IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/10795.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Barrier or Opportunity ? How Trade Regulations Shape Colombian Firms’ Export Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Rosenow,Samuel Kaspar

Abstract

Firms increasingly must contend with trade regulations to access foreign markets. This paper quantifies the relative importance of trade regulations and their heterogeneous effects for Colombian firms exporting to Latin America between 2007 and 2017, focusing on specific types and channels. Using panel evidence from a firm-level gravity model with a difference-in-differences identification strategy, technical barriers to trade and quantity control measures both decrease trade on average. Other non-tariff measures and tariffs play a minor role. The technical barriers to trade and quantity measures reallocate trade from small to big firms. The same mechanism benefits firms participating in global value chains. However, quantity controls make it more likely that big firms will leave export markets to the benefit of smaller ones. The results control for the endogeneity of trade regulations and are robust to the use of different samples and measures of firm size.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosenow,Samuel Kaspar, 2024. "Barrier or Opportunity ? How Trade Regulations Shape Colombian Firms’ Export Strategies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10795, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099527306062428330/pdf/IDU16b2474ca1b6b214f1e194961acec3806d2c2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fontagné, Lionel & Orefice, Gianluca & Piermartini, Roberta & Rocha, Nadia, 2015. "Product standards and margins of trade: Firm-level evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 29-44.
    2. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    3. Marc J. Melitz & Stephen J. Redding, 2015. "New Trade Models, New Welfare Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1105-1146, March.
    4. Xiaohua Bao & Larry D. Qiu, 2012. "How Do Technical Barriers to Trade Influence Trade?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 691-706, September.
    5. Michael Bratt, 2017. "Estimating the bilateral impact of nontariff measures on trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 1105-1129, November.
    6. Eyal RONEN, 2017. "Quantifying the trade effects of NTMs: A review of the empirical literature," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 263-274, September.
    7. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2007. "Do free trade agreements actually increase members' international trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 72-95, March.
    8. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    9. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Multiproduct Firms and Trade Liberalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1271-1318.
    10. Amat Adarov & Mahdi Ghodsi, 2023. "Heterogeneous effects of nontariff measures on cross‐border investments: Bilateral firm‐level analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 158-179, February.
    11. Fugazza, Marco & Nicita, Alessandro, 2013. "The direct and relative effects of preferential market access," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 357-368.
    12. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    13. Falciola, Justine & Jansen, Marion & Rollo, Valentina, 2020. "Defining firm competitiveness: A multidimensional framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    14. Zavala,Lucas & Fernandes,Ana Margarida & Haygood,Ryan & Reed,Tristan & Reyes,Jose Daniel, 2023. "Quality Regulation Creates and Reallocates Trade," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10601, 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. Samuel Rosenow & Alvaro Espitia & Ana Margarida Fernandes, 2025. "High Tariffs, High Stakes: The Policy Drivers Behind Firm-Level Adoption of Green Technologies," CESifo Working Paper Series 11726, CESifo.

    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. Ghodsi, Mahdi, 2023. "Exploring the ‘non-tariff measures black box’: Whose regulatory NTMs on which products improve the imported quality?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 45-67.
    2. Fernandes,Ana Margarida & Lefebvre,Kevin Jean-Rene & Rocha,Nadia, 2021. "Heterogeneous Impacts of SPS and TBT Regulations : Firm-Level Evidence from Deep Trade Agreements," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9700, The World Bank.
    3. Mahdi Ghodsi, 2024. "Regulatory convergence within technical barriers to trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 1870-1915, May.
    4. Curzi, Daniele & Schuster, Monica & Maertens, Miet & Olper, Alessandro, 2020. "Standards, trade margins and product quality: Firm-level evidence from Peru," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Yang, Qizhong, 2024. "Heterogeneous impact of non-tariff measures on import margins through global value chains: Firm-level evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 533-562.
    6. Shuyao Yang, 2020. "Technical Barriers to Trade and Firms' Export Decisions," CESifo Working Paper Series 8693, CESifo.
    7. Fontagné, Lionel & Orefice, Gianluca, 2018. "Let’s try next door: Technical Barriers to Trade and multi-destination firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 643-663.
    8. Carballo, Jeronimo & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2018. "The buyer margins of firms' exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 33-49.
    9. Anne‐Célia Disdier & Carl Gaigné & Cristina Herghelegiu, 2023. "Do standards improve the quality of traded products?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 1238-1290, November.
    10. Marco Fugazza & Alain McLaren, 2014. "Market Access, Export Performance and Survival: Evidence from Peruvian Firms," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 599-624, August.
    11. Lee, Hyun-Hoon & Park, Donghyun & Wang, Jing, 2013. "Different types of firms, different types of products, and their dynamics: An anatomy of China's imports," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 62-77.
    12. Carlo Perroni & Davide Suverato, 2023. "Skills scarcity and export intensity," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 719-757, May.
    13. Antoine Berthou & Lionel Fontagné, 2016. "Variable Trade Costs, Composition Effects and the Intensive Margin of Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 54-71, January.
    14. Jung, Benjamin, 2022. "The Trade Effects of the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement: Heterogeneity across Time, Country Pairs, and Directions of Trade within Country Pairs," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264125, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Cray, Stephen R. & Gervais, Antoine, 2023. "Increasing marginal costs, firm heterogeneity, and the gains from “deep” international trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    16. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    17. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Rosario Crinò & Gino Gancia, 2021. "International Trade with Heterogeneous Firms: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9423, CESifo.
    18. Sonali Chowdhry & Gabriel Felbermayr, 2023. "Trade liberalization along the firm size distribution: The case of the EU‐South Korea FTA," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 1751-1792, November.
    19. Aksel Erbahar, 2019. "Market knowledge: Evidence from importers," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 1110-1151, April.
    20. Kan Yue, 2022. "Non‐tariff measures, product quality and import demand," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 870-900, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wbk:wbrwps:10795. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.