Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific

Matthias Helble, Ben Shepherd and John Wilson

No 4401, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Free Trade; Emerging Markets; Debt Markets; Trade Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-11-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-int and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4401

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