Narrow and Broad Perspectives on Trade Policy and Trade Costs: How to Facilitate Trade in Madagascar

Madagascar is a high trade cost and relatively closed economy. The WTO's latest Trade Policy Review (TPR) for the country, like all TPRs, concentrates on border sources of trade costs, those induced by trade policy instruments such as tariffs or implicit taxes imposed by slow and costly customs procedures or trade documentation requirements. This narrow focus for trade policy and facilitation misses the substantive within-and-beyond-the-border sources of trade costs experienced by traders in a country like Madagascar. This paper illustrates the nature and significance of a narrow and broad view of trade costs and trade facilitation for this relatively remote and internally land-locked' economy.