Trade monitoring
Developing & Delivering COVID-19 Vaccines Around the World
The WTO Secretariat has published a new information note on trade-related issues for COVID-19 vaccine production manufacturing and deployment. The note entitled “Developing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines around the world” explores how trade policy can play its part in ensuring the rapid roll-out of vaccines against COVID-19.
Trade Policies Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment
This paper looks at the various trade policies WTO Members have put into place to foster women’s economic empowerment. The analysis below is based on the information provided by WTO Members as part of their Trade Policy Review (TPRs) process from 2014 to 2018. Reports from the WTO Secretariat governments as well as the question and answer sessions were examined for the purpose of this paper.
The Development of Trade Policies in the Asia and Pacific Region Over the Past 30 Years Since 1989
This paper reviews the main developments of trade and related policies and measures in the Asia and Pacific region during the 30 years since establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The objectives of the TPRM include facilitating the smooth functioning of the multilateral trading system by enhancing the transparency of WTO Members' trade policies.
Evolution of Asia's Outward-Looking Economic Policies
This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some lessons from the Reviews undertaken. In particular the Paper examines how reforms either unilateral or in connection with bilateral regional or multilateral trade agreements can be greatly facilitated by transparency including cost-benefit (C-B) analyses of policies and measures that take full account not just of the interests of domestic producers but also those of other groups including exporters and domestic consumers. While high quality transparency is not cheap the costs of achieving it pale in comparison with the financial assistance involved and efficiency losses associated with such assistance. Trade Policy Reviews (TPRs) throw light not only on measures that appear to contravene WTO rules although that is not their purpose; more importantly they identify measures not seemingly covered by WTO rules which can nonetheless have economic effects equivalent to measures that are subject to these rules. One of the main lessons from these TPRs is that impediments to economic development are largely homegrown. Consequently unilateral structural reform of which liberalization of both trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) has been an integral part is of paramount importance. By fostering transparency particularly evaluating the effectiveness of policies and measures in achieving their objectives and their overall impacts (intended or unintended) on the economy the TPRM can be a catalyst for unilateral reform including liberalization of trade and FDI. Although the latter has received added impetus from multilateral liberalization under the auspices of the GATT/WTO the stalling of negotiations in connection with the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) should not preclude further unilateral liberalization. By contrast the benefits of preferential trade agreements are far from obvious notwithstanding their proliferation during the past decade throughout the Asia-Pacific region here few governments have subjected these agreements to rigorous cost-benefit analysis. Economies in the Asia-Pacific region especially East Asia have been much more successful than those in other regions in achieving sustained fast growth and thereby raising living standards and reducing poverty. This success can be attributed not so much to transparency which is largely lacking but to inter alia their broad outward-looking development strategy. This strategy has involved in particular an increasingly high degree of integration into the global economy with heavy reliance on growth of manufactured exports high rates of national saving to finance high rates of domestic investment including public investment in physical and social infrastructure (notably education and health) supplemented by FDI (as well as maintenance of macroeconomic stability reliance on a functioning market system to allocate resources and committed capable and credible governments). However this development strategy has left growth very heavily dependent on domestic investment and exports which dropped sharply in the wake of the global financial crisis that erupted in 2008. This and resulting current account imbalances and consequent trade tension has prompted a rethink in a number of East Asian economies of their development strategies. As a consequence China Chinese Taipei Korea and Malaysia for example are now attempting to wean their economies off investment and exports and give freer rein to domestic consumption. As circumstances (including comparative advantage) change and global resources become increasingly scarce policies need to be continually reviewed in order to ensure that second-best measures are replaced by more cost-effectiveness ones. As improved productivity is the key to sustained development in the long run policies need to be adapted to ensure that they facilitate rather than inhibit the efficient re-allocation of resources by markets in accordance with evolving comparative advantage. Reform needs to be ongoing therefore. Transparency builds support for and thus paves the way for such reform.
Opening a Pandora’s Box
Economic projections for the world economy particularly in relation to the construction of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) baselines are generally rather conservative and take scant account of the wide range of possible evolutions authorized by the underlying economic mechanisms considered. Against this background we adopt an ‘open mind’ to the projection of world trade trajectories. Taking a 2035 horizon we examine how world trade patterns will be shaped by the changing comparative advantages demand and capabilities of different regions. We combine a convergence model fitting three production factors (capital labor and energy) and two factor-specific productivities alongside a dynamic CGE model of the world economy calibrated to Economic projections for the world economy particularly in relation to the construction of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) baselines are generally rather conservative and take scant account of the wide range of possible evolutions authorized by the underlying economic mechanisms considered. Against this background we adopt an ‘open mind’ to the projection of world trade trajectories. Taking a 2035 horizon we examine how world trade patterns will be shaped by the changing comparative advantages demand and capabilities of different regions. We combine a convergence model fitting three production factors (capital labor and energy) and two factor-specific productivities alongside a dynamic CGE model of the world economy calibrated to reproduce observed elasticity of trade to income. Each scenario involves three steps. First we project growth at country level based on factor accumulation educational attainment and efficiency gains and discuss uncertainties related to our main drivers. Second we impose this framework (demographics gross domestic product saving rates factors and current account trajectories) on the CGE baseline. Third we implement trade policy scenarios (tariffs as well as non-tariff measures in goods and services) in order to get factor allocation across sectors from the model as well as demand and trade patterns. We show that the impact of changing baselines is greater than the impact of a policy shock on the order of magnitude of changes in world trade patterns which points to the need for care when designing CGE baselines. observed elasticity of trade to income. Each scenario involves three steps.