Economic research and trade policy analysis
Impact of trade on labour market outcomes
This section looks at the empirical evidence on the effect of trade on wages and employment and addresses the following key questions: what is the evidence of the impact of import competition and offshoring on the level of wages and employment? What is the impact of increased market access for exports and the availability of cheaper imported inputs on employment? How can varied empirical evidence across countries be reconciled? How does the functioning of the labour market affect outcomes? How large are trade-induced adjustment costs? This section focuses particularly on wages and employment because research on other dimensions of labour markets such as employment stability and security is much less developed due to lack of cross-country data and thus does not allow for a comparison of how trade and technology play out on these other variables.
Main findings and conclusions
One of the most pressing issues confronting the multilateral trade system today is the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Much has been written about why governments might choose to negotiate preferentially or multilaterally but this literature has been written almost exclusively from the perspective of governments. We know very little about how non-state actors (NSAs) view the issue of forum choice or how they position themselves to influence choices by governments about whether to emphasize PTAs or the World Trade Organization (WTO). The case studies in this book have sought to address these issues through interviews with state and non-state actors involved in trade policy-making in eight countries.
Foreword
Services are often largely overlooked in discussions on global trade yet they account for the majority of trade in many developed economies and are growing rapidly in many developing economies as well. This is perhaps because services are less tangible and the issues surrounding services trade are often more complex. This report therefore sets out to demystify trade in services. It aims to shed new light on this essential part of global trade provide a detailed picture of trade in services today and consider how it might evolve in the coming years particularly as new technologies make some services increasingly tradeable.
The year 2012: WTO accession of Montenegro – why did we apply to join? Priorities and results
Montenegro’s path to becoming a member of the WTO began in 1966 when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). However pursuant to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1992 its application to continue as part of the GATT was not accepted. In 2000 the FRY re-started the process of accession to the WTO aware that WTO membership would increase its competitiveness in the international market with the acquisition of the so-called ‘WTO label’. In 2004 Montenegro decided to continue the accession process as an independent customs territory. This chapter describes the process of Montenegro’s accession up to and beyond its becoming a member of the WTO in 2012. With the country’s membership in the WTO an entirely new chapter begins in comparison to the period prior to accession negotiations. Post-accession the interest of each member is to be involved as much as possible in the activities of the WTO and to seek the scope to influence the decisions and rules that will be applied in the future.
Making Trade Multilateralism Work for All: The Role of WTO Accessions
Trade multilateralism i.e. global trade based on negotiated and agreed rules by the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership faces various challenges. Slow economic growth changes in the balance of global economic power and inequitable distribution of growth benefits have called into question the benefits of globalization and the rules-based global order. Trade has been the target of a barrage of criticism from many quarters and has become a lightning rod for policy failures weaknesses in international cooperation and the adverse effects of rapid technological advances on jobs and incomes. In this tortuous and uncertain environment concerted policy actions along several strategic axes are needed to put trade back on track and make trade multilateralism work for all once again. First trade multilateralism must be used as a tool to restart global economic growth and job creation while managing uncertainty and risks. Second a global trading system anchored in the WTO – with strong well-enforced rules that continue to adjust to promote competition and a level playing field – remains critical. Third the new realities of the twenty-first century compel an upgrade of the multilateral trading system by the building of its upper floors1 on the foundation of the existing trade rules and accumulated acquis and expertise. Such a system would preserve the fundamental set of rules at the core of the multilateral system abolish or revise obsolete rules which have not stood the test of time and adopt new rules that would reflect new realities. Fourth accessions to the WTO are arguably the most vibrant component of the multilateral trading system and have already made important contributions to each of these policy directions. The objective of this book is to draw on recent accession experiences to distil the impact of accessions on the constantly evolving architecture of the multilateral trading system.
Executive Summary
The theme of the Global Value Chain Development Report 2021 is Beyond Production. Most research on global value chains (GVCs) focuses on manufacturing production; in other words the breaking up of production processes into many discrete steps with a resulting explosion of trade in parts and components. But there are aspects of GVCs that go beyond manufacturing processes; in fact value added and employment generation in GVCs are depending less and less on manufacturing production. This year’s report features research on these aspects. For example by highlighting the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) and closely related to that the role of intellectual property (IP) in setting up GVCs. Value chains are an efficient way for firms to exploit their brands patents and other IP. In the extreme this leads to “factoryless” production in which firms that design and market manufactured products own none of the production process. An important part of modern GVCs consists of innovator countries exporting the services of their IP in return for manufactured goods.
Defining subsidies
At the origins of the GATT little attention was given to the trade impact of subsidies. However contracting parties soon appreciated the need to deal with subsidies in order to secure the value of their agreed tariff concessions. A country can undermine its market access commitments by providing subsidies to import-competing industries. In addition subsidies given to competing exporters in third countries can divert trade away from a country that had relied on negotiated market access to another market. These concerns led to the development of more stringent disciplines on subsidies than those initially provided for under the GATT (1947). A major step was the negotiation of the plurilateral “Subsidies Code” during the Tokyo Round and thereafter of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) and the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
The potential economic impact of Aid for Trade in the MENA region: The case of Jordan
Many developing and least-developed countries (LDCs) remain on the margins of global trade attract limited foreign or domestic investment and have achieved only very limited success in the diversification of their supply of goods and services. Within the framework of Aid for Trade (AFT) attempts are being made to explore strategies to connect firms in developing countries and LDCs to international value chains. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has defined AFT as projects and programmes that have been identified as trade development priorities in the recipient country’s national development strategies. The AFT Task Force established in 2006 underlined that clear and agreed benchmarks are necessary for the global monitoring of AFT efforts. The following categories of AFT were identified: trade policy and regulations (including trade facilitation); trade development; trade-related infrastructure; building productive capacity; trade-related adjustment; and other trade-related needs. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) developing countries that have participated in international trade – including trade with other emerging economies – make rapid progress in poverty reduction and job creation (UNDP 2013).
The ITA Committee: 15 years of encouraging trade
The ITA Committee was established to oversee the implementation of the ITA including to review the product coverage consult on non-tariff barriers (NTBs) consider classification divergences and serve as a forum to work out disagreements between participants.
Executive summary
Unprecedented economic growth over the last quarter of a century has necessarily been accompanied by unprecedented economic change.
Executive summary
At the Fourth World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting held in Doha in November 2001 Ministers launched a comprehensive set of multilateral trade negotiations and a work programme. This mandate is sometimes referred to as the Doha Development Agenda reflecting a shared desire to ensure that the trading system is relevant and responsive to the needs of developing countries. Among the areas covered by the negotiations or the work programme are market access in manufactures agriculture and services certain rules (including anti-dumping subsidies and countervailing measures and regional arrangements) trade and environment trade-related intellectual property rights the relationship between trade and investment the interaction between trade and competition policy transparency in government procurement trade facilitation and dispute settlement. Developing countries were particularly instrumental in putting certain issues on the agenda including trade and technology transfer trade debt and finance small economies implementation issues (mostly pending from the Uruguay Round) and special and differential treatment. Views continue to differ on how and in some cases whether to include all the issues mentioned above in the negotiations which are due for completion at the end of 2004.
The road to the Information Technology Agreement
The Information Technology Agreement (ITA) was a landmark trade deal signed by 14 WTO members and states or separate customs territories in the process of acceding to the WTO in December 1996. Not only was it the first sectoral agreement to be successfully negotiated among developed and developing countries but it was also the first one to fully liberalize trade in a specific sector (with an estimated worth of US$ 500 billion a year) after the Uruguay Round.
Transnational corporations and the global supply chain
Accounts differ but it is probably right to say that there are between 63000 and 77000 transnational corporations (TNCs) driving today’s global economy. TNCs’ presence and influence are felt everywhere from New York to Bangalore to Nairobi by people in all walks of life by wealthy shareholders and assembly-line workers earning the minimum wage. TNCs dominate world production foreign direct investment (FDI) and international distribution networks. Their assets and revenues are sometimes compared (usually incorrectly) with small nations’ gross domestic product (GDP). Such comparisons are utterly misleading because those making them usually confuse the gross sales of the companies with countries’ GDP.
Prólogo del Director General de la OMC
La historia del progreso económico es la historia del cambio económico. Es una historia de apogeo y decadencia de industrias enteras como resultado de la aparición de nuevas ideas e innovaciones que requieren competencias nuevas. Este incesante proceso de transformación ha configurado la economía mundial actual proporcionando más prosperidad a miles de millones de personas en todo el mundo y convirtiendo la capacidad de ajuste y adaptación en un elemento esencial del éxito económico. Ahora como ya sucediera en el pasado las personas las empresas y las sociedades se esfuerzan por responder a la rápida evolución de las condiciones económicas a fin de asegurar su participación en los beneficios. Lo que es diferente hoy en día es la notable velocidad con que se están produciendo estos cambios.
The incidence of subsidies
This Section provides an overview of the use of subsidies both at the global level and at different levels of geographical and sectoral disaggregation. Given the quantity and quality of the available data it is not possible to provide a comprehensive and systematic picture of the incidence of subsidies.