PREM Notes
176 items available
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This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on poverty reduction and economic management (PREM) topics.
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Publication
The Pattern of Antidumping and Other Types of Contingent Protection
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10)Many of the major economies in the multilateral, rules-based trading system find themselves in a situation in which their applied tariff rates are quite close to the tariff binding levels that form their legal commitments at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This implies that they cannot simply raise applied tariff rates to respond to domestic industry demands for additional trade barriers to protect them from imports. One of the fundamental and potentially WTO-legal ways in which national governments can respond to domestic industry calls for additional protection from imports is by resorting to trade 'remedy' policy instruments such as antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) policies. This note, which describes newly collected data made available through the World Bank-sponsored global antidumping database, reports on the combined use of such policies, comprehensively collected across the major WTO member economies. -
Publication
Breaking into New Markets, Raising Quality, and Improving Services : Neglected Avenues for Export Diversification
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-09)Expanding international trade is an important avenue for growth and development in low-income countries. In addition to increasing the quantity of existing export flows, many countries seek to diversify into production and export activities that provide a higher return to the labor and capital resources employed. Export diversity also reduces a country's vulnerability to pronounced price swings in international markets. This note reviews the findings of a series of papers on the diversification process contained in Newfarmer, Shaw, and Walkenhorst (2009). The analysis suggests that there has been too much focus on simply adding new products to export portfolios, which often underscores the use of industrial policies. While such actions are important, a more comprehensive view of diversification, and hence a more comprehensive trade policy, is needed that improves the quality of existing exports, breaks into new geographic markets, and increases services exports. -
Publication
The Global Financial Crisis : Comparisons with the Great Depression and Scenarios for Recovery
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-08)A recent paper has highlighted some close correspondences between economic performance during the present world recession and that during the early months of the great depression that began in late 1929. World industrial production from April 2008 to April 2009 fell as rapidly as during the first year of the great depression, while stock market prices and world trade volumes have fallen more rapidly than in the comparable period. These comparisons lead Eichengreen and O'Rourke to draw the alarming conclusion that 'it's a depression alright.' They note, however, that fiscal and monetary policies are likely to be much more supportive of economic activity in the next 1-2 years than they were during the first few years of the great depression. The first part of this note outlines some other important structural differences between the world economy today and in the 1930s that are likely to affect how the present recession plays out relative to the great depression. The second part of the note discusses possible recovery paths out of the current crisis. -
Publication
Managing Trade Policy During the Economic Crisis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07)The global economic crisis has triggered rapid responses by governments worldwide to counteract its domestic effects, through fiscal stimulus packages, expansionary monetary policies, and financial bailouts. Ad hoc trade policy measures are increasingly being put in place. All countries share the responsibility of preserving a stable and predictable trade policy environment. To this end, trade policies must contribute to maintaining an open trading system consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. With the sharp decline in global merchandise trade volumes, expected to fall by 9 percent in 2009, countries have resorted to an array of measures to counter the detrimental effects of the crisis on their respective economies. Because this decline is a consequence of a deterioration of global demand, trade measures are not an effective response to this problem. On the contrary, policies that contribute to an open and stable trading system are the best policy option for the world community, especially in the current context. -
Publication
Trade-Related Policy Responses to the Crisis : A Stock Taking
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07)The world is facing the most severe global economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. For the first time since World War two, World Bank projections for annual economic growth show that world gross domestic product (GDP) will decline 2.9 percent in 2009 and growth in developing countries will fall to 1.2 percent from 5.9 percent in 2008. Excluding China and India, other developing nations' economies will shrink on average by 1.6 percent. Net private capital flows to developing countries will likely turn negative in 2009 a more than $800 billion drop from the 2007 peak. The decline in global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows that started in 2008 will deepen and spread to the developing world, with overall inflows projected to fall some 30 percent compared to 2008, the first time FDI has fallen more than 10 percent in a year since 1986. The value of remittances, perhaps the most stable source of external financing for developing countries, is expected to drop by at least 5 percent this year. -
Publication
Taxing Business
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)Economists are sometimes accused of agreeing on almost nothing. An important policy question on which many economists appear to agree, however, is that there is not much to be said in favor of taxing business and especially not internationally mobile corporations. The reason for such unanimity is primarily the substantial economic costs associated with business taxes, although the uncertainty as to whom really 'pays' such taxes in terms of their final incidence may also contribute to the disdain in which they are generally held by economists. But the world largely ignores conventional economic wisdom: people everywhere seems delighted to load as much of their tax burden as possible on "business" and particularly on large impersonal corporations. -
Publication
The Personal Income Tax
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)A recent paper argues persuasively that the two basic pillars of taxation in most countries are the income tax and the VAT (Barreix and Roca 2007). The authors argue that the VAT is excellent as a revenue raiser and works best if it is applied in the simplest and most neutral fashion possible that is, on as broad a base as possible and preferably at a uniform rate. Given the relative unimportance of personal income taxes in most developing countries this argument is at first sight perhaps somewhat surprising. Personal income tax (PIT) revenues are often three to four times corporate tax revenues in developed countries, but in developing countries corporate tax revenues usually substantially exceed PIT revenues. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), PIT revenues in developed countries average about seven percent of GDP as compared to about two percent for developing countries. Moreover, as Bird and Zolt (2005) note, in many developing countries personal income taxes often amount to little more than taxes on labor income. At the same time, although little revenue is received from capital income, income taxes often impose high marginal effective rates on investment and hence discourage growth. -
Publication
Taxing Consumption
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)Domestic consumption in most countries is taxed through general sales taxes, excise taxes on specific commodities, and a variety of miscellaneous taxes on such services as hotels and transfers of property. This note considers only the first two of these categories, with particular attention to general sales taxes. Consumption taxes are obviously related both to customs duties and other taxes on imports and also to production taxes like those often imposed on agricultural output. In some countries elements of both import and production taxation remains. These aspects are not further explored in this note other than to note that the original form of general sales taxes often consisted of a sales tax imposed on imported and domestic manufactured goods. Most countries have now replaced such 'pre-retail' sales taxes by taxes that fall primarily on consumption rather than on production and, both more responsive to revenue needs and easier to collect effectively and efficiently. However, excise taxes on specific commodities are often still imposed at the production stage. -
Publication
Global Economic Crisis and Vertical Specialization in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04)The world has witnessed an impressive increase in trade over the past four decades. World merchandise trade increased from US$217 billion in 1962 to US$22.8 trillion in 2006. While industrialized countries accounted for the vast majority of this growth, between 1985 and 2006, developing countries' total trade increased from US$1.1 trillion to US$8.4 trillion, growing at an average annual rate of 9.8 percent, outpacing the world trade growth of 8.7 percent over this period. As the current economic and financial crisis unfolds, the world is now witnessing a dramatic and unexpectedly rapid contraction of trade, far beyond what would be expected in a typical Keynesian-style contraction (Baldwin, 2009). Developing countries are expected to be adversely affected as the volume of world trade is expected to decline by more than 2 percent in 2009, the first such decline since 1982 (World Bank, 2009). The emergence of vertical specialization has allowed a large number of developing countries to exploit their comparative advantages at a much finer level of specialization in global production chains, enabling them to both boost their exports and diversify away from traditional, commodity-based exports. -
Publication
Fiscal Policy for Growth
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04)While the term 'fiscal space' is new, the issue is quite old. Fiscal space refers to availability of budgetary resources for a specific purpose, typically growth-enhancing investment uses, without jeopardizing the sustainability of the government's financial position, or the stability of the economy. The recent interest in fiscal space originated as a reaction to International Monetary Fund (IMF), supported fiscal-adjustment programs that by focusing too narrowly on fiscal-deficit targets often ignored the quality of the underlying adjustment. Affected countries meanwhile advocated for fiscal space for investments in physical and human infrastructure crucial for economic growth. The IMF independent evaluation office, in their study on fiscal Adjustment in IMF supported programs acknowledged this problem, observing that 'much of the fiscal adjustment achieved is through measures that do not assure long-term sustainability and flexibility of fiscal systems to future shocks'. In effect, the improvement of the fiscal balance in the context of IMF-supported programs too often relied heavily in cuts in public investment that improve today's government cash flow at the expense of future economic growth.