Key Findings of the NTM-IMPACT Project

This special issue of The World Economy presents research findings from the European Commission–funded project “Assessment of the impacts of non-tariff measures (NTM)—on the competitiveness of the EU and selected trade partners” (NTM-Impact). Directed toward the EU and its trade partners, the project’s first overall objective was to collect and analyze new data on NTMs for key and representative agri-food products. This involved three components: creating a large symmetric international database on the diverse types of governmental standards and regulations used to address food safety and quality issues, constructing measures of heterogeneity among these standards and regulations; and evaluating the effects of the heterogeneity of NTMs on agri-food trade. The second overall objective was to undertake detailed case studies of NTMs among the main traders in markets for selected dairy, meat, and fruit and vegetable products. The third objective was to analyze the socioeconomic and trade impacts from private standards on a sample of low- and medium-income developing countries. Collaborators from 19 institutions in five EU and 11 non-EU countries participated in the project