Measuring the Costs of FTA Utilization: Evidence from Transaction-level Import Data of Thailand

Kazunobu Hayakawa, Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul and Shujiro Urata
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Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul: Science and Technology Development Program, Thailand Development Research Institute, Thailand

No DP-2015-38, Working Papers from Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)

Abstract: In this paper, we measure the costs for utilization of free trade agreement (FTA) tariff schemes. To do that, we use shipment-level Customs data on Thai imports, which identify not only the firms, source country, and commodity, but also the tariff schemes. We propose several measures as a proxy for the FTA utilization costs. The example includes the minimum amount of firm level saving of tariff payments, i.e. trade values under FTA schemes multiplied by the tariff margin, in all transactions. As a result, for example, the median costs for FTA utilization are estimated to be around two thousand US dollars in the case of exporting from China and around one thousand US dollars in the case of exporting from Korea. We also found that FTA utilization costs differ by rule of origin and industry.

Keywords: FTA; Fixed costs; Thailand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 F33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages.
Date: 2015-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring the costs of FTA utilization: evidence from transaction-level import data of Thailand (2016)
Working Paper: Measuring the costs of FTA utilization: evidence from transaction-level import data of Thailand (2015)
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