Protecting Health or Protecting Imports? Evidence from EU Non-Tariff Barriers

Fatima Kareem, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso and Bernhard Brümmer

No 241267, GlobalFood Discussion Papers from Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development

Abstract: Non-tariff measures such as food safety standards are used to achieve the non-trade objective of protecting consumers’ health and safety. However, they can also be used as a trade protection tool to drive a price wedge between domestic and foreign producers. This study investigates the protectionist intent of EU food safety standards using a sample of EU food imported from African countries with a specific focus on tomatoes and citrus fruits. We formalize what protectionism is by comparing EU standards to the internationally scientific referenced benchmarks regulated jointly by both the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization. Our results show that the EU tomato sector is less dependent on imports and is overprotected by more stringent standards relative to the international benchmarks. Conversely, we find that the EU orange and lime and lemon sectors are heavily import dependent and are under-protected relative to the international standards. These results largely support the hypothesis that heavily import dependent sectors are less protected.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Health Economics and Policy; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ger and nep-int
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:gagfdp:241267

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.241267

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