Job Market Paper

• Irene Iodice (2020), The Sound of Silence. Non-transparent technical regulations as obstacles to trade.



• Winner of XV Doctoral Prize "Prof. Fabio Gobbo"
• Winner of XXI Doctoral Prize from the Italian Economic Society

This work investigates the protective nature of newly introduced technical regulations that are not properly disclosed at the international level. We begin by building a novel database which identifies the process of adoption of those Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) that have been contested to the WTO through a Specific Trade Concern (STC). We then cross-reference this database with a firm-level panel of French exporters and we carry out an event study. We find that in more than 1/3 of the studied cases, countries have adopted the underlying regulations without previously announcing the change to other members. In these cases, the new regulation hampers exporters by causing a temporary halt to their activity. This stop lasts from one to two semesters, and it is shorter if the content of the new TBT is eventually disclosed by governments. While large firms can wait until more information is available, small firms exit the market. We interpret this evidence as suggesting that countries can effectively hinder foreign competitors by rising the uncertainty to serve their markets.

Publications

• Maria Bas, Lionel Fontagné, Irene Iodice and Gianluca Orefice. Heterogeneous Trade Elasticity and Managerial Skills. Journal of International Economics (forthcoming)

• Irene Iodice and Chiara Tomasi (2016). Skill upgrading and wage gap: a decomposition analysis for Italian manufacturing firms; Economia Politica. A WP version here.

Ongoing research

• Pamela Bombarda, Elisa Gamberoni and Irene Iodice (2023). Rules of Origins Relaxation and Regional Supply Chains: Evidence from Europe. R&R @ The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat)

• Irene Iodice and Camille Reverdy (2023). Protection or Protectionism: The Effect of Technical Regulations on Inputs’ Sourcing.



• Winner of 15th Young Economist Award @FIW, Research Centre for International Economics pics on Twitter

• Lasha Chochua, Irene Iodice, and Daria Taglioni (2023). Unpacking Commitment and Trade Effects in Plurilateral Cooperation

• Lionel Fontagné, Irene Iodice and Angelo Secchi (2019). The Granular Origins of Aggregate Product Diversification.