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Abstract
Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are not new, but their significance in international agrifood
trade continues to grow. Much less is known about the trade-restricting potential of these
measures because of the difficulty in identifying when SPS regulations exist and how and to what
extent they are applied. We develop a novel database of SPS treatments affecting United States
exports of nine fresh fruits and vegetables and a formal econometric model to investigate the traderestricting
nature of these measures. The results suggest that SPS treatments generally reduce
trade, but the actual restrictiveness of these measures diminishes as U.S. exporters accumulate
treatment experience and vanishes when exporters reach a certain threshold.