inventory of such measures and use a gravity model to show that
they tend to reduce developing countries’ exports to the OECD,
but have little effect on intra-OECD trade. By contrast, there is
much less work on voluntary product standards, even though they
are commercially crucial for developing countries seeking to integrate
into agri-food supply chains in developed country markets.
Moenius (2004) considers a range of industries across a number
of developed country markets. He finds that bilaterally shared voluntary
standards tend to be trade promoting, but that country-specific
standards tend to inhibit trade in non-manufactured goods
such as agriculture. Czubala et al. (2009) examine the impact of
voluntary EU standards on African exports of textiles, clothing,
and footwear. They find that EU standards tend to inhibit African
exports, except for those standards that are internationally harmonized.
Portugal-Perez et al. (2009) extend that analysis to electrical
products (cf. Moenius, 2007), but they do not examine the potential
for differential impacts across developing and developed countries.
Finally, Shepherd (2007) presents evidence that voluntary
product standards and international harmonization affect the
extensive margin of trade—particularly in developing countries—
which is consistent with a significant role for fixed costs of
adaptation.