PRESENTA: Federico Bernini. Instituto de Estrategia Internacional (CERA) – UdeSA/ COMENTA: Ramiro Bertoni. UNQ – UNSAM – UBA – Universidad Nacional de Moreno
Jueves 16 de Julio, de 12.00 – 1.30pm. Encuentro virtual.
Abstract
In recent decades, the relative importance of non-tariff measures has increased as part of the countries’ trade policy. In this paper, we study the impact of non-automatic import licenses (NAIL) on firms’ performance. We use a comprehensive data of Argentinian firms between 2000 and 2011 and exploit exogenous variability in the timing of the import barriers imposed to Argentinian products. Not surprisingly, we find that trade barriers reduce imports for those firms that are more exposed to the policy. A firm at the fifty percentile of exposure to NAILS (15% of its imported inputs) reduces its total imports 7.5%. While larger firms are able to attenuate the impact by changing the bundle of inputs, smaller firms experience higher declines in the amount of imports. The negative effect of NAILs on imports yields to a considerable decline in rms’ total exports. A firm at the fty percentile of exposure to NAILS reduces its exports in 5.5%. This implies that the elasticity of exports with respect to imports is 0.75. The negative impact of NAILs is relatively higher for exporters of differentiated goods to destinations outside the Mercosur and for smaller firms. Our results suggest that the application of non-technical barriers to imports made Argentinian firms less competitive in export markets.
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