On the impact of non-tariff measures on trade performances of the African agri-food sector

The increasing interest of policymakers and academics on non-tariff measures (NTMs) has stimulated a growing literature on their effects on the agri-food trade of African countries. The empirical evidence, however, is ambiguous: some studies suggest that NTMs are trade barriers and others suggest they have a catalyst role for trade. Understanding the drivers of these contrasting effects, and the prevailing one, would allow one to draw important conclusions. We review, through a meta-analytical approach, a set of empirical studies that quantify the effects of NTMs on African agri-food trade. We find a prevalence of the trade-impeding effects. Our results also help explaining differences in NTMs’ effects due to methodological and structural heterogeneity. Moreover, the effects of NTMs vary across the types of NTMs and analysed commodities. We conclude by comparing our findings with existing literature and emphasise which research areas deserve further investigation, such as intra-Africa trade or trade effects of technical NTMs.