Economic research and trade policy analysis
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.
Executive summary
In the digital age, a growing number of governments have adopted policies aimed at boosting growth through innovation and technological upgrading. The domestic economic fallout linked to the COVID-19 pandemic is leading countries to strengthen these policies. This report looks at those trends, and at how trade and the WTO fit into them. It shows that international cooperation could play a significant role in making countries’ pursuit of such goals more effective, while minimizing the negative spill-overs from national policies.