Economic research and trade policy analysis
Le commerce des services dans l’avenir
Cette section vise à offrir quelques orientations sur l’évolution future de la structure du commerce des services. S’appuyant sur une approche originale, elle commence par exposer les tendances récentes en matière de coûts du commerce liés aux services et par recenser les facteurs qui influent sur ces coûts. Ensuite, les grandes tendances à venir en matière de technologie, de démographie, de revenu et de changement climatique sont examinées afin d’expliquer en quoi elles peuvent influer sur le choix des pays quant aux services qu’ils échangeront, avec qui ils les échangeront et de quelle manière. Enfin, l’impact potentiel de ces tendances sur le commerce des services est quantifié au moyen du Modèle du commerce mondial de l’OMC.
Coherencia
En el presente estudio, tomamos como punto de partida la premisa de que una serie de medidas de liberalización del comercio, bien diseñadas y adoptadas en el orden correcto, y un conjunto bien estructurado de normas comerciales pueden hacer una contribución positiva al crecimiento y al desarrollo. No obstante, el alcance de esa contribución también depende de otras políticas. En este estudio, el concepto de coherencia se emplea para describir una situación en que las políticas pertinentes apuntan todas en la misma dirección. En un mundo caracterizado por la multiplicidad de objetivos y prioridades en la esfera normativa y en el cual no existe un consenso sobre un régimen normativo ideal, el concepto de coherencia no se puede definir con absoluta precisión; más bien, ese concepto refleja el hecho de que en materia de políticas, la interdependencia es real y la ineficiencia o el descuido en una esfera puede reducir la eficacia de las medidas que se adopten en otra. El concepto de coherencia no se puede definir de manera precisa a menos que se establezca formalmente un conjunto de objetivos de política y se determine el orden de prioridades de esos objetivos para saber, llegado el momento, cómo se harán las concesiones mutuas necesarias. Para formular políticas plenamente coherentes también habría que indicar en la definición la índole exacta de todas las intervenciones pertinentes del Estado y el momento oportuno de hacerlas. Esa tarea va mucho más allá del alcance del presente estudio. En este contexto, el concepto de coherencia se refiere simplemente a la idea de que la aplicación de criterios que se apoyen mutuamente en esferas normativas conexas probablemente producirá una mayor armonía entre los objetivos y los resultados. En el contexto de este estudio, la coherencia es una cuestión de grado: los beneficios de una política comercial bien fundada serían mayores si hubiera más coherencia, es decir, si se adoptaran políticas complementarias en otras esferas.
Policy responses to promote women’s benefits from trade
Removing trade barriers that impede womens access to international markets can contribute to enhancing womens participation in trade and benefits from trade. Women would benefit from lowered tariffs and nontariff barriers and improved trade facilitation and access to trade finance.
Regulation of postal services in a changing market environment: Lessons from Australia and elsewhere
The digital revolution and the exponential growth of the Internet have led to radical changes in the ways in which countries conduct their commerce, communicate and store information. Coupled with the digital revolution, the last several decades have also seen a fundamental rethink of the role of the state in the economy. Broadly, the past reliance in many countries on state control and regulation has given way to a greater emphasis on competition, trade openness and market forces.
WTO accession negotiations: Trends and results in agriculture plurilaterals
Thirty-three members have acceded to the WTO since it was established in 1995. In the majority of these accession negotiations, reforms to the agriculture sector have featured as a particularly sensitive issue for acceding governments. Why is this the case? What are the existing members’ expectations of acceding governments in relation to agriculture? And how have acceding governments fared through this process? While agriculture trade accounts for less than 10 per wto_cent of world merchandise trade, the agriculture sector, particularly for many developing countries, can be significant in terms of its contribution to both gross domestic product and employment.
Wto Domestic Regulation and Services Trade
Domestic regulation of services sectors has a significant impact on services trade liberalization, which is why General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) disciplines are negotiated in the WTO. With the help of analyses and case studies from academics, regulators and trade experts, this book explores the scope and limits of WTO legal principles to promote domestic regulatory reform. Case studies discuss country specific challenges and experiences of regulating important service sectors, such as finance, telecommunications, distribution, legal, education, health, postal and logistics services, as well as the role of regulatory impact assessments. The findings will interest trade officials, policy makers, regulators, think tanks, and businesses concerned with the implications of domestic regulation on access to services markets, and with the opportunities for formulating trade disciplines in this area. It is also a useful resource for academics and students researching regulatory approaches and practices in services sectors.
Définition des subventions
Aux origines du GATT, on n’accordait peu d’attention aux incidences commerciales des subventions, mais les parties contractantes se sont vite rendu compte qu’elles devaient s’en préoccuper pour garantir la valeur des concessions tarifaires dont elles étaient convenues. Un pays peut très bien affaiblir les engagements qu’il a pris en matière d’accès aux marchés en accordant des subventions à des secteurs qui concurrencent les importations. Par ailleurs, les subventions accordées aux exportateurs concurrents de pays tiers peuvent détourner les échanges d’un pays qui comptait sur l’accès négocié à ces marchés. Ces préoccupations ont donné lieu à l’élaboration de disciplines plus strictes que celles qui étaient prévues initialement dans le GATT (de 1947). Une étape majeure a été la négociation du “Code des subventions“ plurilatéral durant le Tokyo Round, puis de l’Accord de l’OMC sur les subventions et les mesures compensatoires (Accord SMC ) et de l’Accord sur l’agriculture.
Trade in Intangible Assets along Global Value Chains and Intellectual Property Protection
Trade is becoming increasingly intangible, but current trade statistics do not capture the international trade in the services of intangible assets through global value chains (GVCs). The increasing importance of intangibles in international trade has made intellectual property (IP) protection an even greater area of concern. Intangible assets include patents, trademarks, copyrights, brand names, product designs, software, databases, and certain types of business organization structures (Cummins 2005).
Introduction
Quantitative and detailed trade policy information and analysis are more necessary now than they have ever been. In recent years, globalization and, more specifically, trade opening have become increasingly contentious. It is, therefore, important for policy-makers and other trade policy stakeholders to have access to detailed, reliable information and analysis on the effects of trade policies, as this information is needed at different stages of the policy-making process.
The Information Technology Agreement: Sui generis or model stepping stone?
The Information Technology Agreement (ITA), negotiated in 1996, is a remarkably successful sectoral agreement. Broad coverage of products was achieved ex ante, rather than by building up coverage over “rounds” of negotiations tariff line by tariff line. A schedule for staged reductions of tariffs to zero was achieved ex ante, rather than tariff-reduction formulas becoming subjects for negotiation in themselves in subsequent rounds. Multilateral country coverage was achieved nearly ex ante, in that the initial set of countries agreed on the rules, many additional countries joined bandwagon-style in the initial months following inception of the agreement, and nearly half of all WTO member countries have joined as of 2007.
Technological progress, diffusion, and opportunities for developing countries: lessons from China
The nature of technology used in products plays a major role in determining the governance structure of value chains and the benefits of participation for developing countries. Standardization through breaking production into modules with a high degree of functional autonomy (limited mutual interference between modules) can dramatically reduce the amount of research and development (R&D), learning by doing, and the number of complementary skills needed to produce a good. This greatly increases opportunities for developing country firms to participate in formerly capital-intensive industries through reducing entry costs into global value chains. However, widespread access to standardized products with little ability to modify technical features can lead to an excessive supply of homogeneous products in a local market, resulting in intense price competition and limited technology transfer. By contrast, technology that facilitates scope for product modification and greater interaction with technology owners can help boost technology transfer and product upgrading by developing country firms. The chapter illustrates this interaction between changes in technology and opportunities for developing countries through developments in the automotive and mobile phone handset industries, with a particular reference to China’s growth experience. It also finds that automation is likely to have only a limited impact on developing countries’ opportunities to participate in value chains through the offshoring of production by high-income countries, at least in the short term.
Recursos naturales: Definiciones, estructura del comercio y globalización
Esta sección es una amplia descripción del papel de los recursos naturales en la economía mundial. Comienza con un apartado dedicado a las definiciones y la terminología, que centra la atención en las características principales que distinguen a los recursos naturales de otros tipos de productos objeto de comercio. Estas características son su carácter agotable, su distribución geográfica desigual, la existencia de externalidades en las repercusiones de su extracción y utilización, el predominio del sector en muchas economías nacionales y la elevada inestabilidad de los precios de este tipo de productos. Se presentan diversos datos estadísticos relacionados con los recursos naturales para ilustrar la magnitud y dirección de las corrientes comerciales mundiales.
Natural resources: Definitions, trade patterns and globalization
This section provides a broad overview of the role that trade in natural resources plays in the global economy. It begins with a discussion of definitions and terminology, focusing on key features that distinguish natural resources from other types of traded goods. These features include the exhaustibility of natural resources, the uneven geographical distribution of resource endowments, the presence of externalities in the spillover effects of extraction and use of natural resources, the dominance of the natural resources sector in many national economies, and the high degree of price volatility in this class of goods. A variety of statistical data related to natural resources are presented in order to illustrate the magnitude and direction of global trade flows.
Quelques tendances et questions commerciales
L’Accord sur les textiles et les vêtements (ATV) est arrivé à expiration le 1er janvier 2005. L’incidence que la levée des restrictions contingentaires pourrait avoir sur la production et le commerce de ces produits a suscité beaucoup d’intérêt, et aussi beaucoup d’inquiétude. Pour la plupart des observateurs, il était évident que la libéralisation accrue ferait des gagnants et des perdants. Il est trop tôt pour dire comment évoluera le marché au-delà de la période relativement brève sur laquelle reposent nos observations; aussi allons-nous examiner ici l’évolution de la structure des échanges depuis la suppression (d’une grande partie) des restrictions quantitatives. Une mise en garde s’impose ici: même s’il ne fait aucun doute que l’expiration de l’ATV a influé sur la structure des échanges observée en 2005, nous n’avons pas élaboré d’approche analytique rigoureuse pour examiner les autres facteurs susceptibles de l’influencer.
Quel rôle pour la coopération internationale en ce qui concerne les politiques relatives au commerce des services ?
Le commerce des services ne cesse d’évoluer. La technologie et les réformes réglementaires entraînent une transformation fondamentale, en créant une nouvelle demande tout en contribuant à la réduction des coûts du commerce et en offrant de nouvelles possibilités en matière de commerce des services. Sous l’effet des chaînes de valeur mondiales, des évolutions démographiques, de l’augmentation du revenu par habitant dans les marchés émergents et des préoccupations environnementales, la demande de services fournis depuis l’étranger est en hausse. L’évolution des modes, des acteurs et de la composition du commerce des services accroît sa contribution possible à la croissance économique inclusive et au développement, mais elle engendre également un certain nombre de défis auxquels il faut répondre pour réaliser ce potentiel.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Michela Esposito for her comments and valuable research assistance. They also would like to thank Delina Agnosteva, James Anderson, Richard Barnett, Davin Chor, Gabriel Felbermayr, Benedikt Heid, Russell Hillberry, Lou Jing, Ma Lin, Antonella Liberatore, Andreas Maurer, Jurgen Richtering, Stela Rubinova, Serge Shikher, Costas Syropoulos, Robert Teh, Thomas Verbeet, Mykyta Vesselovsky, Joschka Wanner, Thomas Zylkin, as well as the seminar and workshop participants at the ifo Institute, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the U.S. International Trade Commission, Global Affairs Canada, the University of Ottawa, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the Tsenov Academy of Economics, and the National University of Singapore for helpful suggestions and discussions. Thanks also go to Vlasta Macku (UNCTAD Virtual Institute) for her continuous support to this project and her role in initiating this inter-organizational cooperation.
Acknowledgements
The World Trade Report has been written under the general direction of Patrick Low, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division. The main authors of the Report are Bijit Bora, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Patrick Low, Hildegunn Nordas, Roberta Piermartini and Robert Teh. Trade statistics and tariff information were provided by the Statistics Group of the Economic Research and Statistics Division, co-ordinated by Guy Karsenty, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer and Jürgen Richtering.
Resumen
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2005 comienza con un breve examen de las tendencias destacadas en el comercio internacional, centrándose primero en la evolución reciente, para examinar a continuación la evolución a medio plazo del sector del petróleo y del sector farmacéutico. La Sección II contiene el tema básico del Informe de este año: las normas y el comercio en el contexto de la OMC. Se analizan en primer lugar los aspectos económicos de las normas y el comercio, para abordar después varias cuestiones institucionales y de política. Seguidamente, se examinan las normas en el sistema multilateral de comercio. En la Sección III del Informe se estudian tres temas distintos y de actualidad que son importantes para el comercio internacional. Los tres ensayos temáticos de esta Sección se refieren a la utilización de la economía cuantitativa en la solución de diferencias en la OMC, el comercio internacional de servicios de transporte aéreo y la deslocalización de los servicios. En el ensayo sobre la utilización del análisis económico cuantitativo en los procedimientos de solución de diferencias de la OMC se explican las técnicas cuantitativas y los modelos econométricos que se han aplicado en la OMC en varios procedimientos de solución de diferencias y se examina cómo se ha utilizado este análisis en una serie de asuntos. En el ensayo sobre el comercio de servicios de transporte aéreo se analizan detenidamente las características básicas del sector y la forma en que ha evolucionado con el paso del tiempo. También se abordan los aspectos económicos de este sector y varias cuestiones relacionadas con la competencia, la reglamentación, la gobernanza y el comercio de servicios de transporte aéreo. Por último, en el ensayo sobre la deslocalización de los servicios se estudian las características económicas de la actividad, su alcance y sus consecuencias, así como su pertinencia para el Acuerdo General sobre el Comercio de Servicios.
Supply chains in the business literature
Changes in the structure of 20th century international industrial organisation that have incited research interest among economists have also driven a significant body of work in the business literature. Indeed, many of the factors driving the changing industrial structure are derived from business. Examples include the innovation and implementation of assembly lines, scientific management, modularisation, lean manufacturing, and just-intime production. While the economics literature has produced terminology such as “task trade”, “vertical specialisation”, and “production sharing”, the business literature tends to emphasise “supply chains”. This is in conjunction with terms from political economists and development theorists that include “value chains”, “global commodity chains”, and “global production networks”. Of these, the supply chain provides the most relevant perspective for the business practitioner. Networks of firms are viewed from a focal firm perspective, and the supply chain ontology adopts various dimensions to orient a firm with its network surroundings (for example, direct-extended-ultimate supply chains, horizontal tiers or degrees of separation, and vertical structures within each tier). Further functionalising the supply chain concept is the field of supply chain management (SCM). Born from multidisciplinary roots that include logistics, marketing, management, and sociology, SCM has developed into a distinct field of study over the past fifty years. SCM theory has only recently reached a state of maturation where it produces operationalisable concepts and tools, but progress is being made in advancing both the overarching field of SCM and the specific issues that fall under the SCM umbrella. This chapter will review the overarching field, while Part II and its chapters will address the specific issues.
Views of GVC operators
The chapters in this volume discuss different types and configurations of global value chains (GVCs). Authors have covered issues of scale and scope, risk, size and proliferation of supply chains — particularly in Asia. Many of these broader concerns look quite different viewed up close to business leaders operating in the thick of specific GVCs. This chapter, by contrast, focuses attention on some key points of interest in supply chains as seen from the perspective of business.
La situation du commerce en 2007
La croissance de la production et des échanges mondiaux s’est ralentie en 2007. La contraction de la demande dans les pays développés a ramené la croissance économique mondiale de 3,7 à 3,4 pour cent, soit à peu près le taux moyen enregistré au cours des dix dernières années. À 7 pour cent environ, la croissance des régions en développement a été près de trois fois supérieure à celle des régions développées et la contribution des pays en développement à la croissance de la production mondiale en 2007 a dépassé 40 pour cent. L’expansion économique des pays les moins avancés a été aussi forte en 2007 que celle des pays en développement pris collectivement, maintenant la tendance constatée depuis 2000.
Funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo
La finalidad de esta sección es contextualizar el debate sobre los efectos del comercio y la tecnología en el mercado laboral. El análisis aislado de esos efectos puede dar la impresión equivocada de que el comercio y/o la tecnología son los principales factores que influyen en el empleo y los salarios. Sin embargo, como se explica en esta sección, los niveles de empleo o desempleo y los salarios vienen determinados en gran medida por el funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo. Dicho de otro modo, los efectos de la tecnología o el comercio en el funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo dependen, en gran medida, de las condiciones institucionales del mercado de trabajo, de la evolución económica y de la diversificación de las oportunidades de empleo en caso de perturbación.
The WTO and the Changing State of the Global Economy
The world economy is showing signs of recovery after several years of lacklustre performance, although major policy uncertainties may easily upset this fragile trend. To jumpstart economies and trade after the financial crisis of 2008–9, governments across the world employed a traditional mix of fiscal, monetary and structural policies. These efforts helped to prevent a deeper crisis but fell short of pulling the world out of a period of stagnation in 2012–16. Trade, in particular, slowed relative to its historical performance and to overall economic growth. Meanwhile, political and social pressures have led to inward-looking policies in large countries. Other challenges – from civil and military conflicts to scattered terrorism – have also contributed to this inward turn. Against this background, this chapter discusses the need for a new and more flexible global economic architecture. It would require reforms at all levels, starting with revamping the structural foundations for growth and trade, applying solid, ground-level macroeconomic policies in individual countries, and rebuilding the upper floors of multilateral cooperation, i.e. upgrading it and making it more adaptable and responsive to the requirements of the twenty-first century. In the trade area, key pillars to support this structure include innovative mechanisms of trade liberalization in both new and traditional areas, increased inclusiveness of trade, recognition and financing of adjustment costs, effective communication on trade, a redefined role and functions for the WTO, upgraded multilateral rules and strong leadership. With radical changes needed, WTO accessions have already contributed, and could contribute even more, to each of these pillars.
Acknowledgements and Disclaimer
The World Trade Report 2018 was prepared under the general responsibility of Xiaozhun Yi, WTO Deputy Director-General, and Robert Koopman, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division. This year the Report was coordinated by Cosimo Beverelli and Emmanuelle Ganne. The authors of the Report are Marc Bacchetta, Eddy Bekkers, Cosimo Beverelli, Emmanuelle Ganne, John Hancock, Mark Koulen, Andreas Maurer, José-Antonio Monteiro, Coleman Nee, Roberta Piermartini, Stela Rubinova, Viktor Stolzenburg, Robert Teh and Ankai Xu (Economic Research and Statistics Division).
Recent trends
International trade rebounded in 2002 from its contraction in the preceding year, growing at about 2.5 per cent in volume terms, which was faster than the growth of global output. The rebound occurred despite the weakness of the global economic recovery, greatly reduced capital flows, major changes in exchange rates, increased restrictions on international trade transactions to mitigate risks from terrorism, and rising geopolitical tensions. Trade growth was strong in Asia and the transition economies, largely reflecting better economic performance in those regions. However trade was stagnant in Western Europe, and contracted in Latin America as a result of economic turmoil in a number of countries in the region. North America’s imports recovered in line with stronger domestic demand, while exports continued to decrease in 2002.
Services trade in the future
This section attempts to provide some guidance as to how services trade patterns will change. Using a novel approach, this section begins by showing recent trends in trade costs related to services and identifying the factors affecting these costs. Then, major future trends in technology, demography, income and climate change are examined with a view to explaining how these trends can affect the choice of which services countries trade and with whom they trade, as well as how they trade. Finally, the potential impact of these trends on trade in services is quantified using the WTO Global Trade Model.
Transforming Accessions Data into Knowledge
Accessions to the World Trade Organization (WTO) generate large amounts of data accumulated during accession negotiations and subsequent domestic reforms. Owing to differences in the structure of acceding economies, accession commitments vary across recently acceded, or Article XII, members, in the number of tariff lines bound, the level of bindings and the various accession-specific commitments and obligations. The depth of commitments and extent of post-accession implementation influence the effectiveness of benefits derived by new members from WTO accession. In spite of the generally positive economic performance exhibited by all Article XII members, disparities exist in their country-specific economic performance in terms of trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and gross domestic product (GDP) growth. This chapter analyses the impact and depth of accession commitments to assess the economic effects of WTO accession. It explores how the data from accessions acquis can assist policy-makers in implementing structural reforms and integrating their countries into regional and global value chains. An Accession Commitment Index is proposed as a basis for a statistical exploration of the impact of WTO accession on a series of variables related to economic growth. Using an extension of the difference-in-difference methodological approach, the chapter finds that WTO accession generally has a positive and significant impact on the acceding economy’s trade and economic performance. The results also show that the impact of WTO membership on the trade/GDP ratio in developing countries is significantly higher than in previous studies.
Trade in natural resources: Introduction
Natural resources are fundamental for human life. Non-renewables such as oil and natural gas are transformed into the energy that is essential for the production of virtually any other good or service. Renewable resources such as forests, fisheries and aquifers are some of the world’s most precious natural assets. Properly managed, they also have the potential to provide an unending stream of products that contribute greatly to the quality of human life. Natural resources represent a significant and growing share of world trade and amounted to some 24 per cent of total merchandise trade in 2008. The volume of this trade has been quite steady over the past decade, but in value terms has grown annually at 20 per cent.
Política de innovación, comercio y desafío digital
Esta sección se centra en la política de innovación y examina sus justificaciones económicas y su repercusión en la innovación. Para que esta tenga lugar, hay que crear nuevos conocimientos mediante la inversión en investigación y a continuación divulgarlos a través del sistema educativo o de publicaciones, patentes e intercambios de ideas. Cuando las empresas o los Gobiernos fomentan el progreso tecnológico utilizando estos conocimientos, o su materialización a través de invenciones, para modificar procesos, comportamientos o tecnologías, el crecimiento económico puede verse afectado, en función de una serie de variables. En cualquier país, la difusión de nueva tecnología depende de las instituciones, el nivel de apertura económica y la inversión en educación e investigación.
Foreword
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the world economy. Mobility restrictions, imposed by governments anxious to contain the virus, have profoundly impacted the networks of complex production-sharing known as global value chains. However, these networks were under pressure even before the pandemic. A general stagnation in the pace of globalization has persisted since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, punctuated at times by trade disputes.
Trade Openness and Vulnerability to Poverty in Viet Nam under Doi Moi
Following the so-called “Asian option” of transition, from the early 1990s Viet Nam adopted the Doi Moi (renovation) process, a combination of liberalization, stabilization and structural reforms. This included two main waves of trade liberalization, one in the 1990s and a second in the 2000s (Coello at al., 2010). The first wave lasted from the initial opening of the country until approximately 2001 and foresaw the total abolition of trade licences and the removal of most quantitative restrictions (Thanh and Duong, 2009). The second wave—still ongoing—includes the full involvement of the country in the global network of reciprocal trade agreements (both multilateral, WTO accession in January 2007, and bilateral, such as agreements signed with the United States in 2001 as well as FTA negotiations with the EU concluded in 2016).
Higher Education Response to India’s IT Boom: Did State Governments Play a Role?
The contribution of information technology (IT) to India’s GDP increased from 1.2 per cent in 1997 to 9.3 per cent in 2015. A notable characteristic of this phenomenon is that the majority of the growth in this sector is driven by exports. Currently, more than 80 per cent of IT output is exported. This sector is thus very vulnerable to demand shocks in the world economy. Also, unlike the export of most goods, the export of IT services relies exclusively on the Internet, the expansion of which in the 1990s is a relatively recent phenomenon. The combination of worldwide rapid Internet growth along with rising demand for computing skills created an unprecedented demand for Indian IT services: from 1998, IT exports and employment doubled in a span of just two years.
Introduction to Part III
In Part III of this book, a number of case studies on domestic regulation in services sectors are presented. These case studies concern the following sectors: legal services, telecommunications, information and communications technology, mobile banking, financial services, higher education, logistical services, postal services and retail food distribution.
Why economic resilience matters
Over the past decades, natural hazard-related and man-made disasters have increased in both frequency and severity. The effects on society and on the economy of these disasters, and the prospect of even greater risks and disasters in the future, linked to the challenges of climate change, have underlined the factors and strategies needed to avoid, mitigate, adapt to and prepare for shocks, as well as to manage risks and vulnerabilities. The term “economic resilience” has become a popular one to describe these broad, diverse strategies.