Making (small) firms happy: The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures

Lionel Fontagné, Gianluca Orefice and Roberta Piermartini

No ERSD-2016-03, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: This paper considers the asymmetric effect of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) policies on heterogeneous exporters, based on matching a detailed panel of French firm exports to a new database of Trade Facilita- tion Indicators (TFIs) released recently by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We analyze the effect of these TFIs on three trade-related outcomes: (i) exported value (firm intensive margin), (ii) number of products exported (product extensive margin) and (iii) average export value per product exported (product intensive margin). We find strong evidence of a heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation across firm size. While better information availability, advance ruling and appeal procedures mainly benefit small firms, the simplification of documents and automation tend to favor large firms' trade. This is coherent with the idea that while some elements of the TFA simply reduce the fixed cost of exporting (favoring small firms in particular), other chapters in the TFA reduce the scope for corruption at borders, making large firms less reluctant to serve corrupt countries.

Keywords: Trade Facilitation; Heterogeneous Firms; Extensive Margin; Intensive Margin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-int and nep-net
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Making small firms happy? The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures (2020)
Working Paper: Making small firms happy? The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures (2020)
Working Paper: Making small firms happy? The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures (2020)
Working Paper: Making small firms happy? The heterogeneous effect of trade facilitation measures (2020)
Working Paper: Making (Small) Firms Happy. The Heterogeneous Effect of Trade Facilitation Measures (2017)
Working Paper: Making (Small) Firms Happy. The Heterogeneous Effect of Trade Facilitation Measures (2017)
Working Paper: Making (Small) Firms Happy. The Heterogeneous Effect of Trade Facilitation Measures (2016)
Working Paper: Making (Small) Firms Happy. The Heterogeneous Effect of Trade Facilitation Measures (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201603

DOI: 10.30875/e6ff8a83-en

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