The paper explores an important issue in multilateral agricultural trade negotiations, namely the approach taken to reduce tariffs, simulating possible liberalization scenarios. The analysis is based on the model of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), and on the related version 6.0...

Over the time a large number of reciprocal preferential trade agreements (RTAs) have been concluded among countries. Recently many studies have used gravity equations in order to estimate the effect of RTAs on trade flows between partners. These studies report very different estimates since they...

This document is the technical annex to the full paper "Alternative Market Access Scenarios in the Agricultural Trade Negotiations of the Doha Round" which is available separately.

The paper aims at understanding the structural features of the bargaining coalition in the Doha Round of the WTO. We provide an empirical assessment of the preferences of each negotiating actor looking at general economics indicators, development levels, structure of the agriculural sectors, and...

In the policy arena, there is a demand for "trade distortion indicators", but many of the traditional indices are difficult to compute and interpret. Recent developments in the literature have led to a new indicator: the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI). This paper analyzes some problems...

This paper deals with the EU's trade policy with two objectives: on the one hand, we study the performance of EU's preferential agreements in granting their partners improved market access; on the other hand, we assess the extent to which domestic sectors are effectively protected. As far as the...

The paper provides an analysis of the impact on trade of EU preferences in the agricultural sector. An explicit measure of the intensity of preference margins at the 6-digit tariff line level it is used. Moreover, the estimation framework takes into account the heterogeneity across exporters and...

The aim of this paper is to assess of the impact of the European Union’s trade preferences on global trade, focusing on several methodological issues that are relevant to the trade-creating impact of these preferences. Using highly disaggregated eight-digit data in a theoretically...

The EU tariff schedule includes many specific and composite tariffs as well as tariff rate quotas (TRQs). Hence, different patterns of trade liberalisation might have different consequences for both producers and consumers through changes in the composition of trade. We illustrate the issues at...