Does Implementing Trade Facilitation Improve Social Welfare? In Case of ASEAN

In recent years, the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been concentrating on increasing trade facilitation (TF) goals. Ineffective commitment to TF can have a variety of detrimental consequences on a country’s welfare. The impact of three TF metrics on social well being in ASEAN countries is investigated in this study. The analysis shows that improvements in institutions, market efficiency, and infrastructure will enhance employment, school enrollment, and life expectancy using the System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) estimator with data gathered between 2000 and 2021. This progress even contributes to a reduction in the country’s annual traffic incidents. As a result, TF is a critical tool for improving a country’s social welfare.