Trade and Development

44 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/2173

The Trade and Development Series seeks to provide objective, accessible information about the new trade agenda. Titles in the series cover a wide range of topics, from regional trade agreements and customs reform to agriculture, intellectual property rights, services, and other key issues currently being discussed in World Trade Organization negotiations. Contributors to the series represent some of the world’s leading thinkers and specialists on international trade issues. Titles in this series undergo internal and external review under the management of the Trade Group's Advisory Board in the World Bank's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network.

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Poverty and the WTO : Impacts of the Doha Development Agenda
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Hertel, Thomas W.; Winters, L. Alan; Hertel, Thomas W.; Winters, L. Alan
This study reports on the findings from a major international research project investigating the poverty impacts of a potential Doha Development Agenda (DDA). It combines in a novel way the results from several strands of research. First, it draws on an intensive analysis of the DDA Framework Agreement, with particularly close attention paid to potential reforms in agriculture. The scenarios are built up using newly available tariff line data, and their implications for world markets are established using a global modeling framework. These world trade impacts form the basis for 12 country case studies of the national poverty impacts of these DDA scenarios. The focus countries are Bangladesh, Brazil (2 studies), Cameroon, China (2 studies), Indonesia, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, and Zambia. Although the diversity of approaches taken in these studies limits the ability to draw broader conclusions, an additional study that provides a 15-country cross-section analysis is aimed at this objective. Finally, a global analysis provides estimates for the world as a whole.
Customs Modernization Initiatives : Case Studies
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2004) De Wulf, Luc; Sokol, José B.; De Wulf, Luc; Sokol, José B.
This volume presents case studies of customs modernization initiatives in eight developing countries: Bolivia, Ghana, Morocco, Mozambique, Peru, the Philippines, Turkey, and Uganda. The purpose of these case studies was to obtain a firsthand view of how these countries undertook customs reforms and to assess their success. The overall lessons learned from these studies are presented in chapter 2 of the Customs Modernization Handbook (World Bank forthcoming), a companion volume that provides policymakers, practitioners, and project managers from development agencies with an overview of the key issues they need to address in preparing and implementing customs modernization initiatives. The audience for the Customs Modernization Handbook is customs officials who are called on to design and implement customs reform and modernization strategies, as well as staff members of the World Bank and of other multilateral and bilateral development agencies who support developing countries in implementing such strategies. All the case studies except for the one on Ghana were prepared using basically the same methodology, which aimed at identifying the origins of the reforms, the main drivers, and the outcomes. The Ghana case study is somewhat different, because it focuses on how the automation of trade and customs processes took the lead in the trade facilitation and customs reform.
China and the WTO : Accession, Policy Reform, and Poverty Reduction Strategies
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2004) Bhattasali, Deepak; Li, Shantong; Martin, Will; Bhattasali, Deepak; Li, Shantong; Martin, Will
China's accession to the WTO requires a great many specific policy reforms. However, if the best results are to be obtained, it is important that these reforms be implemented as part of a consistent development program, rather than simply by treating them as a recipe. To do this, policy makers must understand the range and nature of the policy changes required by accession, their implications for the economy, and the availability and effects of supporting policies. "China and the WTO" analyzes the nature of the reforms involved in China's accession to the WTO, assesses their implications for the world economy, and examines the implications for individual households, particularly the poor. Its key objective is to provide the information that will allow policy makers to implement WTO commitments and formulate supporting policies to contribute strongly to economic development and poverty reduction. Individual chapters by leading scholars analyze the nature of the reforms in key areas, such as agriculture, services, intellectual property and safeguards and anti-dumping. These chapters form the building blocks for later chapters, which analyze the implications of reform for the economy. The book also includes a series of studies that assess the implications for households, taking into account the social safety net policies applying in China, and the impacts of complementary policies in areas such as labor market reform and investments in human capital.
East Asia Integrates : A Trade Policy Agenda for Shared Growth
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2004) Krumm, Kathie; Kharas, Homi; Krumm, Kathie; Kharas, Homi
Rapid and sustained growth in international trade has long been a hallmark of successful growth and development strategies in East Asia. Some success stories are well known: those of the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) such as the Republic of Korea, as well as middle-income economies such as Malaysia and the transition economy of China. More recent entrants to world markets that have seen rapid export growth include low-income economies such as Cambodia and Vietnam. Trade has been an important factor in growth in the region, enabling progress in poverty reduction. Although the 1997-98 financial crisis interrupted this progress, recovery since then has brought poverty rates in every emerging economy in the region to record lows, and in economies like that of Vietnam, trade growth has brought with it a rapid reduction in poverty. Intraregional trade in East Asia has grown faster than trade with any other market, and while the largest economies account for the bulk of this trade, the regional trade of most smaller economies has also grown. Trade integration has been marketled, stemming from a combination of unilateral reforms, fulfillment of multilateral commitments, and a pattern of relocation of production processes (see Kawai and Urata 2002). Intraregional trade has been driven not only by growing demand but increasingly by improved competitiveness in regional markets, as reflected in increased market shares (Figure 1). China has been particularly dynamic, but almost all countries increased their competitiveness in regional markets during 1995-2001.9 This increase was accomplished without loss of competitiveness in other markets; East Asia continued to expand its market shares in the European Union (EU) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) markets in the same period.