Economic research and trade policy analysis
Exporting, Importing and Wages in Africa: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee data
The economic and social development of the African continent has been on the agenda of policy makers and the international community for decades. With over a billion inhabitants and the fastest growing population worldwide, the African market presents an enormous potential. Despite remarkable economic growth rates, however, many countries on the continent struggle to translate this potential into significant improvements in socio-economic indicators. International trade is considered by many as one of the main contributors to reductions in poverty and the improvement of livelihoods (Dollar and Kraay, 2004; Le Goff and Singh, 2014). This stance has been adopted in global policy making, with trade forming an integral part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include the objective to double the share of least developed countries’ (LDC) exports in global exports by 2020. Thirty-four of the 48 LDCs are located on the African continent, implying that this endeavor is particularly relevant for Africa.
Acknowledgments
Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality is a joint report by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Maria Liungman and Nadia Rocha from the World Bank and José-Antonio Monteiro and Roberta Piermartini from the WTO coordinated the report. The team is grateful for the guidance and support of our World Bank colleaguesCaroline Freund, Global Director, Trade, Investment and Competitiveness; William Maloney, Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions; the World Bank gender group under the leadership of Caren Grown, Global Director Gender; and Antonio Nucifora, Practice Manager Trade and Regional Integration Unitand our WTO colleagues Aegyoung Jung, Chief Legal Advisor to the Director-General; and Robert Koopman, Chief Economist and Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division.
WTO accessions: What does the academic literature say?
This chapter takes stock of the recent academic literature on accessions. It focuses only on the analytical work published since 2000 in books, academic journals and working papers by key WTO scholars across the world. These contributions are related to the procedural, legal, economic and institutional aspects of WTO accessions, and to the proposals for their reform. Country-specific studies, research on the impact of accessions on individual industries and reports on accessions by national and international institutions are not included.
Remerciements et avertissement
Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2018 a été établi sous la responsabilité générale de Xiaozhun Yi, Directeur général adjoint de l’OMC, et de Robert Koopman, Directeur de la Division de la recherche économique et des statistiques. Cette année, la rédaction du rapport a été coordonnée par Cosimo Beverelli et Emmanuelle Ganne. Les auteurs du rapport sont 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 et Ankai Xu (Division de la recherche économique et des statistiques).
International cooperation on innovation policies in the digital age
National innovation policies, like other government policies, serve domestic policy objectives. As discussed in Section C, they can generate both positive and negative international spill-over effects, and some of the mechanisms through which they generate spillovers involve trade. This section focuses on cooperation aimed at addressing the trade-related international spill-overs from innovation policies. Such cooperation could help to ensure that governments have the policy space to pursue innovation policies, and could help to maximize the positive international spill-overs of such policies, while minimizing their negative effects on trading partners.
Comment se préparer à la transformation du commerce induite par la technologie?
La présente section examine comment la coopération commerciale internationale peut aider les gouvernements du monde entier à exploiter les technologies numériques et à saisir les nouvelles possibilités commerciales qu’elles créeront pour les entreprises, grandes et petites. La section D.1 résume les principales possibilités et les principaux défis qui découlent de l’expansion du commerce numérique. La section D.2 donne des exemples des politiques mises en place par les gouvernements pour tirer parti de ces possibilités et relever ces défis. La section D.3 examine ensuite la question de savoir si et comment la coopération internationale peut aider les gouvernements à bénéficier des gains du commerce numérique, à faire face aux défis et, en même temps, à atteindre leurs objectifs de politique publique aujourd’hui et dans l’avenir.
Prólogo
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial es una nueva publicación anual de la Secretaría de la OMC. En este Informe se examinarán cada año las tendencias del comercio en el mundo y se abordarán cuestiones importantes relacionadas con el sistema de comercio internacional. Además de seguir de cerca e interpretar la evolución del comercio, se tratará de proporcionar al público la información necesaria para comprender mejor los problemas normativos que se plantean en la actualidad. No se pretende analizar de manera exhaustiva cuestiones complejas y multifacéticas que se siguen debatiendo a nivel de los gobiernos y de la sociedad. Se trata más bien de explicar el origen de los problemas y ofrecer un marco analítico para abordarlos, a fin de contribuir a un examen más razonado y a una mejor apreciación de distintas opciones para resolverlos.
Los recursos naturales, la cooperación internacional y la reglamentación del comercio
En la presente sección se examina la reglamentación internacional del comercio de recursos naturales. Primero, se hace una exposición general del marco jurídico de la OMC y un breve examen del encaje de los recursos naturales en ese marco. En esta sección no se pretende hacer un estudio exhaustivo de todas las normas de la OMC que puedan estar relacionadas con el comercio de recursos naturales, sino sólo de aquellas que sean especialmente pertinentes para este tipo de comercio, considerando si responden a las características más destacadas de los sectores de recursos naturales, y en qué medida. En esta sección también figura una selección de acuerdos internacionales que reglamentan el comercio de recursos naturales y un examen de su relación con las disciplinas de la OMC. Por último se tratan en particular cierto número de cuestiones planteadas en este sector que son o podrían ser pertinentes para la cooperación internacional y el sistema multilateral de comercio.
Preface
Global value chains (GVCs) have brought about revolutionary changes in international trade, industrialization, and economic development. The GVC story is still rapidly unfolding, as vividly demonstrated by the supply chain crisis, particularly for semiconductors and other components, that broke out during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing further anxiety. But beyond what is hoped will be a short-term tremor, a radical shift in these chains is underway as more of them move beyond traditional production processes to encompass services and other intangible assets. In recognition of this, Beyond Production is the theme of the Global Value Chain Development Report 2021, the third report in this biennial series. The most significant feature of this “second unbundling” associated with the proliferation of GVCs in the world economy is the separation between production and nonproduction tasks. So, looking at GVCs not just in terms of manufacturing production but also from the perspective of their beyondproduction components, such as intangible assets, digital platforms, and intellectual property, can deepen our understanding of the critical role of GVCs in the global economy.