeneous effects of trade agreements with labour provisions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(9), pages 2820-2853, September.
    3. Pablo D Fajgelbaum & Pinelopi K Goldberg & Patrick J Kennedy & Amit K Khandelwal, 2020. "The Return to Protectionism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 1-55.
    4. Nuno Limão, 2016. "Preferential Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 22138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Pavcnik, Nina & Goldberg, Pinelopi, 2016. "The Effects of Trade Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 11104, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Feodora Teti, 2020. "30 Years of Trade Policy: Evidence from 5.7 Billion Tariffs," ifo Working Paper Series 334, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    7. Cruzatti C., John, 2021. "Free Trade Agreements and Development: a Global Analysis with Local Data," Working Papers 0702, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    8. Wani, Mr. Nassir Ul Haq & Rehman, Mr. Noor, 2017. "Determinants of FDI in Afghanistan: An Empirical Analysis," MPRA Paper 81975, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 May 2016.
    9. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Gröschl, Jasmin & Heiland, Inga, 2022. "Complex Europe: Quantifying the cost of disintegration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    10. Njike, Arnold, 2020. "Trade in value-added and the welfare gains of international fragmentation," MPRA Paper 100427, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Rahel Aichele & Gabriel Felbermayr, 2016. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal (TPP): What Are the Economic Consequences for In- and Outsiders?," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(04), pages 53-64, January.
    12. Foellmi, Reto & Hepenstrick, Christian & Torun, David, 2022. "Triangle Inequalities in International Trade: The Neglected Dimension," CEPR Discussion Papers 17118, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Liu, Chen & Ma, Xiao, 2018. "China's Export Surge and the New Margins of Trade," MPRA Paper 103970, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2020.
    14. Xing Yao & Yongzhong Zhang & Rizwana Yasmeen & Zhen Cai, 2021. "The impact of preferential trade agreements on bilateral trade: A structural gravity model analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-20, March.
    15. Cornelius Hirsch & Harald Oberhofer, 2017. "Bilateral Trade Agreements and Trade Distortions in Agricultural Markets," FIW Working Paper series 176, FIW.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Gino Gancia & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2015. "Offshoring and Directed Technical Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 84-122, July.
    17. Arezki, Rabah & Fetzer, Thiemo & Pisch, Frank, 2017. "On the comparative advantage of U.S. manufacturing: Evidence from the shale gas revolution," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 34-59.
    18. Sandra Sequeira, 2016. "Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3029-3063, October.
    19. Kox, Henk L.M. & Rojas Romasgosa, Hugo, 2019. "Gravity estimations with FDI bilateral data: Potential FDI effects of deep preferential trade agreements," MPRA Paper 96318, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Wen‐Chin Wu & Fangjin Ye, 2020. "Preferential Trade Agreements, Democracy, and the Risk of Coups d’état," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1834-1849, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tariffs; MFN; preferences; trade elasticity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    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:rco:dpaper:458. 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: Viviana Lalli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://rationality-and-competition.de .

    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.