Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows
Deepening preferential trade agreements extend coverage to social issues, including labor clauses. While there is a long history of debate over the intent of labor clauses, less is known about the impact of labor clauses. Recent studies show that l...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405441616682154606/Deep-Integration-in-Trade-Agreements-Labor-Clauses-Tariffs-and-Trade-Flows http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35352 |
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okr-10986-353522022-09-20T00:09:59Z Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows Robertson, Raymond DEEP TRADE AGREEMENT LABOR STANDARDS LABOR POLICY GRAVITY MODEL LABOR CLAUSE CHILD LABOR INTERNATIONAL LABOR STANDARD FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION Deepening preferential trade agreements extend coverage to social issues, including labor clauses. While there is a long history of debate over the intent of labor clauses, less is known about the impact of labor clauses. Recent studies show that labor clauses improve working conditions, but the impact on trade flows is still debated. Existing studies do not include a full set of fixed effects (to control for endogeneity and unobserved confounding factors), other dimensions of deep agreements that could be correlated with labor clauses (tariffs and other “deep” clauses), and pseudo-Poisson maximum likelihood estimation. This paper combines all three with additional robustness checks. While the estimated effect of trade agreements is positive overall, the estimated marginal relationship between labor clauses and trade volume is generally negative but varies with the type of clauses. Freedom of Association, Forced and Child Labor, and International Labor Standards are consistently associated with higher trade flows. Clauses that are more likely to eliminate illicit trade, including clauses related to discrimination, protection of working conditions, and third-party monitoring exhibit a negative marginal relationship with trade flows. 2021-04-02T13:37:34Z 2021-04-02T13:37:34Z 2021-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405441616682154606/Deep-Integration-in-Trade-Agreements-Labor-Clauses-Tariffs-and-Trade-Flows http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35352 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9599 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
DEEP TRADE AGREEMENT LABOR STANDARDS LABOR POLICY GRAVITY MODEL LABOR CLAUSE CHILD LABOR INTERNATIONAL LABOR STANDARD FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION |
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DEEP TRADE AGREEMENT LABOR STANDARDS LABOR POLICY GRAVITY MODEL LABOR CLAUSE CHILD LABOR INTERNATIONAL LABOR STANDARD FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION Robertson, Raymond Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9599 |
| description |
Deepening preferential trade agreements
extend coverage to social issues, including labor clauses.
While there is a long history of debate over the intent of
labor clauses, less is known about the impact of labor
clauses. Recent studies show that labor clauses improve
working conditions, but the impact on trade flows is still
debated. Existing studies do not include a full set of fixed
effects (to control for endogeneity and unobserved
confounding factors), other dimensions of deep agreements
that could be correlated with labor clauses (tariffs and
other “deep” clauses), and pseudo-Poisson maximum likelihood
estimation. This paper combines all three with additional
robustness checks. While the estimated effect of trade
agreements is positive overall, the estimated marginal
relationship between labor clauses and trade volume is
generally negative but varies with the type of clauses.
Freedom of Association, Forced and Child Labor, and
International Labor Standards are consistently associated
with higher trade flows. Clauses that are more likely to
eliminate illicit trade, including clauses related to
discrimination, protection of working conditions, and
third-party monitoring exhibit a negative marginal
relationship with trade flows. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Robertson, Raymond |
| author_facet |
Robertson, Raymond |
| author_sort |
Robertson, Raymond |
| title |
Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| title_short |
Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| title_full |
Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| title_fullStr |
Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Deep Integration in Trade Agreements : Labor Clauses, Tariffs, and Trade Flows |
| title_sort |
deep integration in trade agreements : labor clauses, tariffs, and trade flows |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/405441616682154606/Deep-Integration-in-Trade-Agreements-Labor-Clauses-Tariffs-and-Trade-Flows http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35352 |
| _version_ |
1764482854768607232 |