Abnormal pricing in international commodity trade: Empirical evidence from Switzerland

Rahul Mehrotra and Gilles Carbonnier

Resources Policy, 2021, vol. 74, issue C

Abstract: Mispricing of international trade in natural resources poses a significant risk for tax base erosion from resource-rich, developing countries, while also contributing to regulatory and financial risks for commodity trading hubs. This paper presents a novel empirical approach which combines statistical price-filter analysis methods with commodity market research to provide evidence on the magnitude of abnormally priced Swiss commodity imports. Our analysis compares transaction-level import prices to an arm's length price range representing fair market value and defined using contemporaneous benchmark prices from commodity exchanges, adjusted for product-specific factors. We find a significant magnitude of abnormally under-valued unwrought gold doré imports as well as relatively smaller magnitudes of abnormally under-valued cocoa and coffee imports. Next, we contrast our new estimates with traditionally used proxies for trade mispricing based on aggregate mirror trade statistics to highlight the unreliability of widely used methods and data sources. Finally, we discuss the limitations in our analysis even using the best available administrative data which reinforces the urgency to improve the statistical infrastructure used to record international commodity trading in order to promote transparency and improve international trade governance.

Keywords: Natural resource governance; International trade; Commodity trading; Trade mispricing; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 O24 Q17 Q32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420721003615
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:jrpoli:v:74:y:2021:i:c:s0301420721003615

DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102352

Access Statistics for this article

Resources Policy is currently edited by R. G. Eggert

More articles in Resources Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().