Non-Tariff Trade Regulations in Indonesia: Nominal and Effective Rates of Protection

Non-tariff regulations on imports and exports have spread in Indonesia since 2011. I report findings of a study of many of these regulations, in which a variety of methods were used to estimate the associated nominal rates of protection. These findings were then used to estimate effective rates of protection (ERPs) across 140 tradable-goods sectors in the Indonesian economy in early 2015, taking into account also the effects of the most-favoured-nation and preferential-import tariff schedules, anti-dumping and safeguard duties, export levies, duty drawbacks and exemptions, domestic sub-sidies, and excise taxes. I find that the magnitude and dispersion of ERPs were higher in 2015 than in early 2008, for which a similar study was previously conducted, and that much of the variability was related to quantitative trade restrictions. In particular, the regulations examined boosted a measure of the cost of living by 7.6% in 2015, compared with 2.5% in 2008.