Economic research and trade policy analysis
The landscape of regional trade agreements and WTO surveillance
Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have become so prominent in recent years that they permeate much of the discourse on international trade. The current scale of RTA proliferation is unprecedented both in quantitative and qualitative terms. A bewildering range of geographical configurations and varying policy content characterize the new agreements. This trend is likely to continue. The embrace of RTAs by virtually every trading nation carries systemic implications for the multilateral trading system most notably through increased discrimination and complexity in trade relations and by undermining the transparency and predictability of trade relations.
Global value chain-oriented industrial policy: The role of emerging economies
In the past two decades profound changes in the structure of the global economy have reshaped global production and trade and altered the organization of industries and national economies. The geographic fragmentation of industries where value is added in multiple countries before products make their way to consumers has been accompanied by vast improvements in the functional integration of these far-flung activities creating what have come to be known as global value chains or GVCs. As supply chains become global in scope more intermediate goods are traded across borders and more imported parts and components are embodied in exports (Feenstra 1998). In 2009 world exports of intermediate goods exceeded the combined export values of final and capital goods for the first time representing 51 per cent of non-fuel merchandise exports (WTO and IDE-JETRO 2011). Governments and international organizations are taking notice of the effects of GVCs on global trade and development (OECD 2011; WTO and IDE-JETRO 2011; UNCTAD 2013; World Economic Forum 2013).
Agradecimientos y Descargo de responsabilidad
El Informe sobre el comercio mundial 2019 ha sido elaborado bajo la responsabilidad general de Xiaozhun Yi Director General Adjunto de la OMC y Robert Koopman Director de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística. El informe de este año ha sido coordinado por Emmanuelle Ganne y Stela Rubínová (División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística) y por Antonia Carzaniga (División de Comercio de Servicios e Inversión). Los principales autores del Informe son Barbara d’Andrea Andreas Maurer Roberta Piermartini y Robert Teh (División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística) y Antonia Carzaniga. Otros autores son Marc Auboin Eddy Bekkers John Hancock Kathryn Lundquist José-Antonio Monteiro Coleman Nee Victor Stolzenburg Ankai Xu y Qing Ye (División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística); Pamela Apaza Markus Jelitto Joscelyn Magdeleine Juan Marchetti Martin Roy y Lee Tuthill (División de Comercio de Servicios e Inversión); y Rainer Lanz (División de Desarrollo).
Commerce des marchandises et des services en valeur (nominale) en 2009
La valeur en dollars du commerce mondial des marchandises a diminué de 23 pour cent en 2009 pour s’établir à 12 100 milliards de dollars EU contre 16 100 milliards en 2008 (voir le tableau 1 de l’Appendice). Cette baisse a été due en partie à la diminution du volume des échanges le reste s’expliquant principalement par la baisse des prix des produits de base en particulier le pétrole en 2009. Après avoir atteint des niveaux record en 2008 les prix mondiaux du pétrole brut ont baissé de 37 pour cent en 2009 passant de 95 dollars EU à 60 dollars EU le baril en moyenne. De ce fait l’évolution du commerce en valeur nominale dans certains pays et régions peut être très différente de son évolution en volume en particulier dans le cas des exportateurs de pétrole et des importateurs de pétrole.
Why services trade matters
This section examines the role of trade in services in helping countries to achieve rapid and inclusive growth. Section C.1 discusses and attempts to quantify how services trade benefits the economy and promotes growth. Section C.2 discusses the role trade in services plays in enhancing domestic firms’ competitiveness not only in the services sector but also in manufacturing. Section C.3 considers how services trade promotes inclusiveness in a number of areas such as skills gender and location of economic activity. Section C.4 concludes.
Dictionary of Trade Policy Terms
This is an accessible guide to the vocabulary used in trade negotiations. It explains about 2500 terms and concepts in simple language. Its main emphasis is on the multilateral trading system represented by the agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO). In addition it covers many of the trade-related activities outcomes and terms used in other international organizations such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD) the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OECD. The last five years have seen a rapid spread in the formation of freetrade areas in all parts of the world. This dictionary allocates generous space to the vocabulary associated with such agreements. It offers clear explanations for example of the concepts used in the administration of preferential rules of origin. Additional areas covered include emerging trade issues and issues based particularly on developing-country concerns.
Prefacio del director general
En los últimos meses el comercio ha sufrido su mayor contracción desde el decenio de 1930 como consecuencia del considerable deterioro económico global provocado en primer lugar por el colapso de importantes instituciones financieras. El crecimiento del comercio se expresará este año en cifras fuertemente negativas y es poco probable que antes de 2010 vuelva a registrarse un crecimiento sostenido. Esta adversidad está poniendo a prueba severamente la imaginación política de los gobiernos en todo el planeta y en un mundo interdependiente como el de hoy su voluntad de hacer causa común en la tarea de afrontar desafíos que son de todos. Hoy como nunca son imprescindibles la cooperación internacional efectiva y los mercados abiertos.
Services market opening: Salience, results and meaning
This chapter is structured around three questions. What advances have been made on services market opening? what have been the specific market access commitments of least-developed countries (LDCs)? And what is the progress made with domestic regulation disciplines? This chapter examines the extent to which the services-specific commitments and domestic regulatory disciplines of Article XII members differ from those undertaken by original WTO members at similar levels of development. Although no single indicator exists that can be used to make this comparison given the textual nature of specific commitments as opposed to the numerical properties of tariffs several other possible parameters exist which could be used alone or in combination to assess such departures. The evidence and patterns in Article XII members’ services market access commitments and regulatory state-of-play and advances are examined. The trends and patterns in the depth and sectoral coverage of commitments are identified. The results from accession negotiations on the rules are reviewed with particular focus on how they compare to the envisaged disciplines on domestic regulation under the General Agreement on Trade in Services Article VI:4. Finally the performance of Article XII LDC members in their WTO accession services negotiations is reviewed. Overall the evidence indicates that Article XII members’ services bindings go further than those of original WTO members.
Conclusión
El mundo tal como lo conocemos ha sido definido por las innovaciones tecnológicas. Muchas personas han acogido la aparición de una nueva tecnología la cadena de bloques (una tecnología de registro distribuido) a la que consideran el próximo gran factor de cambio con entusiasmo y optimismo. La cadena de bloques que permite compartir registros digitales y datos de manera segura transparente e inalterable sin necesidad de depender de un único tercero de confianza promete avances interesantes. Esta tecnología podría permitir a los particulares y a las empresas de todo el mundo efectuar transacciones de manera más eficiente más barata y más rápida preservando al mismo tiempo un elevado nivel de seguridad. Al simplificar y digitalizar procesos en los que participan múltiples partes interesadas y que hasta ahora dependían en gran medida del papel reduciendo así los costes de procesamiento verificación seguimiento coordinación y transporte podría tener repercusiones importantes en la forma en que se realizan las operaciones comerciales ya se trate de transacciones comerciales transfronterizas financieras o físicas. Podría reducir el fraude mejorar la gestión de los derechos de propiedad intelectual mejorar la rastreabilidad y la confianza en las cadenas de valor y brindar nuevas oportunidades a las pequeñas empresas.
Globalization and economic volatility
Businesses and households face substantial idiosyncratic and aggregate economic risk. As a general principle economic risk for businesses reflects the myriad of factors that impact the profitability of the business while for individuals economic risk reflects the myriad of factors that impact the earnings and employment outcomes of household members. While aggregate risk gets most of the headlines the volatility of profitability and income that an individual business or household faces is dominated by idiosyncratic risk. That is of the plethora of economic shocks impacting the outcomes for households and businesses the evidence shows that the variance of idiosyncratic shocks is at least an order of magnitude larger than the variance of aggregate shocks. For example whether a business is profitable reflects primarily idiosyncratic factors such as product quality product mix and choice of technology broadly defined including the choice of business organization factor mix location and business-specific productivity and cost and demand factors. Similarly for households earnings and employment outcomes primarily reflect the education and skills of household members as well as whether household members are well matched in the labour market.
Conclusion
The health and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted both the vulnerabilities and the strengths of the interconnected global economy which has at its core the multilateral trading system. This report has examined the resilience of the global economy to crises how trade plays a pivotal role in developing resilience and in what ways the global trade system can be improved to allow countries to prepare for cope with and recover from crises.
Responses to Trade Opening: Evidence and Lessons from Asia
Over the last 3 decades several developing countries have liberalized their trade regimes. This may have happened either due partially to conditionalities imposed by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund in response to emergency requests for loans in the context of a country’s accession to the World Trade Organization or as a result of the signature of a preferential trade agreement. In many cases the reforms may have stemmed from a country’s own disappointment with its growth performance during its import substitution phase. While movement toward free trade is expected to expand the size of the overall economic pie such changes always produce both losers and winners. In fact it is this creation of winners and losers along with “individualspecific uncertainty” (Fernandez and Rodrik 1991) about who benefits and who loses from reforms that has led to the delays in trade reforms appropriately called “status quo bias.”
Introduction
Trade and production networks are not new. Firms have been producing items with components sourced from around the globe for centuries. Businesses have continuously sought out new markets for their products. What have changed however are the speed scale depth and breadth of global interactions. Increasingly new players have become active in what have come to be called global value chains or global supply chains. This process of organization has brought entirely new issues to the table for consideration.
Foreword by the Director-General
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is the world’s first general multilateral trade agreement. It was signed in 1947 and came into force on 1 January 1948. As the contracting parties began to implement what is more widely known as the GATT 1947 it is unlikely they would have foreseen the full magnitude of the political and economic importance of their accord and its enduring impact as a fundamental framework for multilateral trade right up to the present day.