Non-Tariff Barriers: Common EU Standards and Trade Creation

Stricter standards to make products safer for consumers can actually encourage the amount of international trade, regardless of who imposes them. That is the central finding of research by Liliana Foletti and Anirudh Shingal, presented at the 2016 Royal Economic Society's annual conference. Their study focuses on the maximum residue level from pesticides that is allowed to remain on agricultural and non-processed food products that are traded widely between countries.