Impact of food safety regulations on agricultural trade: Evidence from China's import refusal data

•China's evolving food safety regulations generally restrict trade.•Regulations have a larger trade impeding effect on exporters with lower food safety standards compared to exporters with higher-food safety standards.•The size of the negative trade growth effect depends critically on the importing firms' ownership structure and the type of import refusals.•SOE import purchases in China are more affected by import refusal measures due to safety and hygiene reasons, whereas SOE imports are little impacted by refusals for non-safety and hygiene reasons.