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The state of global services trade policies: evidence from recent data
Nov 2025
Working Paper
The economic environment for services trade has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, driven by rapid technological progress that has expanded the possibilities for exchanging services. How has trade policy responded to these changes? How do policy stances in a wide range of service sectors compare across economies?
The long-run impact of digitalization on trade patterns
Dec 2024
Working Paper
We employ the WTO Global Trade Model (GTM) to generate quantitative projections on the expected long-run impact of digitalization on global trade patterns. Five trends are modelled: (i) adoption of artificial intelligence which raises productivity growth;(ii) digitalization reducing trade costs, (iii) the shift to online sales (e-commerce), (iv) the reduced need for physical face-to-face interaction leading to lower trade costs; and (v) changes in data policies in response to these technologies which also impacts trade costs. We distinguish between a convergence scenario with larger productivity growth and trade cost reductions for low-income economies and a core scenario with uniform changes. The simulations generate three main sets of findings.
The Evolution of Preferential Trade Under Regional Trade Agreements: Has Anything Changed?
Feb 2025
Working Paper
This paper examines the evolution of global merchandise trade, between 2010 and 2022, assessing the share of imports subject to regional trade agreements (RTAs). A key question for us is whether the share of merchandise trade subject to preferences has kept pace with the proliferation in RTAs. The paper finds that with the growing number of RTAs over the period, the share of the total volume of global imports involving RTA partners increased from 37% in 2010 to 52% in 2022. However, potential preferential imports between them under RTAs remained relatively stable, rising slightly from almost 17% in 2010 to 23% in 2022.
Beyond Six Digits: Automated Tariff Line HS Transposition Using Natural Language Processing
Jan 2025
Working Paper
This paper explores the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to automate Harmonized System (HS) tariff line transposition, employing a three-stage process: unique 1:1 tariff code matching (Round 1), exact description matching (Round 2), and “smart” description matching (Round 3) using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and lexical similarity methods paired with harmonized 6-digit concordance and cosine similarity. Similarity is calculated using either Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) vectors or Sentence-BERT (SBERT) embeddings, comparing two scenarios: a straightforward case (Economy A) with standardized descriptions, and a complex case (Economy B), with more detailed technical descriptions.
Significance of most-favoured-nation terms in global trade: A comprehensive analysis
Jan 2025
Working Paper
The Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle has historically been instrumental in promoting stability and equitable trade conditions. In recent decades there has been a rise in bilateral and regional trade agreements, which deviate from the MFN principle in providing more favourable tariff treatment to specific partners. At the same time, WTO Members can, under certain circumstances, raise trade barriers against imports for different reasons, including to counter unfair trade practices.
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