When are tariff cuts not enough? Heterogeneous effects of trade preferences for the least developed countries

Fabien Forge, Jason Garred and Kyae Lim Kwon

Journal of International Economics, 2024, vol. 152, issue C

Abstract: Poor countries export a remarkably narrow range of products. To what extent have trade preferences targeted to the least developed countries (LDCs) changed this situation? We study a large set of recent reforms to the LDC trade preferences offered by OECD countries. Leveraging trade policy variation by importer, exporter, product and year, we show that tariff reductions have increased the prevalence of positive trade flows. However, new flows have been far more likely to emerge in cases with previous ‘export experience’, i.e. where countries already exported the same product to another OECD country, or exported a related product to the same importer. So this wave of tariff cuts for LDCs has resulted in an extension of existing patterns of trade rather than wider export diversification.

Keywords: Trade policy; Trade preferences; Tariffs; Least developed countries; Exports (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199624000989
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: When are Tariff Cuts Not Enough? Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Preferences for the Least Developed Countries (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:152:y:2024:i:c:s0022199624000989

DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.103971

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés

More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().