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1. VIP Pass to Markets: When Customs Certification Helps Firms to Face NTMs

Author:
Charlotte Emlinger and Houssein Guimbard
Publication Date:
10-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
This paper aims to assess how trade facilitation measures reduce the costs induced by non-tariff measures (NTMs). It focuses on the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) certification, a firm-level trade facilitation measure defined by the World Customs Organization. This status allows firms to benefit from customs simplifications at the border, reduced physical and document-based controls, and priority treatment. We use an original and exhaustive dataset of French firms certified as AEO by the European Customs, merged with firm level trade from the French Customs. Our empirical strategy is to compare the export structure of firms before and after their certification to see whether the impact of NTMs on trade can be reduced by trade facilitation measures. Our results show that the AEO status enhances trade, but only when facing NTMs in the destination market. This confirms that some of the trade costs generated by NTMs are administrative in nature and can be reduced by pre-certifying firms. Our conclusion is informative about the kind of trade cost reductions that could be achieved by trade agreements that go beyond tariff reductions, without hindering the level of actual regulation.
Topic:
Markets, Economy, Tariffs, Trade, and Customs
Political Geography:
Europe and France

2. Mission to Civilise: The French West African Federation

Author:
Christopher Zambakari
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Imperial powers such as Rome, Persia, Japan and China have justified their conquests as a benefit to those that were conquered by virtue of bringing a superior civilisation to their world.[1] Among imperial powers, one of the most strident were the Second and Third French Republics.[2] The civilising mission – or what French historian Raoul Girardet refers to as “colonial humanism”[3] – came to define French colonial statecraft in the early 19th century crusade to improve the lives of people who France saw as backward in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. For intellectuals such as Leroy-Beaulieu, civilisation was to be spread through commerce, trade and exchanges between people, rather than through conquest.[4] By the early 1800s, the republican ideals that inspired the French Revolution were slowly abandoned for a more forceful assimilationist policy exemplified by colonial expansionist policies. According to Jules Brévié, governor-general of French West Africa from 1930 to 1936 and of French Indochina from 1936 to 1939, the most important task for the French was to bring about a cultural renaissance to the indigenous people.[5] Brévié called for a redefined mission with a focus on teaching colonised subjects to live according to “authentic African traditions”.[6] As with the British before them, French policy adapted to the local context and shifted towards a more “indirect mode of rule”,[7] casting foreign rule as the protectors of indigenous cultures. This article analyses the French imperial project in Africa, with a focus on the Federation of French West Africa (consisting of today’s Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal). It outlines differences and similarities between the French mode of direct rule and the British mode of indirect rule. To understand the methodology of rule, one must first understand the system of knowledge production that informed, shaped and guided the colonial project. A policy change occurred after the French experienced a crisis of empire, which ushered in fundamental transformations before World War I (1909 and 1912) and the interwar years between 1918 and 1939 (from “assimilation” to that of “association”). The new policy shifted the focus from antagonism towards Islam to collaboration with Islamic representatives, from civilisations to conservation, from a focus on progress to law and order, and a preoccupation with local customs while managing social and cultural differences (pluralism).[8] This article is offered as an important contribution to the political and intellectual history of the largest colonial state in Africa: the Federation of French West Africa.
Topic:
Imperialism, Intellectual History, Colonialism, Assimilation, and Customs
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, France, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin