Economic research and trade policy analysis

En esta sección se explica cómo funcionan en la práctica la normalización y la evaluación de la conformidad y se describen las características pertinentes de las infraestructuras de normalización y de evaluación de la conformidad en distintas regiones del mundo. Primero se hace un análisis del proceso de normalización y se estudia dónde se lleva a cabo la normalización, cómo está organizada y quiénes participan en el proceso. La subsección 2 trat Read More

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the SME Finance Forum and the World Bank Group estimate the entire MSME finance gap to be close to US$ 5 trillion, hindering the ability of MSMEs to grow. This gap, however, is not due to a lack of available funds. A 2019 report by the International Trade Centre (ITC) indicated that “in 2018 global funds held US$ 1 trillion of cash-in-hand equity capital that was seeking investment opportunities”. Of particular con Read More

Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial de cette année examine le rôle du commerce dans un monde caractérisé, depuis plusieurs décennies, par l’interdépendance croissante des pays. Cette interdépendance, appelée aujourd’hui mondialisation, est un phénomène complexe aux multiples facettes, qui implique une forte interaction politique, sociale et économique aux niveaux national et international. Rares sont ceux qui contesteraient les avanta Read More

The high economic growth rates that have been achieved by many countries in Asia have led to a contemporary world economy that is multipolar. This has had repercussions for the WTO, as well as for other multilateral organisations. The deadlock in the WTO’s Doha Round has led the United States and the European Union increasingly to turn their attention towards the negotiation of preferential trade agreements, including so-called ‘mega-regional’ Read More

Global value chains (GVCs) have been a feature of the international economic architecture for many years, but scholarly interest in the phenomenon is more recent. Today that interest is intense, emanating from an array of academic disciplines as well as from the policy world. This volume, jointly produced by the Fung Global Institute and the World Trade Organization, is an attempt to capture the core features and themes of the exploding literature on GVCs Read More

No doubt, the world looks a little different today than it did at the end of 2019 when we first published the Periodic Table of DLT in Trade. A natural year’s worth of progression has been both accelerated and in some areas stunted by the forces of the COVID-19 pandemic, the widespread and long-lasting implications of which still remain unknown.

What is the perspective from the podium? what are the challenges that face the chairperson of an accession working party? The role of a chairperson of an accession working party is tough and challenging, and the functions of a chairperson can only be successfully exercised if he or she has the trust and confidence of parties involved. This role is best understood as that of a referee, assisted by the Secretariat. The accession of the Russian Federati Read More

There is widespread evidence that countries use trade policy to protect their workers. Sector-level tariffs typically correlate positively with sector wages and employment. This chapter examines the mirror question of how tariffs of other countries of the world affect industry wages at home. To answer this question, we rely on an industry-level analysis of wages in a sample of developing and developed countries spanning from 1976 to 2004. The effect of trade Read More

Globalization and the opening of markets in developing economies to trade is believed to have affected informal employment in these countries. This chapter summarizes the theoretical arguments for such a link and presents the relevant empirical evidence. In particular, it asks the questions: What roles do trade reforms and trade expansion play in explaining changes in the share of informal employment? How does trade opening affect the relative wage of Read More

Trade liberalization policies affect the domestic economy through their impact on prices of goods and services. Consequently, these policies also can affect average productivity and lead to industrial restructuring. The main goal of this research is to estimate the distributional effects of trade policy at the micro level using household survey data, and to determine whether trade liberalization affected different groups of poor people differently. To our knowl Read More

The general-purpose nature of information technology (IT) means that its widespread use in other economic sectors helps induce organizational and technological innovation throughout the economy. Innovation in IT itself has a magnified effect on economic productivity.

The World Trade Report 2006 begins with a short summary of salient trends in international trade based on the Secretariat’s earlier Report issued in April. We also provide brief analytical commentaries on certain topical trade issues, which this year cover recent trends in trade in textiles and clothing, an examination of the evolution of international royalty and fee payments, developments in the trade of least-developed countries, and an analysis of the effects Read More

Trade has improved the living standards of billions of individuals, many of whom are women. Ample empirical evidence shows that trade has led to higher productivity, greater competition, lower prices, higher incomes, and improved welfare. As the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, however, trade can be seriously disrupted. There is a risk that some of the economic gains women have reaped through trade could be reversed by the COVID-19 crisis. Read More

While the term “business model” might seem ubiquitous today, its use only arose in the 1990s with the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution. Since then, the business model literature has advanced definitions and conceptualisations that describe, and prescribe, a range of supply chain architectures. In the age of network competition, the business model concept now rests upon the focal unit of the supply chain and no longer upo Read More

Trade is a major source of employment. Nevertheless, trade has recently been caught in the crossfire in discussions around the decline of manufacturing employment and the polarization of labor markets in advanced economies. In this chapter we examine what the academic literature has to say on the relationship between trade and labor markets, with a specific focus on studies with a value chain perspective. We find that trade has only modest Read More

Les signes d’une forte dégradation de l’économie mondiale sont devenus manifestes au second semestre de 2008 et dans les premiers mois de 2009, avec la contraction des flux commerciaux et la chute de la production, d’abord dans les pays développés, puis dans les pays en développement. Bien que le commerce mondial ait augmenté de 2 pour cent en volume en 2008, sa croissance s’est essoufflée au cours des six derniers mois de l’année, pou Read More