Observational analysis reveals significant substitution effects between agricultural tariffs and SPS measures, suggesting implications for trade policy management.
The continuous reduction in agricultural tariffs alongside the rising number of SPS notifications indicates potential substitution effects between these two trade policies. While SPS measures are vital for ensuring food safety and protecting animal and plant health, importing countries may use them to offset trade losses caused by tariff reductions, posing risks of trade restrictions. This study goes beyond prior research by considering the structural characteristics of SPS measures to examine the relationship between agricultural tariffs and different SPS measure types. The findings reveal significant substitution effects between applied tariffs and various types of SPS measures, with customs procedure-related SPS measures exhibiting a stronger substitution relationship with tariffs. Heterogeneity analysis shows that higher levels of economic development and food safety regulation are positively associated with the probability of importing countries substituting tariffs with SPS measures.
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Zhang et al. (2025) studied this question.
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