L’analisi economica delle regole di origine: verso una nuova modellistica teorica ed empirica / Rules of origin in international trade: new theoretical and empirical models

Rules of origin (Roo) define the criteria used to determine the ‘nationality’ of goods, services, producers or investments (firms) and are an important part of the commercial policy of all trading countries. Roo, determining which goods can benefit from the lower rates of customs duty under the preferential trade arrangements or the generalized system of preferences, are currently too numerous, complex and inflexible for less developed countries. The principal criteria (change of tariff heading, degree of value added or the use of specific process) to be used for defining substantial transformation, if more than one country is involved in the production of the good, require technical expertise, administrative capacity and skilled customs officials. Unlike in the past, in more recent years, Roo are analyzed in depth with sophisticated theoretical and empirical models to give sound guidelines for current trade negotiations at the multilateral or regional levels. These interesting, new lines of research provide the stepping stone to create models of partial and general equilibrium in order to single out the effects of Roo across trade deflection, trade diversion, trade suppression and trade creation. At the same time, the theoretical models are supplemented by an increasing number of empirical models that allows researchers to measure the restrictiveness of Roo, to quantity their effects on aggregated and disaggregated trade flows and to assess the real value of the different kinds of cumulation of Roo. Keywords: Rules of Origin, Market Access, Preferential Trade Arrangements, Protectionism JEL Classification: F13, F15, F53central regions of the country.