邦國主權不被承認的代價：以科索沃為例

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/11/16/the-costs-of-not-being-recognized-as-a-country-the-case-of-kosovo/

邦國主權不被承認的代價：以科索沃為例

The costs of not being recognized as a country: The case of Kosovo

Jieun Choi

Thursday, November 16, 2017

〈谷歌翻譯，原文於下〉

承認一個邦國之主權，無論被任何其他邦國或聯合國，都可能對經濟產生相當大的影響。了解這種表面上不經濟的問題的經濟影響，不僅對新的或潛在的新國家有價值，而且對於主權仍然是政治問題的國家如台灣以及有爭議的領土，如北塞浦路斯塞浦路斯共和國）和德涅斯特河（與摩爾多瓦）。

經濟學家 - 世界銀行

科索沃是一個被部分承認的國家，是估算未被完全承認為一個國家的經濟成本的好例子。儘管2008年宣布獨立，但該國尚未得到一些國家的承認（雙邊承認）或聯合國成員資格（多邊承認）。

科索沃的競爭地位給其業務帶來了挑戰，從旅行的困難到商品和服務交換的複雜性。例如，直到最近，科索沃才沒有郵政系統。相反，阿爾巴尼亞郵政將從國外接收郵件並運送到科索沃，使收發貨物變得困難。資金轉移也是有問題的，因為科索沃銀行最近才分配了國際交易所需的SWIFT代碼。在此之前，企業使用中介銀行，這種做法意味著額外的行政程序，限制了網上交易的可用性，並增加了成本。

獲得基本的商業服務，如郵政遞送和貨幣轉移受法律協議的約束，這些協議通常只能向聯合國正式認可的國家提供這種服務。科索沃和其他國家沒有被普遍認為是國家的企業無法獲得這些服務增加了貿易的時間和成本，並降低了它們參與國際貿易的能力。

KOSOVO的認可簡史及其技術含義

自2017年宣布獨立以來，相當數量的國家（截至2017年，110個聯合國成員國）已經正式承認科索沃。這個數字還不到世界上三分之二的國家，這是科索沃必須達到的門檻聯合國的一名成員曾經是聯合國安理會的成員。

科索沃一直在努力成為聯合國的成員國，但面臨複雜的政治挑戰。不承認其主權的國家往往有內部的“少數”問題，或與前南斯拉夫的歷史關係。其中一些國家，如塞爾維亞，也是科索沃最大的貿易夥伴之一。為了達到聯合國的門檻，科索沃一直在向那些與其經濟或政治關係很少的國家（如遙遠的小島國）伸出援手。因此，與科索沃進行大量貿易的國家不一定是承認它為國家的國家，反之亦然。

從技術上講，這種模式意味著沒有貿易和承認的內生性;也就是說，我們可以假定雙邊貿易流動和承認地位不太可能相互強烈影響。這又使我們能夠使用標準的經濟手段來分析國家承認對科索沃貿易流動的影響。

沒有被認可的貿易成本

在與Deusto商學院的Asier Minondo合作的一篇論文中，我們使用貿易引力模型，根據影響貿易的共同因素（如經濟規模和貿易夥伴之間的距離）預測貿易流量，以檢驗是否存在被認為是一個國家是科索沃的貿易壁壘。該模型預測，如果科索沃的地位得到普遍接受，科索沃將與每個國家和整個世界進行貿易。我們估計不被另一個國家承認的貿易（“雙邊不承認”）和聯合國（“多邊不承認”）對貿易的影響，以及對出口價值的影響，出口商的數量（集約邊際）和每個企業的出口（廣泛的利潤）。然後，我們檢查一些產品的不可識別成本是否大於其他產品。

圖1顯示了科索沃與其貿易夥伴之間的貿易流量，這些貿易流量是通過承認科索沃的主權而分類的。注意到這個時期決定承認科索沃的國家（紅線）對出口迅速增長。

圖1：根據2008-2015年貿易夥伴的承認情況，科索沃貿易

然而，我們引力模型的結果，持有上述影響貿易的共同因素，是：

雙邊不承認對雙邊進出口價值沒有顯著影響，但我們發現雙邊不承認對出口商的數量有負面影響。

考慮到科索沃的禀賦，科索沃的貿易量遠遠低於其應有的水平，這意味著有一個未知的“科索沃特定因素”會減少貿易。

我們的假設是缺乏聯合國成員資格，限制了獲得多邊條約的機會，妨礙了在國際政府中的代表權。這些是獲得基本法律，金融和後勤服務的先決條件，沒有這些服務，貿易的基本後勤成本就變得昂貴。

我們的研究結果表明，從新國家獲得（雙邊）承認不會導致科索沃與這些國家的貿易大幅度增加;然而，一旦該國獲得（多邊）聯合國會員資格，其貿易就可能激增。我們對科索沃企業的採訪表明，雙方不承認科索沃的主要後果是他們難以前往不承認科索沃的國家，而多邊承認增加了與海外企業交換貨物和服務的總成本，是一個更大的關注。

根據我們的計算，今天與科索沃的貿易成本相當於14％的關稅，這是巨大的。在一個日益依賴便利和速度的全球市場上，爭議主權是一個驚人的巨大後果。

如果你覺得這個問題，那麼SECESSION就比COSTLIER更有效率

這些調查結果強調了聯合國承認貿易的重要性，這個問題似乎與經濟問題無關。調查結果還提出了分裂意外成本的警告。關於外交和貿易的文獻發現外交問題增加了貿易成本。更廣泛地說，越來越多的經濟外交和貿易文獻表明，經濟外交（例如有出口促進機構和國事訪問）促進了貿易和外國直接投資。在貿易開放尚未縮小全球化差距的世界裡，我們需要更好地理解國家承認對貿易的影響。我們希望這項工作成為一個有用的起點。

本文所表達的結論，解釋和結論完全是筆者的觀點。它們不一定代表國際復興開發銀行/世界銀行及其附屬組織或世界銀行執行董事或其所代表的政府的意見。

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/11/16/the-costs-of-not-being-recognized-as-a-country-the-case-of-kosovo/

The costs of not being recognized as a country: The case of Kosovo

Jieun Choi

Thursday, November 16, 2017

The recognition of a state’s sovereignty, either by other countries or by the United Nations, can have sizeable economic impacts. Understanding the economic effects of this ostensibly non-economic issue is valuable not only for new or potential new states but also for countries whose sovereignty remains a political issue—such as Taiwan—as well as for disputed territories, such as Northern Cyprus (with the Republic of Cyprus) and Transnistria (with Moldova).

Economist - The World Bank

Kosovo, a partially recognized state, is a good case for estimating the economic cost of not being fully recognized as a country. Despite declaring independence in 2008, the country has yet to obtain recognition from some countries (bilateral recognition) or U.N. country membership (multilateral recognition).

Kosovo’s contested status creates challenges for its businesses, from difficulties of travel to complications in the exchange in goods and services. For example, until recently, Kosovo did not have a postal system. Instead, the Albanian postal service would receive post from abroad and deliver it to Kosovo, making sending and receiving goods difficult. Money transfers were also problematic, as Kosovar banks have only recently been assigned the SWIFT codes that are needed for international transactions. Until this happened, firms used intermediary banks, a practice that meant additional administrative procedures, restricted availability of online transactions, and increased costs.

Related

Access to essential business services like postal delivery and money transfers is regulated by legal agreements that often make such services available only to states officially recognized by the U.N. The inability of businesses from Kosovo and other nations that are not universally recognized as states to access these services increases time and costs of trade and compromises their ability to engage in international trade.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOSOVO’S RECOGNITION—AND ITS TECHNICAL IMPLICATION

A sizeable number of states—110 U.N. member states as of 2017—have officially recognized Kosovo since it declared independence in 2008. This number is less than two-thirds of the world’s countries, which is the threshold that Kosovo must reach in order to become a member of the U.N. once its membership is recommended by the U.N. Security Council.

Kosovo has been trying hard to become a member state of the U.N., but faces complex political challenges. The countries that do not recognize its sovereignty tend to have internal “minority” issues, or historical ties with former Yugoslavia. Some of these countries—such as Serbia—are also among Kosovo’s biggest trading partners. In order to reach the U.N. threshold, Kosovo has been reaching out to countries with whom it has few economic or political ties, such as distant small island states. So countries that trade a lot with Kosovo are not necessarily the same countries that recognize it as a state, and vice versa.

Technically speaking, this pattern implies that there is no endogeneity of trade and recognition; that is, we can assume that bilateral trade flows and recognition status are unlikely to strongly affect each other. This in turn allows us to analyze the impact of country recognition on Kosovo’s trade flows using standard economic methods.

THE TRADE COSTS OF NOT BEING RECOGNIZED

In a paper with Asier Minondo of Deusto Business School, we use a gravity model of trade that predicts trade flows based on the common factors that influence trade (such as the size of the economy and the distance between trade partners) to test whether not being recognized as a country is a trade barrier for Kosovo. The model predicts how much Kosovo would trade with each country and with the world in general if its statehood were universally accepted. We estimate the impact on trade of not being recognized by another country (“bilateral nonrecognition”) and by the U.N. (“multilateral nonrecognition”), as well as the impact on the value of exports, the number of exporters (intensive margin), and the exports per firm (extensive margin). Then we examine whether the cost of nonrecognition is larger for some products than for others.

The Figure 1 shows the trade flows over time between Kosovo and its trading partners, which are grouped by their recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty. Note the rapidly rising exports to countries that decided to recognize Kosovo during this period (red line).

Figure 1: Kosovo trade, by recognition status of trading partner, 2008-2015

However, the results of our gravity model, holding the above mentioned common factors that influence trade, are:

Bilateral nonrecognition does not have a significant effect on the value of bilateral exports or imports, but we find that bilateral nonrecognition has a negative effect on the number of exporters.

Kosovo trades much less than it should, given its endowments, implying that there is an unknown “Kosovo-specific factor” that reduces trade.

Our hypothesis is that it is the lack of U.N. membership, which restricts access to multilateral treaties and prevents representation in international government. These are prerequisites for access to basic legal, financial, and logistical services, without which the basic logistics of trade become costly.

Our findings suggest that obtaining (bilateral) recognition from new countries will not cause a dramatic increase in Kosovo’s trade with those countries; however, once the country obtains (multilateral) U.N. membership, its trade could surge. Our interviews with Kosovar businesses reveal that the main consequence of bilateral non-recognition for them is that they find it difficult to travel to countries that do not recognize Kosovo, whereas multilateral recognition increases the overall cost of exchanging goods and services with firms abroad, which is a bigger concern.

Based on our calculations, the cost of trading with Kosovo today is the equivalent of a 14 percent tariff, which is enormous. In a global market increasingly reliant on convenience and speed, it is a surprisingly large consequence of disputed sovereignty.

SECESSION IS COSTLIER THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS

These findings highlight the importance of U.N. recognition to trade, an issue seemingly unrelated to economic concerns. The findings also provide a warning of the unexpected costs of secession. The literature on diplomacy and trade finds that diplomatic problems increase trade costs. More broadly, the growing literature on economic diplomacy and tradereveals that economic diplomacy, such as having export promotion agencies and state visits, promotes trade and foreign direct investment. In a world where rising trade openness has not yet closed the globalization gap, we need a better understanding of the effects that state recognition has on trade. We hope this work serves as a useful starting point.

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the executive directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.