TY - BOOK ID - 133754841 TI - Transparency, Trade Costs, and Regional Integration in the Asia Pacific AU - Helble, Matthias AU - Shepherd, Ben AU - Wilson, John S. PY - 2007 PB - Washington, D.C., The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Cost Analysis KW - Economic Development KW - Economic Theory and Research KW - Empirical Evidence KW - Empirical Research KW - Environment KW - Environmental Economics and Policies KW - Intermediate Goods KW - Macroeconomics and Economic Growth KW - Policy Instruments KW - Producers KW - Property Rights KW - Transaction Costs KW - Welfare Gains UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:133754841 AB - The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region. ER -