Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
24
by using a balanced sample—i.e., only those countries for which all data are available in all
years—the result would be to significantly restrict the sample by dropping in the region of 30
countries. It is preferable to proceed with the full sample, but conscious of the potential role that
composition effects may play in some cases.
hows results. In nearly all categories in all income groups, there is an increase in score
between 2012 and 2017. This finding is indicative towards a trend of greater information
availability, in particular within the terms of the TFA. Rates of improvement are sometimes quite
rapid, such as a 30% increase in score for involvement of the trade community and a more than
25% increase for advance rulings in lower middle income countries, as well as a more than 20%
improvement in advance rulings among high income countries. The upper middle income group
is changing noticeably more slowly on most measures than the high income and lower middle
income group, as well as in some cases the low income group. The latter is an interesting case:
for information availability and involvement of the trade community, there have been significant
increases in score, on the order of 20%. However, average scores have fallen for advance rulings
and appeal procedures. It is unlikely that this result reflects low income countries abolishing
such measures, and effectively backsliding. More likely is that it is due to composition: as more
low income countries are added to the sample in successive years, attention shifts from high
performers to other countries, and the average necessarily falls. It is important not to take too
much away from this result. The correct interpretation is that in these two areas, the
performance gap between the low income countries and the other income groups does not
appear to be narrowing, whereas it is narrowing in terms of information availability and
involvement of the trade community. Similarly, there is strong evidence that the lower middle
income group is narrowing the performance gap in all areas except information availability,
where the score improvement lags behind what is seen in higher income groups.
Figure 4: Percent change in average TFI score, by income group, 2012-2017.
Source: OECD TFIs.
The next figure breaks the data out by World Bank developing region. Again, the general picture
that emerges is one of substantial improvement. Involvement of the trade community stands out
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
High income Upper middle income Lower middle income Low income
Percent
Group
Information Availability Involvement of the Trade Community
Advance Rulings Appeal Procedures