Investigación económica y análisis de políticas comerciales

Alongside the scramble for critical goods such as personal protective equipment (PPE), the early stages of the pandemic saw an urgent need for accurate and credible information, a necessity for governments across the world confronted with an unprecedented global threat, not only to human health but also to economic and social well-being.

Effective engagement with the multifaceted challenges of the pandemic required the WTO to undertake extensive cooperation, both with established international partners and with new partners, including the creation of new cooperative arrangements.

The June 2022 Pandemic Declaration, adopted when the pandemic remained an international health emergency, was a historic development, a unanimous statement responding to a current crisis affecting communities in all members and observers and resulting from members’ input from across the spectrum.

In this paper we explore the impact of decarbonization on international trade and development employing a recursive dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE).

This paper introduces the Trade Policy Activity (TPA) Index, a novel indicator measuring evolving global trade policy dynamics since the Global Financial Crisis. Using a Dynamic Factor Model on comprehensive trade policy data covering 197 countries and territories, we document a structural shift around 2019 with a substantial expansion in the use of trade policies.

As digital trade becomes an increasingly vital component of the global economy, identifying the impact of wider international cooperation on digital trade issues becomes a growing policy imperative. This paper seeks to provide a quantitative analysis of the potential economic impacts of concluding the WTO Agreement on E-commerce (AoE).

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to lead to a new era of growth. By transforming how goods and services are produced, exchanged and consumed, AI can bring about substantial changes in the global economy. Yet the future trajectory of AI remains uncertain, raising critical questions about trade and inclusive growth. The World Trade Report 2025 explores the complex and fast-evolving relationship between AI and international trade and how this relationship can shape inclusive growth. AI offers new opportunities to reduce trade costs, boost productivity and expand access to global markets. In addition, trade can help to render AI more accessible by spreading knowledge, fostering innovation and promoting participation in AI value chains. However, unequal access across the world to digital infrastructure, appropriate skills and capabilities could increase the digital divide. Also, the impact of AI on the labour market presents additional challenges. Whether AI-enabled trade translates into broad-based, inclusive growth will depend on the design and implementation of trade and trade-related policies. WTO rules on trade in goods, services, data, intellectual property and public procurement can shape the availability, affordability and diffusion of AI. Complementary policies regulating competition, data infrastructure, energy, education and government support can also help to determine whether and how economies benefit from AI-enabled trade. The WTO can play a central role in ensuring that AI supports more inclusive trade-led growth by administering WTO rules, by fostering dialogue, transparency and capacity-building, and by deepening collaboration on AI and digital trade with other international organizations.

The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) have accelerated in the last few years, and its applications hold the potential to revolutionize human society and economic activities.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming the world economy, reshaping how work is defined, how value is created, and how opportunities are distributed across societies. Given these far-reaching effects, AI is also transforming world trade.