The Role of Non-Tariff Measures in Export Competitiveness in the Wine Industry

Among firms, policymakers, and researchers in trade policy instruments, the resur-gence of protectionism has sparked renewed interest, particularly in non-tariff measures (NTMs) in agri-food industries such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPSs) and tech-nical barriers to trade (TBTs). Existing research suggests that the effect of NTMs on export competitiveness is unclear and calls for further investigation. This study aims to contribute to filling this gap by examining, with specific respect to the wine industry, the impact of importers’ NTMs on the export competitiveness of their trading partners. The results of our research in-dicate that the subcategories of SPSs and TBTs have a heterogeneous effect on export par-ticipation and export market share and treating them as if they were similar may lead to mis-leading or even erroneous conclusions. Nonetheless, the majority of SPSs and TBTs do pro-mote export participation, though the effect of many of these measures on market share is limited.