Hoekman, Bernard

Person:
Hoekman, Bernard

International Trade, Poverty Reduction & Economic Management, World Bank

Fields of Specialization

International Trade

Departments

International Trade, Poverty Reduction & Economic Management, World Bank

Last updated: August 15, 2023

Biography

Bernard Hoekman is the director of the World Bank’s international trade department. Prior positions at the World Bank include Research Manager of the trade and international integration team in the Development Research Group; manager of the trade capacity building program of the World Bank Institute; and trade economist in the Middle East/North Africa and Europe and Central Asia departments. He was an economist in the GATT Secretariat in Geneva during 1988-93, supporting the Uruguay Round negotiations. He has published widely on the world trading system, trade and development, trade agreements, international trade and investment in services, trade preferences and regional integration. He is a graduate of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and is a Research Fellow of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research and a Senior Affiliate of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab countries, Iran and Turkey.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 73

Public Procurement, Regional Integration, and the Belt and Road Initiative
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2021-05-21) Ghossein, Tania; Hoekman, Bernard
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a mechanism through which countries can upgrade connectivity-related infrastructure, including through cross-border projects, complementing traditional sources of finance. An overarching goal of the BRI is to reduce trade costs between China and partner countries, in part by helping to integrate regional markets. The large-scale borrowing associated with BRI projects has given rise to potential debt servicing and sustainability concerns. The rate of return of BRI regional infrastructure projects depends in part on the integrity of public procurement processes and realizing value-for-money objectives. To date BRI projects financed by Chinese institutions have been largely awarded to Chinese companies. Enhancing transparency of BRI procurement processes and international cooperation among countries participating in the BRI would help achieve value for money goals and support the integration of BRI countries.
Trade Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis: Evidence from a New Data Set
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12) Evenett, Simon; Fiorini, Matteo; Fritz, Johannes; Hoekman, Bernard; Lukaszuk, Piotr; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele; Santi, Filippo; Shingal, Anirudh
This paper presents new high-frequency data on trade policy changes targeting medical and food products since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, documenting how countries used trade policy instruments in response to the health crisis on a week-by-week basis. The data set reveals a rapid increase in trade policy activism in February and March 2020 in tandem with the rise in COVID-19 cases, but also uncovers extensive heterogeneity across countries in their use of trade policy and the types of measures used. Some countries acted to restrict exports and facilitate imports, others targeted only one of these margins, and many did not use trade policy at all. The observed heterogeneity suggests numerous research questions on the drivers of trade policy responses to COVID-19, the effects of these measures on trade and prices of critical products, and the role of trade agreements in influencing trade activism.
Services, Jobs, and Economic Development in Africa
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2022-08-09) Baccini, Leonardo; Fiorini, Matteo; Hoekman, Bernard; Sanfilippo, Marco
This article presents data and analyzes the structure of employment in 13 African economies at the administrative unit level, with a focus on the role of services. We provide two novel pieces of evidence. First, we present a descriptive snapshot of changes in the composition of employment over time and across geographies. This reveals evidence of structural transformation toward services and service-related occupations at subnational level and provides a fine-grained overview of who works in services and where and how this has changed over time. Second, we provide correlations between services and economic development, using per capita nightlight luminosity as a proxy. We document (1) a strong positive association between high skills services and economic development; (2) substantial heterogeneity across industries within services; and (3) a mediating role of market conditions and technology in the relation between services and economic development. Overall, our work highlights an important role of services activities for employment, skills, and economic development in Africa.
The Covid-19 Vaccine Production Club: Will Value Chains Temper Nationalism?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Evenett, Simon J.; Hoekman, Bernard; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele
In the first two months of 2021, the production of COVID-19 vaccines has suffered setbacks delaying the implementation of national inoculation strategies. These delays have revealed the concentration of vaccine manufacture in a small club of producer nations, which in turn has implications for the degree to which cross-border value chains can deter more aggressive forms of Vaccine Nationalism, such as export curbs. This paper documents the existence of this club, taking account of not just the production of final vaccines but also the ingredients of and items needed to manufacture and distribute COVID-19 vaccines. During 2017–19, vaccine producing nations sourced 88 percent of their key vaccine ingredients from other vaccine producing trading partners. Combined with the growing number of mutations of COVID-19 and the realization that this coronavirus is likely to become a permanent endemic global health threat, this finding calls for a rethink of the policy calculus towards ramping up the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, its ingredients, and the various items needed to deliver them. The more approved vaccines that are safely produced, the smaller will be the temptation to succumb to zero-sum Vaccine Nationalism.
Global Value Chains and Deep Integration
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Baccini, Leonardo; Fiorini, Matteo; Hoekman, Bernard; Altomonte, Carlo; Colantone, Italo
How does trade affect the design of preferential trade agreements (PTAs)? What is the role of global value chains (GVCs)? The authors answer these questions by empirically investigating the causal impact of gross and value-added trade on the depth of PTAs. To solve the critical issue of endogeneity of trade flows for trade policy, the identification strategy exploits a recent transportation shock: the sharp increase in the maximum size of container ships, which has more than tripled between 1995 and 2007. The key variation in our instrument hinges on the fact that only deep-water ports can accommodate new larger ships. The strategy is flexible enough to generate excludable instruments for different value-added components of exports. This allows us to assess how the design (depth) of PTAs is affected not only by gross exports but more specifically by GVC-trade as captured by indicators of trade in domestic and foreign value added. The authors find that trade occurring through GVCs increases the probability of forming deep PTAs, i.e., agreements that include provisions that go beyond the coverage of the WTO. These GVC-trade effects are larger than those of gross exports, which include flows that are unrelated to GVCs. The results indicate that GVCs are one important driver of deep preferential liberalization.
COVID-19, Public Procurement Regimes, and Trade Policy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01) Shingal, Anirudh; Hoekman, Bernard; Eknath, Varun; Ereshchenko, Viktoriya
This paper analyzes a prominent dimension of the initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic observed in many countries: the imposition of export restrictions and actions to facilitate imports. Weekly data on the use of trade policy instruments during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic (January-July 2020) are used to assess the relationship between the use of trade policy instruments and attributes of pre-crisis public procurement regulation. Controlling for country size, government effectiveness and economic factors, the analysis finds that use of export restrictions targeting medical products is strongly positively correlated with the total number of steps and time required to complete procurement processes in the pre-crisis period. Membership in trade agreements encompassing public procurement disciplines is associated with actions to facilitate trade in medical products. These findings suggest that future empirical assessments of the drivers of trade policy during the pandemic should consider public procurement systems.
Facilitating Trade in Services
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05) Hoekman, Bernard
In 2016, the Government of India proposed negotiations on an agreement to facilitate trade in services to complement the 2013 World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement in goods. The proposal did not find much support, but plurilateral talks launched in 2017 on various policy areas encompass areas that are very relevant from a services trade facilitation perspective. This paper argues that participating in the current plurilateral talks can do much to achieve services trade facilitation objectives by identifying good regulatory practices. Although elements relevant to services trade facilitation are on the table in the World Trade Organization, there are important gaps. Identifying priorities for complementary international cooperation to facilitate trade in services on a plurilateral basis requires initiatives that bring together governments, services industry associations, and sectoral regulators.
Public Procurement in the Belt and Road Initiative
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-12) Ghossein, Tania; Hoekman, Bernard; Shingal, Anirudh
China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) includes major infrastructure investment projects – roads, ports, railways – that aim to improve connectivity along a number of transport corridors spanning 71 countries. In this paper we find that notwithstanding the large scale of the initiative, relatively little systematic data exists on the practices being followed by the different, primarily Chinese, entities that finance BRI-related contracts and how firms are being selected to execute projects. The limited available data however indicate that Chinese companies account for the majority of BRI-procurement, even in light of their high share of total infrastructure projects in developing countries. We discuss the limited publicly available evidence on the procurement of BRI projects and specific dimensions of the institutional features pertaining to public procurement regimes of BRI countries, including China, both as embedded in domestic regulations and in international agreements that countries may be part of. Finally, we discuss the efforts that BRI countries can take -individually or as part of an international agreement- to improve procurement practices for BRI projects.
Global Supply Chains and Trade Policy Responses to the 2008 Crisis
(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2015-01) Gawande, Kishore; Hoekman, Bernard; Cui, Yue
The collapse in trade and the contraction of output that occurred during 2008–9 was comparable to, and in many countries more severe than, the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, it did not give rise to the rampant protectionism that followed the Great Crash. The idea that the rise in the fragmentation of production across global value chains – vertical specialization – may be a deterrent against protectionism is underappreciated in the literature. Institutions also played a role in limiting the extent of protectionist responses. World Trade Organization discipline raises the cost of using trade policies for member countries and has proved to be a stable foundation for the open multilateral trading system that has been built over the past 50 years. Using trade and protection data for seven large emerging market countries that have a history of active use of trade policy, the influence of these and other factors on trade policy responses to the 2008 crisis are empirically examined. An instrumental variables strategy is used to identify their impact. Participation in global value chains is found to be a powerful economic factor determining trade policy responses.
CGE Modeling of Market Access in Services
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06) Christen, Elisabeth; Francois, Joseph; Hoekman, Bernard
This paper examines how the applied multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) literature has moved into quantication of the impacts of greater market access for services. This includes discussion of multi-sector linkages to the service sector, as well both measuring barriers to trade and investment (generally with a mix of firm surveys, price comparisons, and econometrics), and how changes in these barriers, however measured, have been implemented in the CGE literature. Three challenges are highlighted. The first is identification of how trade in services takes place and how market access is therefore affected by policy. The second is to find data sufficiently robust for modeling purposes. The third, linked to the data problem, is to quantify the barriers to be examined. Significant progress has been made in modeling foreign direct investment and linking this to productivity, which turns out to be important. The paper also provides an example of modeling productivity linkages to openness and domestic regulation, with an applied CGE model of Italy. This illustrates cross-sector linkages and the integration of economic data and policy measures to define service sector experiments. Priorities for future research include better modeling of market structure, the linkages between sectors and the complementarities between different modes of supplying services.