Trading up or down through voluntary sustainability standards in global agri-food trade?
25 March 2025 3:30 pm CET
Join Miet Maertens as she explores trading through voluntary sustainability standards in global agri-food trade
In cooperation with:
Venue
Online-Webinar
Description
Abstract: Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) are widespread market-based instruments for governing sustainability in global food trade. Socio-economic and environmental impacts of VSS are inconsistent, raising concerns about VSS distorting trade without sustainability gains. We provide an unprecedented analysis of VSS trade effects for seven tropical commodity sectors, based on uniquely compiled data on VSS coverage and gravity models including all bilateral trade flows. VSS adoption enhances trade through increased price competitiveness – we find that a one percentage point increase in the share of certified production area expands bilateral trade volumes by 2.1% and reduces export prices by 0.16%. Effects vary with VSS design, with stringent environmental requirements leading to the largest trade benefits. VSS reduce the trade-inhibiting effect of governance distance between countries if they are not too stringent in their compliance procedures. Rather than contributing to sustainability trading up, VSS seem to exacerbate price competition in global food markets.
This event is co-organised with the European University Institute (EUI) and the Research Centre International Economics (FIW). The seminar provides a forum for presentation and discussion of recent academic research in the field of international economics.
The event will be recorded.
Registration
This is an online event – please register here
Speaker
Miet Maertens leads the Agricultural and Rural Development Economics research group at KU Leuven, and is professor at the Division of Bio-economics and vice-chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at KU Leuven (Belgium). She holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics (2003) from the Georg-August University in Goettingen (Germany) and MSc degrees in Economics (1999) and in Bioscience Engineering (1998) from KU Leuven. She teaches several Bachelor and Master courses in the field of agricultural, environmental and food economics at KU Leuven. Her research primarily focuses on low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Her work is structured around three main areas: the first examines food trade, global value chains, climate change, and sustainability standards; the second explores the development of rural labour markets, decent work, and gender issues; and the third investigates processes of agricultural intensification and rural transformation. She is leading several research projects on these topics, including collaborative projects with various universities and research institutes around the world. She has co-authored numerous scientific articles published in disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals (ORCID 0000-0001-7245-0375, Scopus ID 6602225515). She is advisor to some international organisations and associate editor for Agricultural Economics.
This event is co-organised with the European University Institute (EUI) and the Research Centre International Economics (FIW). The seminar provides a forum for presentation and discussion of recent academic research in the field of international economics.
The event will be recorded.
Scientific Organiser(s):
Fabio Santeramo (European University Institute & University of Foggia)
Mahdi Ghodsi (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies)