Suppose that when addressing the question of “what’s left for the WTO?,” tariff negotiators relied not on the agenda established in 2001 but instead on the terms-of-trade theory of trade agreements to identify negotiating priorities.
... See More + This paper uses the lens of the terms-of-trade theory to investigate three areas in which it is frequently alleged that currently applied tariffs remain “too high”; the implication being that the WTO’s job performance to date is incomplete. This includes applied tariffs for countries that are not members of the WTO, applied MFN tariffs for WTO members that are unbound, and applied MFN tariffs for WTO members set in the presence of large amounts of tariff binding overhang. These are almost exclusively the domain of developing countries’ own trade policies and they are collectively important; 3.5 billion people currently live in countries in which the WTO has had minimal effect for one of these three reasons. This paper builds upon recent developments in the empirical literature to present evidence—some direct, some indirect—that sheds light on each area. It then identifies specific needs for additional research to clarify policy implications for the future role of the WTO in the ever-changing international trading system.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7502 DEC 02, 2015
This paper summarizes the major arguments and proposals to reform the modus operandi of the World Trade Organization --including decision-making procedures, negotiating modalities, and dispute settlement.
... See More + Much has already been done to improve the internal and external transparency of World Trade Organization processes. Some proposals for structural reform ignore incentive constraints and the fact that the World Trade Organization is an incomplete contract that must be self-enforcing. Others -- such as calls for a "critical mass" approach to negotiations --can already be pursued (and have been). The agenda for international cooperation increasingly revolves around "behind-the-border" regulatory externalities that do not necessarily lend themselves to binding commitments in a trade agreement. This suggests a focus on strengthening notification/surveillance and developing more effective mechanisms for dialogue on regulatory policies that may create negative spillovers.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5525 JAN 01, 2011
The European Union (EU) is one of the most successful examples in recent times of the peaceful regional expansion of prosperity and stability through institutional structures and shared resources.
... See More + The EU has supported a process of governance and economic development across the European continent which now encompasses 27 member countries and over 500 million people. EU accession is a process of alignment through which acceptance of the acquis communautaire (the body of EU law) in aspiring states leads to the reorganization of an entire corpus of political, social, economic and cultural relationships, with the Commission and the Council explicitly negotiating, agreeing upon, refereeing and monitoring these linkages. These technical and political changes- largely generated through accession conditionality are accompanied by a process of 'Europeanization' by which all EU countries come to adopt European norms and values, transferred through many different routes including declaratory policies and documents, small-scale projects, and socialization between governments. In combination, the transformation that the concept and process of Europe has brought about is extraordinary- indeed in many ways it can be argued that the EU accession process has overcome the aid complex and its inefficient parallel systems and short-term projectized approaches which can often prevent exactly these successful outcomes in developing countries today. That is not to suggest, however, that the project of European enlargement is a single monolith, or has been equally successful in all EU accession countries. In certain contexts it has generated real and important reforms, while in others, positive institutional change has been far less clear. Moreover, problems with the process remain, and moving forward the EU will itself need to adapt to new realities and changing dynamics in order to ensure that future enlargement is as successful as past accession.
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This paper summarizes the estimates of what Russia will get from World Trade Organization accession and why. A key finding is the estimate that Russia will gain about $53 billion per year in the medium term from World Trade Organization accession and $177 billion per year in the long term, due largely to its own commitments to reform its own business services sectors.
... See More + The paper summarizes the principal reform commitments that Russia has undertaken as part of its World Trade Organization accession negotiations, and compares them with those of other countries that have acceded to the World Trade Organization. It finds that the Russian commitments represent a liberal offer to the members of the World Trade Organization for admission, but they are typical of other transition countries that have acceded to the World Trade Organization. The authors discuss the outstanding issues in the Russian World Trade Organizaiton accession negotiations, and explain why Russian accession will result in the elimination of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment against Russia. They discuss Russian policies to attract foreign direct investment, including an assessment of the impact of the 2008 law on strategic sectors and the increased role of the state in the economy. Finally, the authors assess the importance of Russian accession to Russia and to the international trading community, and suggestions for most efficiently meeting the governments diversification objective.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5255 MAR 01, 2010
Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations.
... See More + This paper examines developing country participation in the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier multilateral rounds. The dispute data from 1995 through 2008 reveal three notable trends: developing countries sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) by developed countries, developing countries increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed country markets, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines potential impacts of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001. A close look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries' ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases, more extensive pursuit of the DSU legal process for any given case, and initiation of disputes over smaller values of lost trade.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5168 JAN 01, 2010
In this paper, the authors explore the complex, long, and unique process of accession to the World Trade Organization, with its intertwined economic, legal, and political dimensions.
... See More + Referring to country case studies and sector-specific issues, the paper organizes some of the current reflections on the topic around three main themes. First, it explores the rationale of accession to the World Trade Organization: Why would new members join the WTO? And why would incumbent members let new members in? Second, it analyzes the World Trade Organization accession process in detail: What are the main characteristics and challenges of the accession process? Has it evolved over time, and how? Third, the paper looks at the implementation of World Trade Organization accession deals: Is accession the end or the beginning of the story? What are the implications for the participating countries and the multilateral trading system?
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5116 NOV 01, 2009
Cattaneo, Olivier; Braga, Carlos A. PrimoDisclosed
The global economic crisis has triggered rapid responses by governments worldwide to counteract its domestic effects, through fiscal stimulus packages, expansionary monetary policies, and financial bailouts.
... See More + Ad hoc trade policy measures are increasingly being put in place. All countries share the responsibility of preserving a stable and predictable trade policy environment. To this end, trade policies must contribute to maintaining an open trading system consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. With the sharp decline in global merchandise trade volumes, expected to fall by 9 percent in 2009, countries have resorted to an array of measures to counter the detrimental effects of the crisis on their respective economies. Because this decline is a consequence of a deterioration of global demand, trade measures are not an effective response to this problem. On the contrary, policies that contribute to an open and stable trading system are the best policy option for the world community, especially in the current context.
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This paper summarizes the principal reform commitments that Russia has undertaken as part of its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession negotiations, providing detailed assessments in banking, insurance, and agriculture.
... See More + The paper assesses the gains to the Russian economy from these commitments, based on a summary of several modeling efforts undertaken by the author and his colleagues. The author compares Russian commitments with those of other countries that have recently acceded to the WTO to assess the claim that the demands on Russia are excessive due to political considerations. He explains why Russian WTO accession will result in the elimination of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment against Russia. Finally, he discusses the remaining issues in the negotiations and the time frame for Russian accession as of the fall of 2007.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4428 DEC 01, 2007
Poor countries are rarely challenged in formal World Trade Organization trade disputes for failing to live up to commitments, reducing the benefits of their participation in international trade agreements.
... See More + This paper examines the political-economic causes of the failure to challenge poor countries, and discusses the static and dynamic costs and externality implications of this failure. Given the weak incentives to enforce World Trade Organization rules and disciplines against small and poor members, bolstering the transparency function of the World Trade Organization is important for making trade agreements more relevant to trade constituencies in developing countries. Although the paper focuses on the World Trade Organization system, the arguments also apply to reciprocal North-South trade agreements.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4450 DEC 01, 2007
The authors review the international framework governing trade in financial services, describe the treatment of financial services in recent trade agreements involving Latin America and Caribbean countries, and analyze the liberalization commitments made in three selected country case studies-Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica.
... See More + They give emphasis to free trade agreements because of the generally deeper level of liberalization and rule-making achieved to-date. The authors discuss some of the causes and potential implications of their findings.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4181 APR 01, 2007
Reforming agricultural trade for developing countries is a two-volume set. The first volume is subtitled Key issues for a pro- development outcome of the Doha Round, and it is focused on specific concerns that are being encountered in the agricultural negotiations, and on strategies for dealing with them to arrive at a final agreement that will significantly spur growth and reduce poverty in developing countries.
... See More + The companion volume is subtitled Quantifying the impact of multilateral trade reform. It comprises chapters that take different approaches to modeling trade reform and quantifying the resulting benefits and costs to various players in the negotiations. The study explains the differences in results that come out of these different approaches, and compares them to some other recent estimates of the gains from global trade reform.
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Publication 38078 JAN 01, 2007
McCalla, Alex F. [editor]; Nash, John [editor]Disclosed
Theme of this issue is Central Asia and how regional cooperation with neighbors can help these land locked countries succeed. The states have been pretty good at keeping tensions from turning violent by Marta Brill Olcott.
... See More + Economic Performance of the Central Asian Economies by Richard Pomfret. Regional Cooperation in Trade as seen by the Asian Development Bank. The Impact of Kazakhstan Accession to the World Trade Organization by Jesper Jensen and David Tarr. Uzbekistan: in the Slow Lane of the New Silk Roads by Martin Raiser and Dennis De Tray. The Effect of Armed Conflict on Schooling in Tajikistan by Olga Shemyakina. Remittances in Tajikistan by Jariya Hoffman. Dimensions of Urban Poverty in Central Asia by Ellen Hamilton, Christine Kessides, Deniz Baharoglu, Bill Denning, Alexandre Kolev, and Maka Lomaia. Evaluating Pension System Design in the Kyrgyz Republic by Roman Mogilevsky. Kazakhstan Expenditure on Public Health by Meruert Makhmoutova. Promoting Innovation through Technoparks in Kazakhstan by Slavo Radosevic and Marat Myrzakhmet Corporate Philanthropy in Transition by Katarina Svitkova. Enhancing South_South Trade in Goods by Przemyslaw Kowalski and Ben Shepherd.
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The authors analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms.
... See More + They compare GATS commitments with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial variance across transition economies on both actual policies and GATS commitments, the authors find an inverse relationship between the depth of GATS commitments and the "quality" of actual services policies as assessed by the private sector. In part this can be explained by the fact that the prospect of EU accession makes GATS less relevant as a commitment device for a subset of transition economies. But for many of the non-EU accession candidates, the WTO seems to be a weak commitment device. One explanation is that the small size of the markets concerned generates weak external enforcement incentives. The authors' findings suggest greater collective investment by WTO members in monitoring and the need for transparency to increase the benefits of WTO membership to small countries.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS3951 JUN 01, 2006
This paper first explains the potential importance of World Trade Organization (WTO) accession as a development tool, and discusses the recent successful development models and the role of trade policy in their development.
... See More + The paper then summarizes the three parts of the Handbook. The first part treats trade policy (with applications to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS]). The second part treats World Trade Organization institutions and disciplines, again with Russia and CIS applications. And the third part focuses on various aspects of the impact of WTO accession on Russia.
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Agriculture is yet again causing contention in international trade negotiations. It caused long delays to the Uruguay Round in the late 1980s and 1990s, and it is again proving to be the major stumbling block in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations (formally known as the Doha Development Agenda, or DDA).
... See More + It is ironic that agricultural policy is so contentious, given its small and declining importance in the global economy. The question arises on why so much "ado" about agriculture: because policies affecting this declining sector are so politically sensitive, there are always self-interested groups suggesting it be sidelined in trade negotiations-as indeed it has been in numerous sub-global preferential trading agreements, and was in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) prior to the Uruguay Round. To answer some questions, this book first sets the scene (Part I) for presenting the issues on agriculture, trade reform, and the Doha Agenda, seeking to identify what is it at stake, namely, the relative importance of import barriers, export subsidies, and domestic support, including the special and differential treatment for developing countries. Part II looks at the agricultural market access, examining the impact of agricultural tariffs, and of tariff cuts through alternative formulas, on reducing tariffs vs. expanding tariff rate quotas, to then focus on the serious concern of erosion of tariff preferences. The third part concentrates on export subsidies and the domestic support, prioritizing on the removal of the agricultural export subsidies' exception, while taking a new look at agricultural domestic support under the World Trade Organization, and, at the consequences of reducing limits on aggregate measurement of support. Finally, the book provides (Part IV) the Doha reform scenarios, with an in-depth look at the market and welfare implications of the Doha reform.
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Publication 34206 NOV 01, 2005
Anderson, Kym [editor]; Martin, Will [editor]; Hertel, Thomas W.; Keeney, Roman; Josling, Tim; de Gorter, Harry; Kliauga, Erika; Bouet, Antoine; Fontagne, Lionel; Jean, Sebastien; Hoekman, Bernard; Messerlin, Patrick; Hart, Chad E.; Beghin, John C.; Jensen, Hans G.; Zobbe, Henrick; Sumner, Daniel A.; Orden, David; Diaz-Bonilla, Eugenio; van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique; Anderson, Kym; Martin, WillDisclosed
Taking price changes from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade, the authors use a small open economy computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of global free trade and a successful completion of the Doha Agenda on the Russian economy, and especially on the poor.
... See More + They compare those results with the impact of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. The model incorporates all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as "real" households. Crucially, given the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization as part of Russian WTO accession, the authors also include FDI and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects from liberalization of import barriers against goods and FDI in services. The authors estimate that Russian WTO accession in the medium run will result in gains averaged over all Russian households equal to 7.3 percent of Russian consumption (with a standard deviation of 2.2 percent of consumption), with virtually all households gaining. They find that global free trade would result in a weighted average gain to households in Russia of 0.2 percent of consumption, with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption, while a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda would result in a weighted average gain to households of -0.3 percent of consumption (with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption). Russia, as a net food importer, loses from subsidy elimination, and the gains to Russia from tariff cuts in other countries are too small to offset these losses. The results strongly support the view that Russia's own liberalization is more important than improvements in market access as a result of reforms in tariffs or subsidies in the rest of the world. Foremost among the own reforms is liberalization of barriers against FDI in business services.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS3725 OCT 01, 2005
This paper is the introduction and summary chapter of the 43 chapter volume entitled Handbook of Trade Policy and WTO Accession for Development in Russia and the CIS.
... See More + The key policy conclusions of each of the chapters are highlighted in this paper. The Handbook will be published only in Russian in 2005, but an English language version of the majority of the papers described here is available on the website www.worldbank.org/trade/russia-wto. This paper first explains the potential importance of World Trade Organization (WTO) accession as a development tool, and discusses the recent successful development models and the role of trade policy in their development. The paper then summarizes the three parts of the Handbook. The first part treats trade policy (with applications to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS]). The second part treats World Trade Organization institutions and disciplines, again with Russia and CIS applications. And the third part focuses on various aspects of the impact of WTO accession on Russia. The numerous papers that relate trade policy and WTO accession to experience in Russia and the CIS are likely to be of special interest to native English speakers, since these papers are new to the literature. The papers in the Handbook are intended to be non-technical materials accessible to a wide policy audience. The Handbook forms the basis of a World Bank Institute course on trade policy and WTO accession, which has been delivered and will be delivered again on multiple occasions.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS3726 OCT 01, 2005