The effects of sanitary and phytosanitary barriers on the international trade of apples from France and Chile[Les effets des barrières SPS sur le commerce international de pommes en provenance de la France et du Chili]

In the case of fresh vegetable products, trade is governed by two types of SPS requisites, those protecting humans' health and those protecting plants' health. Food safety standards like Maximum Residual Levels (MRL) of any contaminant, apply indiscriminately to the domestic and foreign producers. The only divergence is that each country is free to adopt its own standard. In the context of pest and disease management, the phytosanitary protocols are not only set by each country independently but can also be discriminating between domestic and foreign producers but also across foreign producers. Moreover the level of the standard can vary greatly over time because a country may be affected by a pest or a disease regarding for instance favorable climatic conditions. Consequently a tightening in a partner standard may induce an increase in the cost of compliance with the standard and affect the competitiveness of countries that were major exporters, causing a redistribution of the market shares. Even if these standards have an incidental impact on trade, it is still interesting to measure it as the size of the impact can incentivize policymakers in negotiating bilateral phytosanitary requirements. Our objective is to assess the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary regulations as well as diseases and pest management measures on French and Chilean apples trade.