The Study Of The Impact Of The Visa Regimes On International Trade And Investment Activities

One of the major characteristics of world economic development today is the rapid development of international trade and investment all over the world market.What's more,with the development in depth and breadth of economic globalization,the extent of regional economic integration is gradually to be strengthened.And the regulating effect of traditional tariff and non-tariff barriers has been reduced since BTIA & MTIA were signed between or among numerous economies.The trade and investment facilitation,as an invisible barrier for trade inefficiency,is getting more attention and becoming an important indicator especially when a country ties to improve its trade competitiveness and attract foreign investment and seeks to establish a more effective,rapid,transparent,steady environment for international trade and investment.There are plenty of papers discussing and focusing this area both from the point of qualitative research and quantitative research since it became a hot research area of international economics.The visa system,which means the whole policies and measures that a country can regulate,manage and control the foreign nationals about applying for access and transit through certification of visa,is an important measure indicator on the trade and investment facilitation and as well as an important tool of restricting population mobility and controlling the number of immigrants for a modern country.On the one hand,the visa system plays a vital role in protecting a country's economic interests and national security,preventing the country from illegal immigrants and terrorists.However,on the other hand,there exists asymmetry and inequity in international visa system which brings negative effects on international trade and investment activities by hindering business population mobility,increasing transaction cost and restraining transnational tourism.Therefore,this article aims to figure out how to improve the trade and investment facilitation from the perspective of improving the visa facilitation,and analyze the ways of visa facilitation affecting international trade and investment and the influence degree of it by both theory and demonstration.Firstly,this article recommends the nature and characteristics of present international visa policy system,and points out that the visa facilitation has potential effects on international trade and investment.Secondly,this paper makes a literal review of related articles and summarizes previous researches in terms of trade and investment facilitation and visa facilitation.Moreover,a theoretic mechanism of visa system influencing international trade and investment is proposed based on previous researches:(1)the visa system increases costs of applicants' waiting and cash;(2)the visa system can change the preference of outbound tourists and international migrants when they choose where to visit and travel;(3)the visa system can block the transnational business travels and decrease the efficiency of transnational business negotiation;(4)the visa system reduces the mobility of talents among countries,therefore,it has adverse effects on technological spillovers and intellectual capital spreading.Then,this article concludes four current ways to evaluate and measure the visa system,and uses the augmented gravity model to make an empirical analysis about effects that the visa system has on international trade and investment based on data of bilateral trade and mutual investment among 60 countries from 2008 to 2010.The research finds out that the visa system hinders international trade and investment and the negative effect to international investment is bigger than it to international trade.Lastly,this paper provides relevant advices from theoretical and empirical analysis.