With the help of a political economy model, we show that the extent of ‘trade policy substitution’—namely, substitution of tariffs with non-tariff measures (NTMs)—depends on the cost differential between domestic and foreign firms in complying with product standards. The model suggests the prevalence of trade policy substitution in developed economies, where the costs of compliance are relatively low. We test and validate this prediction using a database on NTMs that identifies actual trade restrictions. We further examine the possible protectionist use of trade policy substitution exploiting information on the end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) and on WTO notifications.

中文翻译：

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贸易政策替代：理论与证据

在政治经济学模型的帮助下，我们表明“贸易政策替代”的程度（即用非关税措施替代关税）取决于遵守产品标准的国内外公司之间的成本差异。该模型表明，在遵守成本相对较低的发达经济体中，贸易政策替代的普遍性。我们使用有关NTM的数据库来测试和验证此预测，该数据库可识别实际的贸易限制。我们进一步研究了利用贸易保护政策在贸易保护中的可能性，并利用了多纤维协议（MFA）末尾和WTO通知中的信息。