IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/unt/jnapdj/v18y2011i2p1-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intraregional Trade Costs in Asia: A Primer

Author

Listed:
  • Yann Duval

    (Trade and Investment Division, ESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand)

  • Chorthip Utoktham

    (Trade and Investment Division, ESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand)

Abstract

While much has been said about the need to promote intraregional trade and the importance of reducing associated trade costs, quantitative estimates of such costs have been lacking. In this paper a new comprehensive measure of international trade costs is applied to calculate, according to value, trade costs within and between four Asian subregions, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Extraregional trade costs of the four subregions with free trade areas outside Asia, such as the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the European Union (EU), as well as their trade costs with China, India and Japan are also calculated. The analysis concludes with an evaluation of the importance of tariffs in overall trade costs and with the identification of sharp differences across Asian subregions.

Suggested Citation

  • Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Intraregional Trade Costs in Asia: A Primer," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 18(2), pages 1-23, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:unt:jnapdj:v:18:y:2011:i:2:p:1-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/1-Duval-and-Utoktham.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hiau LooiKee & Alessandro Nicita & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2009. "Estimating Trade Restrictiveness Indices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 172-199, January.
    2. Dennis Novy, 2013. "Gravity Redux: Measuring International Trade Costs With Panel Data," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 101-121, January.
    3. Ben Shepherd, 2010. "Trade costs and facilitation in APEC and ASEAN: delivering the goods?," STUDIES IN TRADE AND INVESTMENT, in: Mia Mikic (ed.), Rising Non-Tariff Protectionism and Crisis Recovery, chapter 5, pages 93-110, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    4. Keith Head & John Ries, 2001. "Increasing Returns versus National Product Differentiation as an Explanation for the Pattern of U.S.-Canada Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 858-876, September.
    5. Abe , Kazutomo & Wilson, John S., 2008. "Trade, Transparency, and Welfare in the Asia Pacific," East Asian Economic Review, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, vol. 12(2), pages 35-78, December.
    6. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2009. "Behind-the-Border Trade Facilitation in Asia-Pacific: Cost of Trade, Credit Information, Contract Enforcement and Regulatory Coherence," Working Paper Series 209, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    7. Helble, Matthias & Shepherd, Ben & Wilson, John S., 2007. "Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4401, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Trade Facilitation in Asia and the Pacific: Which Policies and Measures affect Trade Costs the Most?," Working Paper Series 111, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    2. Luisa Marti & Rosa Puertas, 2019. "Factors determining the trade costs of major European exporters," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 21(3), pages 324-333, September.
    3. Lord, Montague & Artuso, Fabio & Record, Richard & Clarke, Julian, 2014. "Trading Costs in East Asia’s Global Value Chains," MPRA Paper 66437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Luisa Martí & Rosa Puertas, 2017. "The importance of export logistics and trade costs in emerging economies," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 19(2), pages 315-333, June.
    5. Philomena Murray & Gabriele Orcalli, 2012. "Deepening regionalism in Europe and ASEAN – the role of an economic constitution," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 426-445.
    6. Shepherd, Ben, 2011. "Logistics costs and competitiveness: measurement and trade policy applications," MPRA Paper 38254, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Trade costs in the India-Mekong Subregion: Identifying Policy Priorities for Trade Facilitation," Working Paper Series 411, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Trade costs in the India-Mekong Subregion: Identifying Policy Priorities for Trade Facilitation," Working Paper Series 411, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    2. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2011. "Gravity, trade integration, and heterogeneity across industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 206-221.
    3. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2011. "Trade Facilitation in Asia and the Pacific: Which Policies and Measures affect Trade Costs the Most?," Working Paper Series 111, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    4. Danny McGowan & Chris Milner, 2011. "Trade Costs and Trade Composition," Discussion Papers 11/11, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    5. Thomas Orliac, 2012. "The economics of trade facilitation [L'économie de la facilitation des échanges]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03681980, HAL.
    6. Zongo, Amara, 2021. "The impact of services trade restrictiveness on food trade," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 71-94.
    7. ARMAN MAZHIKEYEV & Huw Edwards, 2015. "Consequences Of Asymmetric Deeper Eurasian Economic Integration," EcoMod2015 8365, EcoMod.
    8. de Melo, Jaime & Vijil, Mariana, 2014. "Barriers to Trade in Environmental Goods and Environmental Services: How Important Are They? How Much Progress at Reducing Them?," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 172425, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    9. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2012. "On the measurement of trade costs: direct vs. indirect approaches to quantifying standards and technical regulations," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 401-414, July.
    10. Maria Cipollina & Luca De Benedictis & Luca Salvatici & Claudio Vicarelli, 2016. "Policy Measurement And Multilateral Resistance In Gravity Models," Working Papers LuissLab 16130, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    11. D. A. Izotov & K. I. Tochkov, 2020. "Interaction of the Russian Far East and Asia-Pacific Countries: Assessment of Institutional and Tariff Barriers to Trade," Regional Research of Russia, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 182-193, April.
    12. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2008. "International Trade Integration: A Disaggregated Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Michel Fouquin & Jules Hugot, 2016. "Back to the Future: International Trade Costs and the Two Globalizations," Working Papers 2016-13, CEPII research center.
    14. Yann Duval & Chorthip Utoktham, 2009. "Behind the Border Trade Facilitation in Asia-Pacific: Cost of Trade, Credit Information, Contract Enforcement and Regulatory Coherence," Working Papers 6709, Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), an initiative of UNESCAP and IDRC, Canada..
    15. Festus Ebo Turkson, 2011. "Logistics and Bilateral Exports in Developing Countries: A Multiplicative Form Estimation of the Logistics Augmented Gravity Equation," Discussion Papers 11/06, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    16. Hayato Kato & Hirofumi Okoshi, 2022. "Economic Integration And Agglomeration Of Multinational Production With Transfer Pricing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1325-1355, August.
    17. David Comerford & José V Rodríguez Mora & Beata Javorcik, 2019. "The gains from economic integration," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 34(98), pages 201-266.
    18. Giovanni Federico & Antonio Tena-Junguito, 2017. "A tale of two globalizations: gains from trade and openness 1800–2010," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(3), pages 601-626, August.
    19. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Fukunari Kimura, 2015. "How Much Do Free Trade Agreements Reduce Impediments to Trade?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 711-729, September.
    20. Yulin Hou & Yun Wang & Wenjun Xue, 2021. "What explains trade costs? Institutional quality and other determinants," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 478-499, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade facilitation; trade costs; regional integration; subregion; Asia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unt:jnapdj:v:18:y:2011:i:2:p:1-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division, ESCAP (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/escapth.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.