WTO Working Papers

The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral Agreement, meaning that it comprises only a subset of the full Membership of the WTO. Currently, a number of WTO Members that are not Parties to the Agreement either are actively seeking accession to it, have commitments to accede to the GPA in their respective WTO accession protocols or are, on their own initiative, looking at the poten Read More

One of the goals of the multilateral trading system is to enhance the stability and predictability of the environment in which traders operate. Binding tariffs at the WTO reduces the scope for their discretionary use. But, countries have bound tariffs at ceiling levels often substantially above the level of applied tariffs. Therefore, whether the ceiling rate at which countries have committed at the WTO is sufficient to diminish tra Read More

In this paper, the two way relationship between deep integration and production networks trade is investigated. Deep integration is captured by a set of indices constructed in terms of policy areas covered in preferential trade agreements. An augmented gravity equation is estimated to investigate the impact of deep integration on production networks. The results show that on average, signing deeper agreements increa Read More

Costa Rica has managed to combine an active agenda in the Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTNs) at the WTO with the negotiation of several Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Such PTAs, most notably those with the US, China and the EU, will boost the share of total exports benefiting from preferential access in the destination markets from 24% to over 83%. Along this path of trade liberalization, the country has placed Read More

There is a stark contrast between the ambitious investment promotion efforts of many least developed countries (LDCs) and their often minimal commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Service (GATS). At a time of urgent need to address domestic infrastructure and investment gaps, this situation cannot be a positive signal for investors (either domestic or foreign), and may be a missed opportunity to Read More

Decision making in the WTO has become ever more difficult as the number of members increases and the range of issues tackled broadens. This paper looks at reasons why aspects of decision-making might be changed and discusses a number of potential pitfalls that change would have to avoid, such as a dilution of commitments and fragmentation of the multilateral trading system. It then takes a detailed look at the notion Read More

We examine the impact of banking crises on the duration of trade relations. We also investigate the effect of product-level characteristics, such as the size of exports and exporting experience, and of sector-level financial dependence variables, on the time to recover after a banking crisis. Using highly disaggregated US import data from 157 countries between 1996 and 2009, we first provide evidence that banking crises negative Read More

As governments increasingly adopt policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concern has grown on two fronts. First, carbon leakage can occur when mitigation policies are not the same across countries and producers seek to locate in jurisdictions where production costs are least affected by emission constraints. The risk of carbon leakage raises questions about the efficacy of climate change policies in a global sense. Seco Read More

This paper shows that the institutional environment and the ability to export on time are sources of comparative advantage as important as factors of production. In particular, the ability to export on time is crucial to explain comparative advantage in intermediate goods. These findings underscore the importance of investing in infrastructure and fostering trade facilitation to boost a country's participation in production n Read More