Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

To protect, or not to protect: an empirical comparison of two of the EU’s free trade agreements

Törnquist, Olle LU (2019) NEKH03 20191
Department of Economics
Abstract
In this essay, I use an empirical approach to explore two recent free trade agreements struck by the European Union: the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. By comparing the EU’s tariff concessions on goods in both instances, I identify the goods that were liberalised in the former agreement but excluded from the latter. I subsequently try to explain why these goods are missing from the Japanese treaty, the hypothesis being that the impact of the Korean treaty on imports could serve to predict their possible exclusion. This hypothesis is tested by running regressions estimating the Korean treaty’s relative impact on all goods, and then letting the coefficients representing that impact serve as... (More)
In this essay, I use an empirical approach to explore two recent free trade agreements struck by the European Union: the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. By comparing the EU’s tariff concessions on goods in both instances, I identify the goods that were liberalised in the former agreement but excluded from the latter. I subsequently try to explain why these goods are missing from the Japanese treaty, the hypothesis being that the impact of the Korean treaty on imports could serve to predict their possible exclusion. This hypothesis is tested by running regressions estimating the Korean treaty’s relative impact on all goods, and then letting the coefficients representing that impact serve as independent variables in a probit model. The results were rather conclusive in that the larger the magnitude of treaty impact on imports of a certain good, the less probability that said good gets liberalised in the Japanese case. Through discussing actors and interests, I interpret this as proof of anti-liberalising lobbying forces affecting treaty text outcomes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Törnquist, Olle LU
supervisor
organization
course
NEKH03 20191
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
EU Japan Korea Tariffs FTA
language
English
id
8990925
date added to LUP
2019-08-08 11:29:48
date last changed
2019-08-08 11:29:48
@misc{8990925,
  abstract     = {{In this essay, I use an empirical approach to explore two recent free trade agreements struck by the European Union: the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. By comparing the EU’s tariff concessions on goods in both instances, I identify the goods that were liberalised in the former agreement but excluded from the latter. I subsequently try to explain why these goods are missing from the Japanese treaty, the hypothesis being that the impact of the Korean treaty on imports could serve to predict their possible exclusion. This hypothesis is tested by running regressions estimating the Korean treaty’s relative impact on all goods, and then letting the coefficients representing that impact serve as independent variables in a probit model. The results were rather conclusive in that the larger the magnitude of treaty impact on imports of a certain good, the less probability that said good gets liberalised in the Japanese case. Through discussing actors and interests, I interpret this as proof of anti-liberalising lobbying forces affecting treaty text outcomes.}},
  author       = {{Törnquist, Olle}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{To protect, or not to protect: an empirical comparison of two of the EU’s free trade agreements}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}