The Politics of Trade Protection: Evidence from an EU-mandated Tari Liberalization in Morocco

Christian Ruckteschler, Adeel Malik and Ferdinand Eib

No 2019-12, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: Although non-tari measures (NTMs) have surpassed tari s as the most preva- lent instrument of trade protection globally, our knowledge of what drives these NTMs is extremely limited. This paper sheds light on the political determinants of non-tari protection using a rich empirical setting in Morocco. Taking advantage of a bilateral EU-Morocco trade agreement that resulted in an across the board tari cut and a subsequent rise in NTMs, we use a di erence-in-di erences regres- sion framework to show that sectors with close prior political connections to the royal family received disproportionately higher levels of non-tari protection than unconnected sectors. We also demonstrate that, in the wake of the EU-induced tari cut, connected sectors were mainly compensated through technical barriers to trade that depend on administrative oversight and are vulnerable to political in uence

JEL-codes: F13 O19 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csa:wpaper:2019-12

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