Sensitive Sectors in Free Trade Agreements

Alan Deardorff

No 663, Working Papers from Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan

Abstract: This paper documents the presence of Òsensitive sectorsÓ in Free Trade Agreements, defined as sectors for which the within-FTA tariffs remain positive. The paper includes some brief theoretical discussion of the welfare implications of these, but the main emphasis is on reporting two measures of this phenomenon for countries in FTAs that entered into force between 1994 and 2003. One measure is the percentage of tariff lines that remain dutiable, and the second is the change, from before the FTA to after, in the average maximum (across 6-digit products) positive tariffs. Both measures are derived from data in the UNCTAD TRAINS database, and are then related to measures of country characteristics that might explain them. Low per capita GDP countries tend to have larger fractions of dutiable tariff lines, while higher income countries tend to post larger increases in average maximum positive tariffs. Both suggest that the favored treatment of sensitive sectors is undermining the potential gains from trade that FTAs provide.

Keywords: Free trade agreement; sensitive sectors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2017-05-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/rsie/workingpapers/Papers651-675/r663.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Sensitive Sectors in Free Trade Agreements (2018)
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:mie:wpaper:663

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by FSPP Webmaster ().