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The WTO
We consider the purpose and design of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor GATT. We review recent developments in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. And we describe the GATT/WTO architecture and briefly trace its historical antecedents. We suggest that the existing literature provides a useful framework for understanding and interpreting central features of the design and practice of the GATT/WTO and we identify key unresolved issues.
International Trade and the Position of European Low-Skilled Labour
This paper presents a discussion of the potential channels through which international trade affects the position of low skilled workers in the European Union. After an analysis of the European Union's trade flows showing the predominant role of intra-industry trade with other industrialised countries the discussion focuses on the potential effects of intra-industry trade on low skilled labour. Particular attention is paid to possible interactions between trade and technological change and to the possible effects of trade on the price elasticity of labour. The paper also discusses how trade may affect incentives to invest in skills and thus a country's potential to alter the skill structure of its working force.
Services Trade Policy, WTO Commitments, and their Role in Economic Development and Trade Integration
Services have long been perceived as playing a secondary role in world trade. In particular the role of services trade policies and multilateral services commitments often tends to be downplayed. However in value added terms services account for about 50% of world trade and are significant in exports of countries of all levels of development.
LDC Poverty Alleviation and the Doha Development Agenda
Despite being a leading export sector and source of foreign exchange for most (non-oil exporting) LDCs tourism never makes the headlines of the WTO's Doha Development Agenda negotiations. When tourism's impressive potential for poverty alleviation is considered the lack of attention is even more striking. Reasons for the apparent neglect are complex and include a lack of awareness of tourism as an export sector the fragmented nature of the industry and low political influence exaggerated concerns over "leakages" misunderstandings about poverty alleviation and tourism and the "poker playing" characteristic of trade negotiations. The evident results are missed opportunities to address services infrastructure constraints (one of the greatest impediments to increasing LDC tourism revenues and value-added) as well as a failure to address sufficiently tourism's agricultural industrial and Aid for Trade linkages. Existing national-level investment promotion objectives as well as DTIS and TPR reports can be helpful for identifying priorities for both GATS negotiations and Aid for Trade. The focus should not necessarily be on making GATS commitments but rather on ensuring that the importance of tourism for LDCs is acknowledged and acted upon. Indeed governments can always further liberalize on a unilateral basis; in the context of the DDA however they can request greater access to trading partners' markets in exchange as well as gain valuable international attention and publicity.
Telecommunications Services in Africa
This paper examines the impact of telecommunications liberalization in Africa on both sectoral performance and economic growth. Besides unilateral measures we account for WTO commitments fostering the credibility of reforms. Actual regulatory quality plays a major role in bringing down prices and in improving access to telecommunication services in Africa. Competition notably in the mobile telephony segment also improves sector performance. Increasing access to mobile networks by 1 per cent translates into a 0.5 per cent increase in real GDP per capita. In Africa multilateral commitments do not reflect recent reforms. However at the global level adherence to the WTO Reference Paper entails lower prices.
Trade Facilitation Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements Traits and Trends
The paper first surveys the Trade Facilitation landscape at the regional level and analyses the main forces shaping it. It identifies key factors driving regional Facilitation approaches examining their priorities features and underlying philosophies. The study also highlights significant trends in regional Trade Facilitation provisions and analyses their implications. The paper then compares regional and multilateral initiatives looking at areas of convergence and divergence and highlighting where potential gaps exist. It analyses negotiating positions in the respective frameworks and discusses both the benefits and limitations of the resulting Trade Facilitation provisions. Examining the impact of the recently concluded WTO Agreement the study highlights its potential value added.
Timeliness and Contract Enforceability in Intermediate Goods Trade
This paper shows that the institutional environment and the ability to export on time are sources of comparative advantage as important as factors of production. In particular the ability to export on time is crucial to explain comparative advantage in intermediate goods. These findings underscore the importance of investing in infrastructure and fostering trade facilitation to boost a country's participation in production networks. Furthermore we contribute to the so-called “distance puzzle” by showing that the increasing importance of distance over time is in part driven by trade in intermediate goods.
A Quantitative Assessment of Electronic Commerce
This paper tries to assess quantitatively the role of electronic commerce in economic activity and in trade and tariff revenue collection. The share of value added that potentially lends itself to electronic trade represents around 30 percent of GDP most importantly distribution finance and business services. Electronic commerce is also likely to boost trade in many services sectors significantly. Despite the growing importance of electronic commerce for economic activity and trade tariff revenue loss from electronic commerce is likely to be minimal. Trade in potentially digitizable media goods which currently faces a tariff in some countries represents less than one percent of total world trade. The revenue collected on these products amounts to less than one percent of total tariff revenue in most countries. Even if some of this trade moved “online” tariff revenue loss would be only a very small share of tariff revenue.
Natural Resources and Non-Cooperative Trade Policy
When looking at the conditions of trade in natural resources the world appears upside down: tariff protection in natural resources sectors is generally lower than for overall merchandise trade while export restrictions are twice as likely as in other sectors. On the other hand tariff escalation is significant in natural resources sectors where materials in their raw state face on average lower duties than in their processed form. In this paper we discuss how export taxes and tariff escalation may be the result of an uncooperative trade policy. Specifically tariff escalation and export taxes can be "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies because governments may be tempted to use them to alter the relative price of exports to their advantage (terms-of-trade effect) or to expand the domestic processing industry at the expenses of foreign production (production relocation effect). In equilibrium these policies offset each other in a Prisoners' Dilemma situation where trade is inefficiently low.
Product Labeling, Quality and International Trade
This paper analyzes the reasons why countries may pursue different labeling policies in autarky and how this affects countries’ welfare in the context of international trade. In an asymmetric information environment where producers know the quality of the goods they are selling and consumers are not able to distinguish between them the quality governments choose to protect by a label depends on consumer preferences for and production costs of different qualities. Countries with different distributions of tastes and/or different production functions will thus decide to label differently. When they trade welfare effects will be different on the country as a whole and on different types of consumers within each country depending on whether countries choose to mutually recognize each others labeling policy or to harmonize their policies. In particular it will be the case that a country with weak preferences for high quality will oppose the introduction of an international harmonized label as it is better off under a regime of mutual recognition. When countries only differ in their costs of producing quality instead none of the trading partners will lose from a move towards trade under an international harmonized label.
Hold the Line: The Evolution of Telecommunications Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements
Based on the first comprehensive mapping of telecommunications provisions telecommunications in regional trade agreements (RTAs) this paper shows that telecommunications provisions in RTAs have evolved and expanded significantly over the years. While some provisions focus on information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure policy and investment other provisions address telecommunications services as well as standards and conformity assessment procedures of ICT equipment. The most detailed and comprehensive telecommunications provisions are found in stand-alone chapters sections or annexes on telecommunications services. A network analysis further reveals that telecommunications provisions remain highly heterogenous.
The value of the Committee on Agriculture
What is the value of the WTO Committee on Agriculture? How much trade do countries talk about at the WTO? Do low-income countries participate less than they should in the work of the Committee? How important are issues not covered by notifications? What are the most important issues on which to focus negotiations?
A Survey of Investment Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements
The liberalization and protection of investment flows has become an increasingly indispensable pillar of economic integration. The objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which RTAs achieve such liberalization and protection. To this end we have surveyed the investment provisions contained in 260 RTAs notified to the WTO by 31 December -2015- and in force on that date. More than half of these RTAs contain investment chapters though they vary in terms of their substantive scope and coverage. The main categories of investment provisions in RTAs reviewed in the paper include the definitions of investment and investor investment liberalization investment protection and ISDS. Also included in our analysis are provisions supporting the investment framework host state flexibilities investment promotion as well as provisions on sustainable and socially responsible investment.
Market Shares in the Post-Uruguay Round Era
to identify underlying sources of growth or decline. A key feature is that the unit of analysis (e.g. a city a region or a country) exists within a broader frame of reference that strongly influences it (e.g. a national productive system or the world economy). It is based on the principle that total change can be disaggregated into contributing factors and any change that can not be accounted for by these factors can be interpreted as the "local contribution" to that total change. This method has been subject to many refinements. Because the objectives of this paper are both didactic and analytic traditional Shift-Share Analysis is applied to international trade. It uses the "constant market share" assumption by decomposing the growth of exports into four separate components: a global component (GLOBO) indicating changes due to overall growth of world trade a geographical component (GEO) indicating changes due to the country's distribution of trading partners a product composition component (COMPO) indicating growth due to the mix of products exported and a residual term (the "local" contribution) indicating changes in competitiveness or performance (PERFO). The first 3 components GLOBO COMPO and GEO all relate to the "expected change in trade" should trade change proportionally. The fourth and residual component PERFO refers to that part of the change in trade that "shifts away" from expected proportional changes hence the term "Shift-Share Analysis". This paper will analyse a change or "shift" in shares in trade (particularly exports) of different economies. By focusing on selected time periods and using the PERFO indicator the method will show what industries shift away from the expected change in trade which economies have experienced such shifts in their industries and to which regions.
Has the Multilateral Hong Kong Ministerial Decision on Duty Free Quota Free Market Access Provided a Breakthrough in the Least-Developed Countries' Export Performance?
This paper assesses the impact of the 2005 multilateral Hong Kong Ministerial decision on duty free quota free (DFQF) market access for products originating in Least developed countries (LDCs) on the latter's export performance. The analysis is conducted over a sample of 41 LDCs with data spanning the period 1998-2013. The empirical analysis examines both the average effect and the short term/medium term effect. Results indicate that on average this multilateral decision has exerted a positive effect on LDCs' performance on merchandise exports with this average positive effect being solely driven by a positive effect on LDCs' export performance on primary products; the average effect on manufacturing exports has been statistically nil. In the short and medium term this decision has exerted a positive effect on LDCs' merchandise export performance as well as on the components of the latter namely both primary product exports and manufacturing exports. However the positive effect on primary product exports appears to be far higher than that on manufacturing exports. These findings have important policy implications regarding reflections on the way LDCs could utilize their policy flexibilities in the WTO Agreements to diversify their exports away from the primary sector and toward manufacturing and/or services sector.
Services Domestic Regulation
Services is the fastest-growing sector of today's global economy and trade in services is the most dynamic segment of world trade. However its potential remains constrained by a variety of barriers: trade costs are estimated to be almost double those in goods and more than 40% of trade costs are accounted for by regulation-related factors. Regulatory measures related to the permission to supply a service i.e. those related to licensing and qualifications requirements and procedures and technical standards can particularly affect service suppliers' ability to trade. With a view to mitigating the unintended trade-restrictive effects of such measures since 2017 a group of Members has been negotiating a set of regulatory disciplines in the context of the Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation.
The TISA Initiative
The plurilateral negotiations on a Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) have attracted much attention in trade policy circles. Policy and economic implications are intensely debated given the number and economic importance of participants. This paper aims to provide insights into the market access issues arising in such negotiations. Should TISA negotiations result in participants exchanging the best commitments they have so far undertaken in their preferential trade agreements (PTAs) – a reasonable starting point — TISA market access commitments would go well beyond GATS commitments and services offers tabled in the Doha Round. While this would be in itself a significant outcome (especially in terms of predictability and stability) we also highlight however that the real economic benefits would be reduced by the fact that a number of participants have already exchanged significant concessions amongst themselves through bilateral PTAs. Further and more importantly exchanging 'best PTA' commitments would not meet the participants' most important export interests. These have often remained unaddressed in many of the previous bilateral negotiations or involve countries not currently participating in TISA. Addressing better these export interests would require going beyond an exchange of 'best PTA' commitments among TISA participants — with the more difficult policy and negotiating decisions that this implies — and/or seeking to expand the group of participants. We also discuss the different forms that such a plurilateral agreement may take vis-à-vis the WTO framework.
Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Export Diversification
We examine in this paper the impact of the tightening of IPRs notably patents rights and the adoption of utility model laws on export diversification. To perform our analysis we used panel data covering 89 developing and developed countries (of which 55 developing countries) over the period 1975 – 2003 and Lewbel (-2012-)'s instrumental variable technique. Our results lead us to conclude that for developing countries legal protection for minor and adaptive inventions could be a springboard for further strengthening of IPRs protection in spurring export diversification which is essential for the structural change needed for their economic development.
Is Trade Liberalization a Window of Opportunity for Women?
This paper analyses how trade affects women's job opportunities and earnings through five case studies: Mauritius Mexico Peru the Philippines and Sri Lanka. It is found that women's share of the labour force has increased over time and the wage gap between men and women has narrowed. It is also found that there is a positive and statistically significant relation between exports and women's share of employment while there is a statistically significant and negative correlation between women's share in employment and imports. The correlation between women's share of employment and trade stems from variation between sectors rather than within sectors over time indicating that export-competing industries tend to employ women while import-competing industries tend to employ men. Trade liberalization is likely to create jobs for women and over time increase their relative wages.
Thoughts on How Trade, and WTO Rules, Can Contribute to the Post-2015 Development Agenda
In September 2015 Heads of State and Government will gather in New York to agree the post-2015 development agenda. The role that trade will play in this agenda is neither clear nor agreed. Yet an open non-discriminatory rules-based multilateral trading system underpins sustainable development - a concept that lies at the core of much of the post-2015 debate to date. Indeed sustainable development is recognized as an objective in the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO). With the aim of stimulating discussion this paper asks the question of how trade and WTO rules can contribute to the post-2015 development agenda? In reply the author offers some thoughts on 10 contributions that trade and WTO rules can make to the post 2015 development agenda. The list is indicative not exhaustive. The 10 contributions highlight the complex way in which trade and trade policy interact with the evolving debate on the post-2015 development agenda - a debate which encompasses issues ranging from poverty eradication inclusive growth climate change mitigation decent work food security access to health services and sustainable development financing to name but a few of the topics under consideration. The paper organizes the 10 indicative contributions around three headings: trade rules as part of the enabling environment for the achievement of the post-2015 development agenda; the role that trade and trade policy can play in meeting specific goals (including possible Sustainable Development Goals); and the contribution that Aid for Trade can make.