sampling plan in over-sampling shipments deemed risky _ex ante_ (i.e. those with higher numbers of planned samples). But it is important to note again the two major challenges that affect our assessment of the adherence to the sampling plan. On one hand, the sampling plan for 2014 was meant to be implemented at the start of the year. However, implementation started only on July 1, 2014. Therefore, the actual number of import shipments sampled counts sampling of import shipments conducted before the implementation of the sampling plan. On the other hand, the funding dispute with the public laboratories experienced by the FVA in 2015 affected the number of import shipments sampled, so we are unable to fully separate the effect of the funding dispute with the public laboratories and the adherence to the sampling plan.

**<u>Table 2. Adherence to the sampling plan regressions</u>**

|||D|ependent vari|able: actual n<br>Sample peri|umber of shipm<br>od: 2014-2015<br>Sample exclu|ents sampled<br>des milk prod<br>food (i|ucts (in 2014-2<br>n 2015)|015) and pet|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|
|Planned number of import|||||||||
|shipments to be sampled|-0.047*|-0.017*|-0.011|0.060|0.053|2.240**|1.929|1.101|
||(0.026)|(0.010)|(0.040)|(0.047)|(0.109)|(0.872)|(1.105)|(1.244)|
|Constant|44.478**|43.04***|79.05***|70.08*|20.76***|-37.32*|-15.08|6.323|
||[16.9]|(15.49)|(27.58)|(37.80)|(7.23)|(19.48)|(38.35)|(37.91)|
|Broad product group fixed effects|No|Yes|Yes|Yes|No|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Country or group of countries<br>fixed effects|No|No|Yes|Yes|No|No|Yes|Yes|
|Year fixed effects|No|No|No|Yes|No|No|No|Yes|
|Observations|46|46|46|46|39|39|39|39|
|R-squared|0.005|0.294|0.502|0.658|0.003|0.457|0.553|0.680|

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses. ***, **, and * indicate significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% confidence levels, respectively.

# **_V.2 Results linking sampling rates and observed compliance_**

This section presents the results from testing the hypothesis that the risk-based sampling reform led to a closer alignment between testing activity and rates of non-compliance with import regulations. As mentioned before, non-compliance is a novel outcome that has not been previously studied in the literature on impact evaluation of trade facilitation reforms. To calculate sampling and non-compliance rates, we use the total number of import shipments, the number of shipments sampled, and the number of shipments sampled that are non-compliant at the product group-country of origin-semester-year level from the merged FVA lab sample and EXIM data sets. Summary statistics on the various numbers of shipments, sampling rates and non-compliance rates are provided in Table 3, Panel A covers all import shipments, Panel B considers only import shipments of food of animal origin, and Panel C considers only import shipments of animal feeds.

The total number of import shipments sampled exhibits a decreasing trend with the dramatic fall in 2015 being due to the funding dispute with the public laboratories rather than the FVA reform itself. A clear pattern that emerges from Table 3 is that the number of import shipments sampled that exhibit non27