Measuring Japan’s technical barriers to trade based on the China’s fruit exports to Japan

The study analyses the influence of technical barriers to agricultural trade carried out by Japan on China’s fruit exports. In order to measure the tariff equivalents of technical barriers, the price wedge method is utilized. Based on the utility function specified in the study, the constructed model is adopted to evaluate the elasticity of substitution between the imported fruits and Japanese domestic fruits, and the consumers’ preference parameters for different kinds of fruits. Sample data are chosen from the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2015. Based on the estimated preference parameters and elasticity of substitution, the results show that Japanese consumers prefer domestic fruits to the imported fruits. Besides, the results reveal that although the substitution and preference parameters are higher for the improved quality of imported fruits in the context of the positive list system, the scales of tariff equivalents of technical barriers are larger than the regular custom tariffs, and the technical barriers would cause extra huge costs for the imported fruits. Especially, in the three consecutive years after the implementation of the positive list system, tariff equivalents of technical barriers almost reached 150%, and then gradually decreased in the following years.