The Importance of Facilitating Imports for International Trade Flows : Evidence from the Auto Industry
Imports are becoming more important than ever in world trade in the face of rapid globalization and the spread of global supply chains. One way to boost imports is through efficient regulations and practices. While the impact of regulatory restrict...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/258221634752614698/The-Importance-of-Facilitating-Imports-for-International-Trade-Flows-Evidence-from-the-Auto-Industry http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36564 |
| Summary: | Imports are becoming more important
than ever in world trade in the face of rapid globalization
and the spread of global supply chains. One way to boost
imports is through efficient regulations and practices.
While the impact of regulatory restrictions is well
established for exports, their effect on imports has been
studied to a lesser extent across countries. This brief aims
to help fill that gap. Focusing on the auto industry, it
analyzes the relationship between efficient import
procedures and international trade flows in 190 economies.
An analysis of the data at the global level suggests that
economies where importing auto parts is relatively fast and
inexpensive tend to have not only higher imports of auto
parts (in terms of volume and value) and a higher ratio of
imports of auto parts to total GDP, but also a higher ratio
of imports of overall manufactured products to total GDP.
Similarly, economies with efficient procedures when
importing auto parts tend to have a greater share of
automobile exports of total GDP. The Brief does not provide
a causal interpretation and more analysis will be needed to
understand the direction of the relationships. But given the
strong positive association between the efficiency of import
procedures and international trade, streamlining import
regulations appears to be an important aspect for policy
makers to focus on in formulating trade policy. |
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