Trade Facilitation and trade policy

There have been many studies made which measure the effects of trade facilitation on trade flows, and it is has been established that there are large gains from improving inefficient and cumbersome trade procedures that act as a barrier to trade. Still there are differences between countries and their level of trade facilitation. With a framework defining resources indicator and protectionist indicators, this thesis studies the relation between the number of days required to import a good and countries’ trade policy and resources. There is, to my knowledge, no previous literature on subject and the model built draws inspiration from studies on trade in general. The results suggest that while trade facilitation seems to be determined to some extent by a country’s available resources, there is a difference in the kind of protectionist measures that are related to efficient or inefficient trade procedures, indicating that cumbersome procedures and tariffs are trade barriers for imports into developing countries, while developed countries have trade barriers in the form of non-tariff measures. (Less)