Trade barriers or trade facilitators? The heterogeneous impact of food standards in international trade

Hege Medin ()

The World Economy, 2019, vol. 42, issue 4, 1057-1076

Abstract: Recent research shows that the effect of food standards can be heterogeneous across sectors or countries: they sometimes act as barriers to trade, but in other cases may lead to increased trade. I present empirical evidence on Norwegian seafood exports showing that foreign food standards, measured by sanitary and phytosanitary notifications to the WTO, generally have a negative impact on total exports, the number of exporters and their average exports. However, for fresh seafood, there is a positive counteracting effect. I present a theoretical explanation for this, suggesting that food standards reduce consumer uncertainty about quality and safety and therefore increase demand.

Date: 2019
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