Economic research and trade policy analysis
Towards health and trade policy coherence
There is common ground between health and trade and between the objectives of the WHO and the WTO. The WHO's objective is "the attainment of all peoples of the highest possible level of health" and WHO defines health as "a state of complete physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". Good health is one important building block for sustainable economic development. With regard to trade an underlying assumption is that a liberal international trade regime subject to reasonably stable and predictable conditions improves the climate for investment production and employment creation and therefore contributes to economic growth and development. Generally the health status of a country is affected positively by such growth. This expectation is reflected in the opening words of the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization
Balancing legal certainty with regulatory flexibility
The concept of legal certainty is a central element of most legal systems in the world (Maxeiner 2008: 28). It can be associated with the rule of law but variations exist concerning its exact contours and its relative importance vis-à-vis other fundamental legal principles. In particular legal certainty is often contrasted with principles of justice or rightfulness (von Arnauld 2006: 638). Indeed a formal understanding of legal certainty which focuses on issues of stability and consistency does not guarantee a fair and just outcome. More fundamentally even though legal certainty is one of the most effective safeguards against governmental and administrative arbitrariness it offers no protection against unjust or unfair laws. How can the potential for conflict between legal certainty and justice be solved?
Should high domestic value added in exports be an objective of policy?
Global value chains make it easier for developing countries to move away from export reliance on unprocessed primary products to become exporters of manufactures and services. Global value chains (GVCs) allow countries to specialize in a particular activity and join a global production network. As a developing country moves from export of primary products to export of manufactures and services via GVCs the ratio of domestic value added to gross export value tends to fall. Many developing country policy-makers worry about this trend and aspire to increase their value added contribution to exports. There are a number of reasons why this objective is not good policy. It may seem like simple math that a higher domestic value added share means more total value added exported and hence more GDP. But that simple idea ignores the reality that imported goods and services are a key support to a country’s competitiveness. The chapter documents this via the history of the successful East Asian industrializers as well as more recent evidence from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies. If a country artificially replaces key inputs with inferior domestic versions the end result is likely to be fewer gross exports and less not more total value added exports.
Acknowledgements
The World Trade Report 2004 was prepared under the general direction of Deputy Director-General Dr. Kipkorir Aly Azad Rana. Patrick Low Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division led the team responsible for writing the Report. The principal authors of the Report were Bijit Bora Zdenek Drabek K. Michael Finger Marion Jansen Alexander Keck Patrick Low Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås Roberta Piermartini and Robert Teh. Barbara D’Andrea of the Economic Research and Statistics Division co-authored Section IB.2. Jeffrey Gertler of the Legal Affairs Division contributed to the writing of Section IB.1. Mukela Luanga of the Economic Research and Statistics Division provided critical input to a number of the principal authors. Trade statistics and tariff information were provided by the Statistics Group of the Economic Research and Statistics Division coordinated by Guy Karsenty Julia de Verteuil Andreas Maurer and Jürgen Richtering.
Selected trade developments and issues
The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) came to an end on 1 January 2005. Much interest not to mention concern was expressed about the likely impact on production and trade of the removal of quota restrictions. It was apparent to most observers that there would be winners and losers from the additional liberalization. It is too early to say how the market will look beyond the relatively short period upon which we can base our observations but this note looks at what we know so far about the pattern of trade that has emerged since the quantitative restrictions were (largely) removed. A caveat is in order here: there can be little doubt that the termination of the AT C affected the patterns of trade observed in 2005 but we have not developed a rigorous analytical approach to the question of what other factors might also influence the pattern of trade flows.
The Rise of the People’s Republic of China and Its Competition Effects on Innovation in Japan
As a reaction to import competition from low-wage economies firms in developed economies would respond by upgrading their innovative activities leading to so-called defensive skill-biased innovation. In this chapter we examine this “defensive innovation” hypothesis which was first discussed in Wood (1994) and subsequently formalized in Thoenig and Verdier (2003). In a broader context the effect of competition on the rate of innovation has been one of the most studied areas in the literature (e.g. Aghion et al. 2005). In the study most relevant to our work Bloom Draca and Van Reenen (2016) found that a large sample of European firms increased a wide range of their innovative activities (patenting research and development [R&D] expenditures computer use and total factor productivity growth) driven by intensified competition from the People’s Republic of China. This innovation was conducted within-firm.
Théorie du commerce international et ressources naturelles
Cette section examine les principaux aspects du commerce des ressources naturelles du point de vue théorique. Le commerce est-il un mécanisme efficace pour assurer l’accès aux ressources naturelles ? Quel est son impact sur des ressources finies ou épuisables notamment dans des conditions de «libre accès» lorsque la propriété d’une ressource naturelle et l’accès à cette ressource sont communs ? Y a-t-il une relation entre le commerce et son impact sur l’environnement ? Est-ce que le commerce renforce ou atténue les problèmes liés à la prépondérance des ressources naturelles dans certaines économies ? Et comment influe-t-il sur la volatilité des prix des ressources ? L’examen de ces grandes questions s’appuie sur la littérature théorique consacrée à l’analyse des déterminants et des effets du commerce des ressources naturelles.
Agradecimientos y Descargo de responsabilidad
El Informe sobre el comercio mundial 2017 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 Marc Bacchetta y José- Antonio Monteiro. Los autores del Informe son Marc Bacchetta Cosimo Beverelli John Hancock Mark Koulen Viktor Kummritz José-Antonio Monteiro Roberta Piermartini Stela Rubinova y Robert Teh (División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística).
Introducción
Los servicios se han convertido en el sector más dinámico del comercio mundial pero por vías que no siempre se reconocen ni se comprenden. Así como han llegado a dominar muchas economías nacionales los servicios también desempeñan un papel más importante en la economía mundial. Aunque esto se debe a muchos factores como el consumo la liberalización y la inversión el factor determinante es la tecnología. Servicios que antes eran difíciles de comercializar porque solo podían prestarse físicamente son cada vez más fáciles de comercializar porque pueden prestarse digitalmente. En el Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2019 se examina esta globalización de los servicios: por qué se produce de qué modo está afectando a las economías y dónde es necesario introducir nuevos enfoques de política.
Selected issues in trade and trade policy
South-South trade has long been promoted as a means to reduce the dependence of developing countries on markets of developed countries and to enhance diversification of Southern exports beyond primary commodities. Most of the mechanisms that were created to foster co-operation among developing countries were largely subregional and regional arrangements many of them preferential in nature. During the 1950s and 1960s the promotion of South-South trade was in many instances part of a set of policy measures anchored in a strategy of import substitution behind high trade barriers. South-South trade grew in spurts as developing country economies went through stop and go cycles. Despite efforts to promote and diversify South-South trade primary products continued to dominate these flows in most regions and by 1990 South-South trade accounted for only 6.5 per cent of world trade.
Promoting Good Governance: From Encouraging a Principle to Taking Concrete Action – Examples from WTO Accession Protocols and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement
Long proposed in aspirational terms good governance has increasingly become a subject of substantive global policy debate and international rule-making. An analysis of recent negotiating exercises such as World Trade Organization (WTO) accession protocols and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) shows that governance has been discussed among WTO members and embedded in WTO rules. This chapter first examines how WTO accession protocols addressed the issue of governance improvement by subjecting acceding governments to binding accession-specific commitments. These commitments in addition to ensuring greater market openness and integration in the rules-based global economy established the legal basis for the increased rule of law for acceding members. The commitments undertaken by these members demonstrate their adherence to principles of transparency and predictability of trade policies as well as their overall commitment to subject domestic trade regimes to international trade law. Improved governance is achieved through the entirety of WTO accession-specific commitments on rules including the ones on transparency policy enforcement trading rights state trading/ state-owned enterprises (STEs/SOEs) and government procurement. A similar trend can be observed when analysing the good governance provisions of the new TFA albeit with differences in their modus operandi. WTO members took a multifaceted and indirect approach seeking to improve integrity by increasing transparency strengthening due process rights and reducing space for discretionary action. Together good governance provisions in accession protocols and the TFA contribute to building the upper floors of the new multilateral trading system by creating a binding set of rules and new standards that will be respected by virtually the entire trading world.
Evolución del comercio y de las políticas comerciales
La expansión de la producción y el comercio mundiales adquirió un impulso considerable en el segundo semestre de 2003 como consecuencia de lo cual el aumento medio anual del PIB mundial y de las exportaciones mundiales de mercancías fue del 25 por ciento y el 45 por ciento respectivamente. Esas variaciones representaron mejoras superiores a las previstas con relación al año anterior aunque la tasa de crecimiento del comercio siguió siendo inferior a la tasa media registrada en el decenio de 1990. Los resultados anuales se vieron afectados negativamente por una combinación de factores temporales poco corrientes y deficiencias estructurales a más largo plazo en una serie de economías importantes (en particular la situación del sistema bancario en el Japón y de los mercados laborales en Europa Occidental). Uno de los factores temporales que influyeron en los resultados fue la aparición del síndrome respiratorio agudo severo (SRAS) en Asia Oriental. Aunque el SRAS siguió siendo una epidemia limitada en compación con el paludismo y el síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida (SIDA) tuvo una gran repercusión a corto plazo en el movimiento de las personas y en la industria turística de la región. En el primer trimestre del año la intensificación de las tensiones que dio lugar al conflicto militar en Iraq debilitó la confianza de los consumidores y las empresas en muchas regiones. En los países de la OCDE el indicador de tendencias compuesto (empresas) registró su nivel más bajo en marzo de 2003 para mostrar después una trayectoria ascendente a partir de mayo. Las principales Bolsas mostraron una evolución similar: descendieron considerablemente hasta marzo pero se recuperaron después y mejoraron notablemente hasta finales del año.
Foreword
This publication is a product of the joint research programme of the International Labour Office (ILO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It follows up on three prior joint publications by the ILO and WTO Secretariats. The first was a review of the literature on trade and employment the second a report on the linkages between trade and informal employment and the third an edited volume on making globalization socially sustainable. This fourth publication discusses the importance of skills development policies in helping workers and firms harness the benefits of trade.
Disclaimer
At the heart of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an international organization is a set of rules that regulate trade between nations: a body of agreements which have been negotiated and signed by governments of the majority of the world's trading nations with the aim of promoting transparency predictability and non-discrimination in trading relations. These agreements covering trade in goods trade in services and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights help to define and inform the multiple roles of the WTO in administering the trade agreements providing a forum for trade negotiations handling trade disputes monitoring national trade policies providing technical assistance and capacity building for developing countries and cooperating with other international organizations. Understanding these agreements and their practical policy and legal contexts therefore provides significant insights into the WTO as an institution its activities and international role its partnerships with other organizations and the way in which WTO Member governments identify and pursue their national interests through this intergovernmental forum.