Heterogeneous Impacts of SPS and TBT Regulations : Firm-Level Evidence from Deep Trade Agreements

This paper estimates the impacts of regulating the use of sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade measures through preferential trade agreements on exports of firms in Chile, Colombia, and Peru along the firm size spec trum. The analysis exploits novel data from the World Bank Deep Trade Agreements database and customs covering the universe of exporting firms in each country over 1996–2015. The paper uses a firm-product gravity equation with a stringent set of fixed effects and controls for the overall depth of the preferential trade agreements and product-specific bilateral tariffs. The findings show that firms’ exports increase significantly in destination markets with preferential trade agreements, including a larger number of sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade provisions, and the effect is stronger for smaller firms. Provisions for the harmonization of sanitary and phytosanitary regulations in preferential trade agreements also have greater benefits for the exports of smaller firms, and so do preferential trade agreements, including stronger transparency provisions for sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade regulations. The results are robust to dropping larger exporters and highly concentrated export sectors to address endogeneity. The benefits of sanitary and phytosanitary and technical barriers to trade provisions are mainly driven by sectors with more heavily-regulated products. Entry into new product markets and increases in export quality partly explain the rising exports of smaller firms. Finally, the estimated impacts are similar regardless of the income level of the preferential trade agreement partners.