This paper analyses the effects of standards on UK trade performance. The results suggest that UK strength in standards improves the UK trade balance, but can also act to make the UK market more open. The results also contradict two common views of the effects of standards: first, that standards act...

Cross-border trade of Services has attracted the attention of industry, policymakers and academia. Whereas the trade of goods has been well analysed both from the theoretical and empirical perspective, investigations into the trade of Services are only beginning. In particular, the complex influence...

This paper reviews empirical studies that have investigated how international standards impact trade. It looks at different kinds of studies, from econometric studies to studies based on surveys of exporting firms. It concludes that the available literature does not provide a single answer to the qu...

This paper examines the importance of standards in influencing whether firms in developing countries export opportunities agricultural and food products. Overall, the authors demonstrate that more stringent SPS standards in importing markets have a negative effect on developing country firm expor...

This chapter mainly focuses on the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standards. Companies generally voluntarily adopt those in order to carry a "social" license to operate, as today it is the way to underline their good governance credentials. In transboundary trade t...

We provide a selective overview of the literature on standardization. We first summarize the essential mechanisms underlying the economics of product compatibility and in so doing we review the various frameworks that have been used. Then we survey existing work about the consequences of compatibili...

Fair Trade is a labeling initiative aimed at improving the lives of the poor in developing countries by offering better terms to producers and helping them to organize. Although Fair Trade–certified products still comprise a small share of the market—for example, Fair Trade–certified coffee exports ...

International product standardization enables traditional, price-based competition. But the existence of redesign costs or network effects creates market frictions that diminish the incentive to standardize if there already exists a different technology in an established market. This leads to multi-...

The paper analyses the effects of patents as indicators for innovations and standards on the German-French trade flows. The results show that primarily Germany's innovative capacity can explain its export performance in France and not its strength in standards. Second, the stocks of international st...

Compliance with public and private food safety standards has been the subject of increasing attention. Much of the literature on impacts of food safety regulation in developed countries focuses on public health. In poorer countries, the emphasis is on economic development. How standards shape access...

This publication explain the conformity assessment process, provides an overview of the conformity assessment industry in Canada and discussess conformity assessment as a technical barrier to trade. Implications of the misalignment of regulations and conformity assessment practices across Canada are...

The relationship between standards and trade is a topic of great interest in the standardization community. In this synthesis review, a selection of emblematic studies draws together findings on the impacts of standards on trade across multiple contexts. With this, we can draw some conclusions ab...

This paper provides empirical support for the view that international harmonization can reduce possible negative impacts of product standards on developing country exporters. It focuses on the extensive margin of trade (new products), asking whether harmonization can promote an increase in export va...

This study presents a theoretical foundation to support the "dual face of standards", a term referencing the heterogeneous impact of standards on international trade. It also provides new empirical data on the impact of food standardization for Norwegian seafood export, with as main result that whi...

There is a growing body of literature that analyses the implications of private food standards for developing countries. Most of this literature has focused on the trade effects of standards and on the effects on exporters and producers. Very few studies have looked at the effect of standards for wo...

Several studies investigating the trade effects of standardization have found a positive impact of the number of international standards in a country on its trade volumes. While international standards have so far been considered as exogenous, we investigate what drives countries to take over lea...

There is a growing recognition that the “Rising Powers”, namely the emerging economies, in particular, but not only, China, India and Brazil, whose economic dynamism has begun to transform the contours of the global economy, will bring about radical shifts in global governance. A critical question t...

While much of the focus of the economics literature has been on the role of public food safety and quality standards both as policy instruments and as non-tariff barriers to trade, it is evident that private standards are playing an increasing role in the governance of agricultural and food supply c...

The effects of patents as indicators for innovations and standards on German trade performance are analysed in general and German–British trade in detail. The latter analysis goes a step further than the approach of Swann et al. (1996) and is based on a broader and more detailed database. The result...

In this paper we consider the social impact of ethical trade schemes, particularly the kinds of benefits ethical trade provides for smallholder farmers and their livelihoods and for sustainable forestry. We focus on two cases, which are linked to the fair trade movement: brazil nuts collected from f...