Understanding the potential scope, definition and impact of the WTO e-commerce Moratorium

Andrea Andrenelli and Javier Lopez Gonzalez

No 275, OECD Trade Policy Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: New empirical evidence and analysis of provisions in regional trade agreements help bring clarity to debates on the potential scope, definition and impact of the WTO e-commerce Moratorium. OECD analysis demonstrates that the potential fiscal revenue implications of the Moratorium are small, amounting to, on average, 0.68% of total customs revenue or 0.1% of total government revenue. Well-designed value added or goods and services taxes (VAT/GST) can help offset potential foregone revenue in most countries. Failure to renew the Moratorium would result in greater policy uncertainty and less trade, and tariffs on electronic transmissions would reduce domestic competitiveness. Adverse effects would be most pronounced for low-income countries and smaller firms. Overall, evidence demonstrates that there is a strong case for the Moratorium to be renewed.

Keywords: customs duties; customs revenue; digital economy; Digital trade; digitisable goods; e-commerce; electronic transmissions; Moratorium; trade policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-10-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger and nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/59ceace9-en (text/html)

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:oec:traaab:275-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Trade Policy Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().