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.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 16

International Trade in Services : New Trends and Opportunities for Developing Countries
(World Bank, 2010) Cattaneo, Olivier; Engman, Michael; Sáez, Sebastián; Stern, Robert M.
International trade in services also provides an assessment of how policy makers can further bolster their service industries by leveraging the changes prompted by technological advancements. The book provides policy recommendations that include the reduction of barriers to services trade across all sectors and the promotion of health- and environment-related development policies that should be promoted in parallel with a burgeoning services market. The first recommendation is considered the most important, because it focuses on the need to ensure trade openness, which helps ensure the access to services and promotes the quality of services provision through foreign and domestic competition. Moreover, the issue of temporary movement of labor is another focus of this book, given that it is one of the most important means of service exports for developing countries. This is an issue that is considered technically complex and politically sensitive because of its political and security implications. The book examines mechanisms that have been used by various countries to liberalize the temporary movement of persons and concludes that regardless of the negotiating forum- multilateral, regional, or bilateral-the policy making results on temporary movement of labor are, so far, modest and limited to a small range of categories. However, it proposes alternative ways to move forward that require further analysis by countries and relevant international organizations, including the World Bank.
Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Latin America
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Valdés, Alberto; Anderson, Kym
This book provides an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price and trade policies in the World Bank-defined region of Latin America and the Caribbean. Following the introduction and summary, it includes commissioned country studies of one Caribbean, one Central American, and six South American economies. The chapters are followed by two appendixes. The first describes the methodology used to measure the nominal and relative rates of assistance to farmers and the taxes and subsidies involved in food consumption; the second provides country and regional summaries, in tables, of annual estimates of these rates of assistance. This study on Latin America is based on a sample of eight countries, comprising the big four economies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; Colombia and Ecuador, two of the poorest South American tropical countries; the Dominican Republic, the largest Caribbean economy; and Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America. Together, in 2000-04, these countries accounted for 78 percent of the region's population, 80 percent of the region's agricultural value added, and 84 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of Latin America.
Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Europe's Transition Economies
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Swinnen, Johan; Anderson, Kym
The main purpose of this study is to assess the changing landscape of agricultural protection and taxation patterns in the region. The study is based on the EU-10 sample, plus Turkey, as well as seven countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan (the CIS-7). In 2000-04, these countries accounted for 89 percent of the region's agricultural value added, 91 percent of the population, and 95 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP). In agricultural subsidy and trade policy, analyses of politically feasible reforms or policy options for coping with structural changes (such as the current boom in energy raw material prices that has intersectoral Dutch disease effects) need to be based on a clear understanding of the recent and current extent of policy interventions and the political and economic forces behind the evolution of these interventions. The second purpose of this study is thus to improve our understanding of the political economy of distortions in agricultural incentives in countries in the region. Based on this better understanding, the study's third purpose is to explore the prospects for additional reductions in the distortions in agricultural incentives and their implications for the agricultural competitiveness and trade of countries in the region.
Services Trade and Development : The Experience of Zambia
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) Mattoo, Aaditya; Payton, Lucy
Some see trade in services as irrelevant to the development agenda for least developed countries (LDCs). Others see few benefits from past market openings by LDCs. This book debunks both views. It finds that serious imperfections in Zambia's reform of services trade deprived the country of significant benefits and diminished faith in liberalization.
Safeguards and Antidumping in Latin American Trade Liberalization : Fighting Fire with Fire
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Finger, J. Michael; Nogués, Julio J.; Finger, J. Michael; Nogués, Julio J.
This book is a report on success-success in trade liberalization and in the removal of trade barriers so as to integrate Latin American economies into the international economy. More particularly, this book is about how several Latin American governments created and managed safeguards and antidumping mechanisms as part of this liberalization. The core of this book is a set of studies describing how seven Latin American countries-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru-have used these trade instruments. Each country study was conducted by analysts from that country. Many of the analysts were high government officials during their country's liberalization, so they have hands-on experience with the construction and the management of these instruments.
Global Integration and Technology Transfer
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Hoekman, Bernard; Javorcik, Beata Smarzynska
This volume presents a rich set of analyses exploring how trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) can help increase economic growth by allowing firms to tap into and benefit from the global pool of knowledge. The chapters demonstrate that both obtaining access to foreign markets and opening their own economies to trade and FDI are crucial to promoting economic growth in developing countries, because they stimulate international technology diffusion. The volume also identifies government policies that can facilitate technology transfer and its absorption in the developing world.
International Trade in Health Services and the GATS : Current Issues and Debates
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Blouin, Chantal; Drager, Nick; Smith, Richard; Blouin, Chantal; Drager, Nick; Smith, Richard
Health ministries around the world face a new challenge: to assess the risks and respond to the opportunities of the increasing openness in health services under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This publication addresses this challenge head-on by providing analytical tools to policymakers in health and trade ministries alike who are involved in the liberalization agenda and, specifically, in the GATS negotiations. This book informs and assists policymakers in formulating trade policy and negotiating internationally. There is ongoing and animated international debate about the impact of GATS on public services in general and health in particular. In response, the book offers different perspectives from more than 15 leading experts. Some of the authors stress opportunities linked to trade in health services, others focus more on the risks. The book offers: Detailed legal analysis of the impact of the agreement on health policy; an overview of trade commitments in health-related services; new empirical evidence from nine country studies; and a simple 10-step explanation on how to deal with GATS negotiations.
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.
Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005) Aksoy, M. Ataman; Beghin, John C.
This book explores the outstanding issues in global agricultural trade policy and evolving world production and trade patterns. Its coverage of agricultural trade issues ranges from the details of cross-cutting policy issues to the highly distorted agricultural trade regimes of industrial countries and detailed studies of agricultural commodities of economic importance to many developing countries. The book brings together the background issues and findings to guide researchers and policymakers in their global negotiations and domestic policies on agriculture. The book also explores the key questions for global agricultural policies, both the impacts of current trade regimes and the implications of reform. It complements the recent agricultural trade handbook that focuses primarily on the agricultural issues within the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations (Ingco and Nash 2004).
Turkey : Economic Reform and Accession to the European Union
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2005) Togan, Sübidey; Hoekman, Bernard M.
This volume analyzes the economic challenges confronting Turkey in its quest to accede to the European Union (EU). It focuses on the extent to which Turkey is ready to join the Single Market, comply with the EU's body of economic regulations and directives, the Acquis Communautaire, and meet the Maastricht criteria for fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies. This book also provides an assessment of Turkey's national program to meet the accession requirements. It describes briefly what Turkey needs to achieve on the economic policy front to satisfy the conditions for accession, the progress to date, and the likely consequences of implementing the full body of EU requirements. The book is divided into four parts: 1) An analysis of the macroeconomic policies for EU accession; 2) An analysis of the effects of integration on key sectors: agriculture; manufacturing; services industries, including banking, telecommunications, transportation, and natural gas; and network industries; 3) An exploration of key economic policy challenges, including labor market regulation, foreign direct investment challenges, and the costs and benefits of meeting the EU environmental Acquis; and 4) The quantification of the impact of EU accession and consideration of the welfare effects of integration. While the focus is on the specific situation of Turkey, the subject will be of value to all researchers with an interest in the challenges of deeper integration through regional agreements.