Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Papers,
Lund University, Department of Economics
No 2010:7: Completing the EU Customs Union. The Effects of Trade Procedure Harmonization
Yves Bourdet () and Maria Persson ()
Additional contact information
Yves Bourdet: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Box 7082, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden
Maria Persson: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Box 7082, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden
Abstract: A main component of customs unions is a common trade policy on imports from non-member countries. Trade policy covers both tariff and non-tariff barriers like trade procedures. We argue that since trade procedures vary markedly across EU countries, the EU is not, strictly speaking, a customs union. To illustrate this, we estimate the impact of trade procedures on exports from non-EU countries and find a highly statistically significant and negative effect. Simulating what the effects would be of harmonizing trade procedures, i.e. to actually complete the EU customs union, we find that aggregated exports to the EU would increase by 20 percent for the average exporter.
Keywords: Customs Union; European Union; Time Delays; Trade Facilitation; Trade Procedures
17 pages, June 24, 2010
- Fortchoming as
- Yves Bourdet and Maria Persson, 'Completing the EU Customs Union. The Effects of Trade Procedure Harmonization', JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies
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