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The 2013 World Trade Organization ministerial in Bali produced a comprehensive framework agreement on trade facilitation. If fully implemented, the agreement should increase the speed and reduce the cost of moving goods across international borders. But which reforms are most likely to improve these outcomes, how much improvement should be expected, and what might such improvements be worth? This paper adopts the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's trade facilitation indicators as quantitative descriptions of trade facilitation policy. It estimates the impact of the indicators and other variables on the time necessary to clear customs, the associated cost, and a customs performance index. Of the 12 policy bundles, the good governance and impartiality indicator is most clearly related to customs clearance time. A move to best practice in all policies by all World Trade Organization members would reduce the predicted time spent in customs by an average of 1.6 days for imports and 2 days for exports. Using a conservative estimate of the value of time in trade, such comprehensive reforms imply a mean tariff equivalent reduction of 0.9 percentage points on imports and 1.2 percentage points on exports. The same estimates are used to calculate welfare gains of policy reform by World Trade Organization members. Reform in China alone accounts for roughly one-fourth of the global benefits from the Trade Facilitation Agreement.

Customs Administration and Reform --- Discrete-Time Transition Model --- E-Business --- Economic Theory & Research --- Multiple Imputation --- Trade Costs --- Trade Facilitation --- Trade Policy --- Transport and Trade Logistics --- World Trade Organization

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Despite enormous academic interest in international trade costs and keen policy interest in efforts to mitigate them, so far there is very little hard evidence on the impacts of trade facilitation efforts. This paper exploits a dramatic reduction in the rate of physical inspections by Albanian customs to estimate the effects of fewer inspection-related delays on the level and composition of imports. In this setting, the paper finds evidence that the expected median number of days spent in Albanian customs falls by 7 percent when the probability that a shipment is inspected falls from 50 percent or more to under 50 percent. In turn, this reduction in time produces a 7 percent increase in import value. The paper finds evidence that the reforms favored imports from preferential trading partners, especially the European Union. There are also reform-induced changes in the composition of trade, including increases in average quantities and unit prices, the number of shipments, and the number of importing firms per product-country pair and the number of countries per firm-product pair. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the estimate of 7 percent import growth along an intensive margin is roughly consistent with a 0.36 percentage point reduction in average tariff equivalent trade costs. Applying this figure to the value of Albania's non-oil imports produces a reform-induced trade cost savings estimate of approximately USD 12 million in 2012.

Common Carriers Industry --- Customs --- Customs Administration and Reform --- E-Business --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Private Sector Development --- Trade Costs --- Trade Facilitation --- Trade Policy --- Transport and Trade Logistics

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The main objective of this Guide to Warehouse Receipt Financing Reform is to provide technical advice and guidance to reformers, project teams supporting reforms, donor institutions, government officials, private stakeholders and other practitioners on the different aspects related to the implementation of the law and regulations governing the operation of warehouses, warehouse licensing and supervision, and the issuance and role of documents of title in emerging market countries. It is highly recommended that government officials rely on experts' advice to introduce or to reform legislation governing the operation of warehouses, as the information provided in this guide cannot replace the on-the-ground experience of a warehousing legislation expert. The content of this guide walks the reader through the project cycle (identification, diagnostic, solution design, and implementation) on the major elements to be considered when introducing pertinent legislative and regulatory reforms. The recommendations presented in this guide are based on the World Bank Group's experience in the warehousing sector, and particularly in the context of agricultural commodities, the contributions of a number of experts in this field, existing literature, reform experience in a number of emerging market countries and the existing best practices in jurisdictions with efficient and generally accepted warehousing systems. This Guide does not cover all aspects of warehouse law reform, which will vary depending on the form and substance of the existing legal system, but it aims at covering at least the minimum and most important elements of such a reform.

Competitiveness and Competition Policy --- Corporate Data and Reporting --- Customs Administration and Reform --- Governance --- Private Sector Development --- Public Sector Development --- Risk Management --- Transport --- Transport and Trade Logistics