This text presents the first systematic quantitative descriptive and explanatory account of World Trade Organization (WTO) member states’ compliance with their one-time and regular notification obligations. The system of around 170 notifications, through which states are obliged to provide to the WTO relevant information on their policies, constitutes a key mechanism of transparency in the global trade regime. Based on data for the one-time and regular obligations from the years 1995–2014, we seek to map and explain the variation in the degree to which states comply with these obligations. Descriptively, we identify enormous differences in the compliance values of states, ranging from compliance well above 80% to below 20%. To explain those differences, we test five theoretical explanations that concentrate on the trade policy preferences of states and on their institutional characteristics. The empirical findings support four of the tested explanations. In particular, they highlight the relevance of states’ administrative capacities and membership in international organizations (IOs). In addition, the empirical analysis shows that compliance levels are strongly positively connected with the economic size of the members.

中文翻译：

---

世界贸易组织的政策信息供应：一次性和定期通知义务的跨国合规性，1995-2014

本文介绍了世界贸易组织 (WTO) 成员国遵守其一次性和定期通知义务的第一个系统的定量描述和解释说明。大约 170 份通知系统，各国有义务向 WTO 提供有关其政策的相关信息，构成了全球贸易制度中透明度的关键机制。基于 1995 年至 2014 年一次性和定期义务的数据，我们试图绘制和解释各州遵守这些义务的程度的变化。描述性地，我们发现各州的合规值存在巨大差异，从远高于 80% 到低于 20% 不等。为了解释这些差异，我们检验了五种侧重于国家贸易政策偏好及其制度特征的理论解释。实证结果支持四种经过检验的解释。特别是，它们强调了国家行政能力和国际组织 (IO) 成员资格的相关性。此外，实证分析表明，合规水平与成员的经济规模密切相关。