Policy and Performance in Customs : Evaluating the Trade Facilitation Agreement / Hillberry, Russell

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Hillberry, Russell

Contributor:

Hillberry, Russell

Zhang, Xiaohui

Series:

Policy research working papers.

World Bank e-Library.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Customs Administration and Reform.

Discrete-Time Transition Model.

E-Business.

Economic Theory & Research.

Multiple Imputation.

Trade Costs.

Trade Facilitation.

Trade Policy.

Transport and Trade Logistics.

World Trade Organization.

Local Subjects:

Customs Administration and Reform.

Discrete-Time Transition Model.

E-Business.

Economic Theory & Research.

Multiple Imputation.

Trade Costs.

Trade Facilitation.

Trade Policy.

Transport and Trade Logistics.

World Trade Organization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (43 pages)

Other Title:

Policy and Performance in Customs

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C., The World Bank, 2015

System Details:

data file

Summary:

The 2013 World Trade Organization ministerial in Bali produced a comprehensive framework agreement on trade facilitation. If fully implemented, the agreement should increase the speed and reduce the cost of moving goods across international borders. But which reforms are most likely to improve these outcomes, how much improvement should be expected, and what might such improvements be worth? This paper adopts the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's trade facilitation indicators as quantitative descriptions of trade facilitation policy. It estimates the impact of the indicators and other variables on the time necessary to clear customs, the associated cost, and a customs performance index. Of the 12 policy bundles, the good governance and impartiality indicator is most clearly related to customs clearance time. A move to best practice in all policies by all World Trade Organization members would reduce the predicted time spent in customs by an average of 1.6 days for imports and 2 days for exports. Using a conservative estimate of the value of time in trade, such comprehensive reforms imply a mean tariff equivalent reduction of 0.9 percentage points on imports and 1.2 percentage points on exports. The same estimates are used to calculate welfare gains of policy reform by World Trade Organization members. Reform in China alone accounts for roughly one-fourth of the global benefits from the Trade Facilitation Agreement.