Description
Economists often view non-tariff measures as protectionist tools that can be used as supplement or compliment to traditional tariffs. In this paper we investigate the determinants of the SPS application by the Russian Federation. We hypothesize that, along with pure health safety and protectionist motives, SPS measures can be also used as means to exert political and economic pressure on the trading partners. For our analysis we use WTO data on SPS notifications by the Russian Federation since its accession to this organization. Our results seem to be supportive of this hypothesis as we find SPS measures disproportionally being applied to sectors that are ‘vulnerable’ for Russia’s trading partners.
