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Restrictions on trade in distribution services

Staff research paper

This paper by Kaleeswaran Kalirajan was released on 16 August 2000. In this study, which focuses on wholesale and retail trade, government restrictions on trade in distribution services have been quantified using an index methodology. This methodology categorises available information on regulation and awards a score to each economy that is based on an assessment of the level of restrictiveness. An index score has been calculated for domestic and foreign firms to separately quantify the extent to which regulation restricts domestic and international competition.

Released concurrently with this paper is a related study, Restrictions on Trade in Professional Services, which focuses on restrictions affecting trade in the legal, accountancy,architectural and engineering professions.

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A staff research paper by Kaleeswaran Kalirajan on Restrictions on Trade in Distribution Services identifies and quantifies restrictions affecting domestic and international trade in distribution services - mainly wholesaling and retailing - in 38 economies, including Australia.

The paper also explores the price and cost implications of restrictions in food distribution services.

The paper finds that Belgium, India, Indonesia, France, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Switzerland and Thailand have the most restrictive regimes of the economies studied. Australia's trade in distribution services is relatively open when measured against a majority of economies.

The paper is part of a stream of Commission research to measure barriers to trade in services.

Background information

02 6240 3330

Preliminaries
Cover, Copyright, Preface, Contents, Summary

1 Introduction

2 A Trade Restrictiveness Index for distribution services
2.1 Types of restrictions on trade in distribution services
2.2 Restrictiveness index methodology
2.3 Results for 38 economies

3 Modelling the effect of restrictions on distributors' price-cost margins
3.1 Using price-cost margins to measure the effects of trade restrictions
3.2 The determinants of price-cost margins for distributors
3.3 Estimating the impact of trade restrictions on the price-cost margins of distributors
3.4 First stage results
3.5 Second stage results

4 Quantifying the cost impact
4.1 Deriving a cost impact measure for restrictions on trade in distribution services
4.2 Results for 18 economies

References