WTO Working Papers

This paper examines how services trade and policies contribute to connectivity. It highlights the economic relevance of services and identifies some key channels through which trade in services contributes to physical and digital connectivity. The paper examines the impact of services trade policies on connectivity in view of recent research showing their impact on sectoral performance, economic welfare and development. F Read More

The process leading to WTO accession is complex, requires solid domestic coordination mechanisms in the acceding country, a rethinking of its economic and trade policies and significant domestic structural reforms. It often implies the creation of new institutions designed to coordinate and implement the policies at the national level, as was the case in Georgia.

The interplay between patents and standards in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector has been intensively debated at international, regional and national levels over the past decades. In essence, the debate is firstly about the extent and impact of patent holdup and holdout in the ICT sector, and then about how to eliminate or reduce these practices.

Trade has been recognized in the 2030 development Agenda as well as in the Addis Ababa Agenda for Action as an important means for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The WTO's plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement ("the GPA" or "the Agreement") is an important ongoing success story for the Organization. In March 2012, the GPA Parties completed a comprehensive revision of the Agreement, encompassing both its text and coverage (market access commitments). The revised GPA, the negotiating processes that led to its adoption and coming into force, and the contin Read More

Trade costs such as applied tariffs, transportation and insurance costs are amplified as they pass through the multiple production steps associated with modern supply chains. This socalled "cascade effect" arises since trade costs accumulate as intermediate goods are imported and then re-exported further downstream, going through different processing nodes before reaching the final consumer. Moreover, the financial im Read More

After a decade of negotiations and additional preparatory work, the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) is poised to enter into force. It promises to streamline and substantially prune the red tape that all too often slows and impedes international commerce - thereby significantly reducing both cost and time needed to do business across borders. The paper chronicles the path from the conclusion of the talks at the Read More

This paper reviews the different types of provisions explicitly addressing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including micro firms (MSMEs), in regional trade agreements (RTAs). The analysis covers the 270 RTAs currently in force and notified to the WTO as of April 2016. The analysis shows that half of all the notified RTAs, namely 136 agreements, incorporate at least one provision mentioning explicitly SMEs. These SMEs-rela Read More

The objective of this manuscript is to serve as a practical guide for estimations with the structural gravity model. After a brief review of the theoretical foundations, we summarize the main challenges with gravity estimations and we review the solutions to address those challenges. Then, we integrate the latest developments in the empirical gravity literature and we offer six recommendations to obtain reliable partial equili Read More

The objective of this manuscript is to serve as a practical guide for evaluation of the general equilibrium (GE) effects of trade policy using the structural gravity model. We try to achieve this objective in four steps. First, we focus on the original Armington-CES gravity model to offer a deep analysis of the structural relationships underlying the general equilibrium gravity system, and how they can be exploited to make trade p Read More