Data for: Trade Policy toward Supply Chains after the Great Recession

How does trade policy treat intermediate inputs relative to other imported products? Slow economic and trade growth during the recovery from the Great Recession, as well as recent political developments in the United Kingdom and the United States, pose a threat to cross-border supply chains and have thus brought this question to the forefront of policy circles. By examining new and detailed data on the Group of 20 (G-20) countries, this paper investigates trade policy use through 2016, with special emphasis on changes in policymaking behavior since 2010. First, there is no evidence that the G-20 economies made significant changes to their applied import tariffs during this period. However, there has been a modest increase in import protection arising through other policy instruments of note such as the temporary trade barriers (TTBs) of antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. More importantly, there is evidence of changes in how countries have applied their TTBs. TTBs were increasingly imposed on imports not only from China but also from other countries, reversing a post-2001 trend. Furthermore, TTB protection has moved away from imports of final goods and toward imports of intermediate inputs. These shifts in policy have several potential contributing causes as well as economic consequences, including for cross-border supply chains.

在探讨贸易政策如何对待中间投入与其他进口产品的关系时，我们注意到，自大萧条复苏期间的缓慢经济和贸易增长，以及近期英国和美国政治发展，对跨国供应链构成了威胁，从而将这一问题推至政策讨论的前沿。本文通过对二十国集团（G-20）国家的新近及详尽数据的分析，研究了至2016年的贸易政策运用，并特别关注自2010年以来政策制定行为的变迁。首先，并无证据表明G-20经济体在此期间对其实施的进口关税做出了显著调整。然而，通过诸如反倾销、反补贴措施及保障措施等显著政策工具的临时贸易壁垒（TTBs）的使用，进口保护呈现出温和增长的趋势。更重要的是，有迹象表明，各国在实施TTBs的方式上发生了变化。TTBs不仅对中国，也对其他国家的进口商品越来越多地被实施，逆转了2001年之后的趋势。此外，TTBs的保护对象已从最终产品的进口转向中间投入的进口。这些政策转变的潜在影响因素及其经济后果，包括对跨国供应链的影响，均值得关注。