Three essays on regulatory protectionism.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 112
Description: This thesis explores the impact of product regulations on trade. It focuses especially on the impact of developed countries' technical regulations on exports from developing countries. The chapters each constitute free-standing contributions to theory and empirical work on the trade-impacts of product regulation.Chapter 1 of this thesis studies the claim that countries will raise product standards following trade liberalization. It develops a North-South Cournot duopoly model where product standards mitigate a consumption externality, but also a cost advantage to the domestic firm. The analysis suggests that countries will not automatically raise standards following the liberalization of conventional trade barriers.Chapter 2 explores how technical regulations---measures governing the distribution and sale of products---influence specialization in international trade. Specifically, it tests whether countries with poorer capacities to meet these regulations specialize away from industries with higher regulatory burdens. The analysis finds that countries with inferior capacities to meet technical regulations actually specialize in goods that have more technical measures. This finding suggests that even though developing countries find it harder in general to satisfy technical regulations, the market-facilitating benefits they receive from these regulations outweigh the costs.Finally, this dissertation studies the pattern of technical measures across US industries. It tries to uncover evidence that suggests that the enactment of technical regulations responds to protectionist forces. While not definitive, the findings in the final chapter suggest that technical regulations do respond to protectionist forces. Specifically, even after one controls for other determinants of technical regulations, one finds that technical regulatory burdens are much higher in sectors that are politically organized.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-10, Section: A, page: 3734.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.