Completing the EU Customs Union. The Effects of Trade Procedure Harmonization

Yves Bourdet and Maria Persson

No 2010:7, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: A main component of customs unions is a common trade policy on imports from non-member countries. Trade policy covers both tariff and non-tariff barriers like trade procedures. We argue that since trade procedures vary markedly across EU countries, the EU is not, strictly speaking, a customs union. To illustrate this, we estimate the impact of trade procedures on exports from non-EU countries and find a highly statistically significant and negative effect. Simulating what the effects would be of harmonizing trade procedures, i.e. to actually complete the EU customs union, we find that aggregated exports to the EU would increase by 20 percent for the average exporter.

Keywords: Customs Union; European Union; Time Delays; Trade Facilitation; Trade Procedures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 F15 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2010-06-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Forthcoming as Bourdet, Yves and Maria Persson, 'Completing the EU Customs Union. The Effects of Trade Procedure Harmonization' in JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.

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Working Paper: Completing the EU Customs Union. The Effects of Trade Procedure Harmonization (2010)
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