Publication: Expediting Trade: Impact Evaluation of an In-House Clearance Program
Abstract
Despite the importance of trade
facilitation as an area of trade and development policy,
there have been very few impact evaluations of specific
trade facilitation reforms. This paper offers an evaluation
of in-house clearance, a reform that allows qualified firms
in Serbia to clear customs from within their own warehouse
rather than at the customs office. The pooled synthetic
control method applied here offers a novel solution to many
of the empirical challenges that frustrate efforts to
evaluate trade facilitation reforms. The method is used to
estimate causal impacts on trade outcomes for 21 firms that
adopted in-house clearance for import shipments. The program
compressed the distribution of clearance times for adopting
firms, but the estimated effects on median clearance times,
inspection rates, and import value were not statistically
significant. Tests for heterogeneous program impact do not
indicate that the program affected adopting firms
differently. Overall, the results suggest that the most
evident benefit of the program for participating firms is
reduced uncertainty about clearance times.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Fernandes, Ana M.; Hillberry, Russell; Berg, Claudia. 2016. Expediting Trade: Impact Evaluation of an In-House Clearance Program. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7708. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24625 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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