Economic research and trade policy analysis
Resumen
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2005 comienza con un breve examen de las tendencias destacadas en el comercio internacional centrándose primero en la evolución reciente para examinar a continuación la evolución a medio plazo del sector del petróleo y del sector farmacéutico. La Sección II contiene el tema básico del Informe de este año: las normas y el comercio en el contexto de la OMC. Se analizan en primer lugar los aspectos económicos de las normas y el comercio para abordar después varias cuestiones institucionales y de política. Seguidamente se examinan las normas en el sistema multilateral de comercio. En la Sección III del Informe se estudian tres temas distintos y de actualidad que son importantes para el comercio internacional. Los tres ensayos temáticos de esta Sección se refieren a la utilización de la economía cuantitativa en la solución de diferencias en la OMC el comercio internacional de servicios de transporte aéreo y la deslocalización de los servicios. En el ensayo sobre la utilización del análisis económico cuantitativo en los procedimientos de solución de diferencias de la OMC se explican las técnicas cuantitativas y los modelos econométricos que se han aplicado en la OMC en varios procedimientos de solución de diferencias y se examina cómo se ha utilizado este análisis en una serie de asuntos. En el ensayo sobre el comercio de servicios de transporte aéreo se analizan detenidamente las características básicas del sector y la forma en que ha evolucionado con el paso del tiempo. También se abordan los aspectos económicos de este sector y varias cuestiones relacionadas con la competencia la reglamentación la gobernanza y el comercio de servicios de transporte aéreo. Por último en el ensayo sobre la deslocalización de los servicios se estudian las características económicas de la actividad su alcance y sus consecuencias así como su pertinencia para el Acuerdo General sobre el Comercio de Servicios.
Supply chains in the business literature
Changes in the structure of 20th century international industrial organisation that have incited research interest among economists have also driven a significant body of work in the business literature. Indeed many of the factors driving the changing industrial structure are derived from business. Examples include the innovation and implementation of assembly lines scientific management modularisation lean manufacturing and just-intime production. While the economics literature has produced terminology such as “task trade” “vertical specialisation” and “production sharing” the business literature tends to emphasise “supply chains”. This is in conjunction with terms from political economists and development theorists that include “value chains” “global commodity chains” and “global production networks”. Of these the supply chain provides the most relevant perspective for the business practitioner. Networks of firms are viewed from a focal firm perspective and the supply chain ontology adopts various dimensions to orient a firm with its network surroundings (for example direct-extended-ultimate supply chains horizontal tiers or degrees of separation and vertical structures within each tier). Further functionalising the supply chain concept is the field of supply chain management (SCM). Born from multidisciplinary roots that include logistics marketing management and sociology SCM has developed into a distinct field of study over the past fifty years. SCM theory has only recently reached a state of maturation where it produces operationalisable concepts and tools but progress is being made in advancing both the overarching field of SCM and the specific issues that fall under the SCM umbrella. This chapter will review the overarching field while Part II and its chapters will address the specific issues.
Views of GVC operators
The chapters in this volume discuss different types and configurations of global value chains (GVCs). Authors have covered issues of scale and scope risk size and proliferation of supply chains — particularly in Asia. Many of these broader concerns look quite different viewed up close to business leaders operating in the thick of specific GVCs. This chapter by contrast focuses attention on some key points of interest in supply chains as seen from the perspective of business.
La situation du commerce en 2007
La croissance de la production et des échanges mondiaux s’est ralentie en 2007. La contraction de la demande dans les pays développés a ramené la croissance économique mondiale de 37 à 34 pour cent soit à peu près le taux moyen enregistré au cours des dix dernières années. À 7 pour cent environ la croissance des régions en développement a été près de trois fois supérieure à celle des régions développées et la contribution des pays en développement à la croissance de la production mondiale en 2007 a dépassé 40 pour cent. L’expansion économique des pays les moins avancés a été aussi forte en 2007 que celle des pays en développement pris collectivement maintenant la tendance constatée depuis 2000.
Funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo
La finalidad de esta sección es contextualizar el debate sobre los efectos del comercio y la tecnología en el mercado laboral. El análisis aislado de esos efectos puede dar la impresión equivocada de que el comercio y/o la tecnología son los principales factores que influyen en el empleo y los salarios. Sin embargo como se explica en esta sección los niveles de empleo o desempleo y los salarios vienen determinados en gran medida por el funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo. Dicho de otro modo los efectos de la tecnología o el comercio en el funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo dependen en gran medida de las condiciones institucionales del mercado de trabajo de la evolución económica y de la diversificación de las oportunidades de empleo en caso de perturbación.
The WTO and the Changing State of the Global Economy
The world economy is showing signs of recovery after several years of lacklustre performance although major policy uncertainties may easily upset this fragile trend. To jumpstart economies and trade after the financial crisis of 2008–9 governments across the world employed a traditional mix of fiscal monetary and structural policies. These efforts helped to prevent a deeper crisis but fell short of pulling the world out of a period of stagnation in 2012–16. Trade in particular slowed relative to its historical performance and to overall economic growth. Meanwhile political and social pressures have led to inward-looking policies in large countries. Other challenges – from civil and military conflicts to scattered terrorism – have also contributed to this inward turn. Against this background this chapter discusses the need for a new and more flexible global economic architecture. It would require reforms at all levels starting with revamping the structural foundations for growth and trade applying solid ground-level macroeconomic policies in individual countries and rebuilding the upper floors of multilateral cooperation i.e. upgrading it and making it more adaptable and responsive to the requirements of the twenty-first century. In the trade area key pillars to support this structure include innovative mechanisms of trade liberalization in both new and traditional areas increased inclusiveness of trade recognition and financing of adjustment costs effective communication on trade a redefined role and functions for the WTO upgraded multilateral rules and strong leadership. With radical changes needed WTO accessions have already contributed and could contribute even more to each of these pillars.
Acknowledgements and Disclaimer
The World Trade Report 2018 was prepared under the general responsibility of Xiaozhun Yi WTO Deputy Director-General and Robert Koopman Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division. This year the Report was coordinated by Cosimo Beverelli and Emmanuelle Ganne. The authors of the Report are Marc Bacchetta Eddy Bekkers Cosimo Beverelli Emmanuelle Ganne John Hancock Mark Koulen Andreas Maurer José-Antonio Monteiro Coleman Nee Roberta Piermartini Stela Rubinova Viktor Stolzenburg Robert Teh and Ankai Xu (Economic Research and Statistics Division).
Recent trends
International trade rebounded in 2002 from its contraction in the preceding year growing at about 2.5 per cent in volume terms which was faster than the growth of global output. The rebound occurred despite the weakness of the global economic recovery greatly reduced capital flows major changes in exchange rates increased restrictions on international trade transactions to mitigate risks from terrorism and rising geopolitical tensions. Trade growth was strong in Asia and the transition economies largely reflecting better economic performance in those regions. However trade was stagnant in Western Europe and contracted in Latin America as a result of economic turmoil in a number of countries in the region. North America’s imports recovered in line with stronger domestic demand while exports continued to decrease in 2002.
Services trade in the future
This section attempts to provide some guidance as to how services trade patterns will change. Using a novel approach this section begins by showing recent trends in trade costs related to services and identifying the factors affecting these costs. Then major future trends in technology demography income and climate change are examined with a view to explaining how these trends can affect the choice of which services countries trade and with whom they trade as well as how they trade. Finally the potential impact of these trends on trade in services is quantified using the WTO Global Trade Model.
Transforming Accessions Data into Knowledge
Accessions to the World Trade Organization (WTO) generate large amounts of data accumulated during accession negotiations and subsequent domestic reforms. Owing to differences in the structure of acceding economies accession commitments vary across recently acceded or Article XII members in the number of tariff lines bound the level of bindings and the various accession-specific commitments and obligations. The depth of commitments and extent of post-accession implementation influence the effectiveness of benefits derived by new members from WTO accession. In spite of the generally positive economic performance exhibited by all Article XII members disparities exist in their country-specific economic performance in terms of trade foreign direct investment (FDI) and gross domestic product (GDP) growth. This chapter analyses the impact and depth of accession commitments to assess the economic effects of WTO accession. It explores how the data from accessions acquis can assist policy-makers in implementing structural reforms and integrating their countries into regional and global value chains. An Accession Commitment Index is proposed as a basis for a statistical exploration of the impact of WTO accession on a series of variables related to economic growth. Using an extension of the difference-in-difference methodological approach the chapter finds that WTO accession generally has a positive and significant impact on the acceding economy’s trade and economic performance. The results also show that the impact of WTO membership on the trade/GDP ratio in developing countries is significantly higher than in previous studies.
Trade in natural resources: Introduction
Natural resources are fundamental for human life. Non-renewables such as oil and natural gas are transformed into the energy that is essential for the production of virtually any other good or service. Renewable resources such as forests fisheries and aquifers are some of the world’s most precious natural assets. Properly managed they also have the potential to provide an unending stream of products that contribute greatly to the quality of human life. Natural resources represent a significant and growing share of world trade and amounted to some 24 per cent of total merchandise trade in 2008. The volume of this trade has been quite steady over the past decade but in value terms has grown annually at 20 per cent.
Política de innovación, comercio y desafío digital
Esta sección se centra en la política de innovación y examina sus justificaciones económicas y su repercusión en la innovación. Para que esta tenga lugar hay que crear nuevos conocimientos mediante la inversión en investigación y a continuación divulgarlos a través del sistema educativo o de publicaciones patentes e intercambios de ideas. Cuando las empresas o los Gobiernos fomentan el progreso tecnológico utilizando estos conocimientos o su materialización a través de invenciones para modificar procesos comportamientos o tecnologías el crecimiento económico puede verse afectado en función de una serie de variables. En cualquier país la difusión de nueva tecnología depende de las instituciones el nivel de apertura económica y la inversión en educación e investigación.
Foreword
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the world economy. Mobility restrictions imposed by governments anxious to contain the virus have profoundly impacted the networks of complex production-sharing known as global value chains. However these networks were under pressure even before the pandemic. A general stagnation in the pace of globalization has persisted since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis punctuated at times by trade disputes.
Trade Openness and Vulnerability to Poverty in Viet Nam under Doi Moi
Following the so-called “Asian option” of transition from the early 1990s Viet Nam adopted the Doi Moi (renovation) process a combination of liberalization stabilization and structural reforms. This included two main waves of trade liberalization one in the 1990s and a second in the 2000s (Coello at al. 2010). The first wave lasted from the initial opening of the country until approximately 2001 and foresaw the total abolition of trade licences and the removal of most quantitative restrictions (Thanh and Duong 2009). The second wave—still ongoing—includes the full involvement of the country in the global network of reciprocal trade agreements (both multilateral WTO accession in January 2007 and bilateral such as agreements signed with the United States in 2001 as well as FTA negotiations with the EU concluded in 2016).
Higher Education Response to India’s IT Boom: Did State Governments Play a Role?
The contribution of information technology (IT) to India’s GDP increased from 1.2 per cent in 1997 to 9.3 per cent in 2015. A notable characteristic of this phenomenon is that the majority of the growth in this sector is driven by exports. Currently more than 80 per cent of IT output is exported. This sector is thus very vulnerable to demand shocks in the world economy. Also unlike the export of most goods the export of IT services relies exclusively on the Internet the expansion of which in the 1990s is a relatively recent phenomenon. The combination of worldwide rapid Internet growth along with rising demand for computing skills created an unprecedented demand for Indian IT services: from 1998 IT exports and employment doubled in a span of just two years.