Theses and Dissertations Collection

The EU and the US have been negotiating a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement to create a more comprehensive and deeper trade relationship between them. This thesis estimates the effects of the TTIP on the cheese trade between the US and the EU in two scenarios: the EU’s geographical indications (GIs) protection system is relaxed or not. The sensitive analysis of tariffs reduction conducted in both scenarios.

A country-fixed effects added gravity model with “GIs bloc” dummies is estimated by Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood method. Results show that in the short term, when the GIs protection is relaxed, both the US’s cheese exports to the EU and the EU’s cheese exports to the US will increase with different level’s tariffs reduction. When the GIs protection is preserved, the US’s cheese exports to the EU will increase. However, the EU’s cheese exports to the US will decrease.