This paper analyzes the influence of political systems and rights in patterns of agricultural protection across commodities, countries, and over time. Four political systems and a qualitative index of political rights account for differences in political institutions. The analysis incorporates...

We propose aggregation indices of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) to quantify their protectionism relative to international standards of stringency. We apply the indices to national Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) regulations on pesticides and veterinary drugs affecting agricultural and food trade and...

A meta-analysis explains the variation in estimated trade effects of technical barriers to trade broadly defined, using available estimates from the empirical international trade literature, and accounting for data sampling and methodology differences. Agriculture and food industries tend to be...