Trade Costs and Demand-Enhancing Effects of Agrifood Standards: Consequences for Sub-Saharan Africa

DOI

10.2991/jat.k.210907.001How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Non-tariff measures; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; technical barriers to trade; sub-Saharan Africa; ad valorem equivalent; gravity model

Abstract

Agrifood standards impede trade by increasing compliance costs, but they can also enhance trade by signalling quality. This paper disentangles the trade costs and demand-enhancing effects of two important standards—technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures—on (i) global agricultural trade flows and (ii) fruit, nut, and vegetable trade between sub-Saharan Africa and high-income OECD countries. Combining estimates fromunit value and trade value regressions set within structural gravity frameworks, we show that trading standards increase trade costs—which exporters pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices—but they also increase trade volume. For agrifood exports from sub-Saharan Africa, compliance with standards guarantees market access at higher prices to high-value OECD markets.

Copyright

© 2021 African Export-Import Bank. Publishing services by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Aristide Djimgou Tchakounte
AU  - Dela-Dem Doe Fiankor
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/09/21
TI  - Trade Costs and Demand-Enhancing Effects of Agrifood Standards: Consequences for Sub-Saharan Africa
JO  - Journal of African Trade
SP  - 51
EP  - 64
VL  - 8
IS  - 1
SN  - 2214-8523
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/jat.k.210907.001
DO  - 10.2991/jat.k.210907.001
ID  - Tchakounte2021
ER  -