Person:
Brenton, Paul
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
INTERNATIONAL TRADE,
CLIMATE CHANGE,
CARBON ACCOUNTING,
TRADE POLICY
Degrees
External Links
Departments
Trade and Regional Integration
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Paul Brenton is Lead Economist in the Trade and Regional Integration Unit of the World Bank. He focuses on analytical and operation work on trade and regional integration. He has led the implementation of World Bank lending operations such as the Great Lakes Trade Facilitation Project in DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. He co-authored the joint World Bank-WTO report on The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty and has managed a range of policy-oriented volumes including: De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services; Africa can Help Feed Africa; and Carbon Footprints and Food Systems: Do Current Accounting Methodologies Disadvantage Developing Countries? Paul joined the World Bank in 2002, having previously been Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Trade Policy Unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Before that, he lectured in economics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of East Anglia. A collection of Paul’s work has been published in the volume International Trade, Distribution and Development: Empirical Studies of Trade Policies (https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9172 ).
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 32
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Publication
Food Prices, Access to Markets and Child Undernutrition in Ethiopia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04)This paper looks at how changing food prices affect child undernutrition in Ethiopia. It derives height for age (stunting) and weight for height (wasting) as indicators of child undernutrition from the two most recent years of the Livings Standards Measurement Survey and utilizes market prices for key cereals, teff, wheat, and maize at the zone level across all regions of the country. Using a panel data fixed effects model, the analysis finds that, contrary to previous studies, rising crop prices are positively associated with improved child stunting rates for children between ages 6 months and 5 years, while the results for wasting are not conclusive. These results suggest that across the board policy interventions that seek to suppress cereal price increases may have adverse effects on poverty reduction in the long term by undermining potentially positive impacts on child nutrition. -
Publication
Reshaping Global Value Chains in Light of COVID-19: Implications for Trade and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-04)Global value chains (GVCs) have driven dramatic expansions in trade, productivity, and economic growth in developing countries over the past three decades. Reshaping Global Value Chains in Light of COVID-19: Implications for Trade and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries examines the economic impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic on GVCs and explores whether they can continue to be a driver of trade and development. The book undertakes the following: • Assesses what the impact of previous crises, such as the global financial crisis of 2008–09, can say about of the resilience of GVC firms to shocks • Examines what high-frequency data on trade flows can show about the impact of COVID-19 during the sharp global recession of 2020 • Uses discussions with GVC firms to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of—and their responses to—the COVID-19 shock • Explores simulations from a global economic model to assess the potential longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on low- and middle-income countries and key factors shaping the global economy, including the evolving role of China, the rise of trade restrictions, and policy responses to global warming • Asks what steps countries and international institutions can take to enhance the resilience of GVCs in low-income countries to future shocks. The analysis shows that well-operating GVCs are a source of resilience more than a source of vulnerability. Moreover, steps to maintain and enhance trade contribute to managing a crisis and recovery, while measures to reshore production make all countries worse off. This economic crisis offers countries an opportunity to reshape the global economy into a greener, more resilient, and inclusive system that is better equipped for a changing world. Trade is a powerful tool for achieving this aim. -
Publication
Watching More Than the Discovery Channel : Export Cycles and Diversification in Development
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)This paper examines the export performance of 99 countries over 1995-2004 to understand the relative roles of export growth through "discovery" of new products and growth during post-discovery phases of the export product cycle -- acceleration and maturation -- in existing markets and expansion into new geographic markets. The authors find that expanding existing products in existing markets (growth at the intensive margin) has greater weight in export growth than diversification into new products and new geographic markets (growth at the extensive margin). Moreover, growth into new geographic markets appears to be more important than discovery of new export products in explaining export growth. Of particular importance is whether an exporting country succeeds in reaching more national markets that are already importing the product it makes. This geographic index of market penetration is a powerful explanatory variable of export performance. This suggests that governments should not focus solely or even primarily on the discovery channel, but also seek to identify and address market failures that are constraining exporters in subsequent phases of the export cycle. -
Publication
Clothing and Export Diversification : Still a Route to Growth for Low-Income Countries?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-09)Can the clothing sector be a driver of export diversification and growth for today's low-income countries as it was in the past for countries that have graduated into middle income? This paper assesses this issue taking into account key changes to the market for clothing: the emergence of India and especially China as exporting countries; the rise of global production chains; the removal of quotas from the global trading regime but the continued presence of high tariffs and substantial trade preferences; the increasing importance of large buyers in developed countries and their concerns regarding risk and reputation; and the increasing importance of time in defining sourcing decisions. To assess the importance of the factors shaping the global clothing market, the authors estimate a gravity model to explain jointly the propensity to export clothing and the magnitude of exports from developing countries to the E U and US markets. This analysis identifies the quality of governance as an important determinant of sourcing decisions and that there appears to be a general bias against sourcing apparel from African countries, which is only partially overcome by trade preferences. -
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
Can Carbon Labeling Be Development Friendly?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-07)Carbon accounting and labeling for products are new instruments of supply chain management that may affect developing country export opportunities. Most instruments in use today are private business management tools, although the underlying science and methodologies may spread to issues subject to public regulation. This note seeks to inform stakeholders involved in the design of carbon labeling schemes and in the making of carbon emission measurement methodologies about an overlooked issue: how can carbon labeling are made to be both developments friendly and scientifically correct in its representation of developing-country agricultural sectors? As a result of the pressures placed on designers and users of carbon accounting and labeling instruments, there is a risk that carbon accounting and labeling instruments will not properly represent the complexity of production systems in developing countries. -
Publication
The African Growth and Opportunity Act, Exports, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-08)The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is the flagship of U.S. commercial and development policy with Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper looks at the impact of the trade preferences that are the central element of AGOA on African countries' exports to the U.S. and puts them in the perspective of the development of the region. The paper finds that, while stimulating export diversification in a few countries, AGOA has fallen short of the potential impetus that preferences could otherwise provide African exporters. The impact of AGOA would be enhanced if preferences were extended to all products. This means removing tariff barriers to a range of agricultural products and to textiles and a number of other manufactured goods. There also needs to be a fundamental change in approach to the rules of origin. Given the stage of development and economic size of Sub-Saharan Africa, nonrestrictive rules of origin are crucial. For all countries in Africa, those that have and those that have not benefited from preferences, there are enormous infrastructure weaknesses and often extremely poor policy environments that raise trade costs and push African producers further away from international markets. Effective trade preferences (those with nonrestrictive rules of origin) can provide a limited window of opportunity to exports while these key barriers to trade are addressed. But dealing with the barriers is the priority. -
Publication
Carbon Footprints and Food Systems : Do Current Accounting Methodologies Disadvantage Developing Countries?
(World Bank, 2010)Carbon accounting and labeling are new instruments of supply chain management and, in some cases, of regulation that may affect trade from developing counties. These instruments are used to analyze and present information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from supply chains with the hope that they will help bring about reductions of GHGs. The designers of these schemes are caught in a dilemma: on one hand they have to respond to policy and corporate agendas to create new ways of responding to climate change challenges, while on the other they rely on very rudimentary knowledge about the actual GHG emissions emanating from the varied production systems that occur around the globe. This is because the underlying science of GHG emissions from agricultural systems is only partially developed; this is particularly true for supply chains that include activities in developing countries (Edwards-Jones et al., 2009). As a result of the pressures placed on designers and users of carbon accounting and labeling instruments, who are predominantly based in industrialized countries, there is a risk that carbon accounting and labeling instruments will not adequately represent production systems in developing countries. This report seeks to examine the potential for emerging carbon accounting and labeling schemes to accurately represent the production systems in developing countries. In order to achieve this it includes analyses of typical problems that may occur if the characteristics of developing countries' production systems are not taken into account properly. By doing this, the report provides relevant and necessary scientific data that illustrate potential problem areas that, if not addressed, may lead to developing-country carbon efficiencies not being given proper credit. -
Publication
A Review of Cross-Border Trade in the Horn of Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21)This paper provides a review of existing literature on cross-border trade among the Horn of African countries Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. It offers analysis on key traded products particularly food crops and livestock, a review on main trade routes and border marketing centers;the operation of cross-border value chains in the borderlands, including the economic impact on border communities and a summary of commonchallenges facing cross-border trade within the region. The review is augmented with analysis of available data on trade between these countriesfrom UN COMETRADE, FEWS NET and FAO.To put cross-border trade in context, the paper starts by reviewing the available information from officially recorded trade data. -
Publication
Emerging Emitters and Global Carbon Mitigation Efforts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12)International efforts to avoid dangerous climate change have historically focused on reducing energy-related carbon-di-oxide (CO2) emissions from countries with the largest economies, including the EU and U.S., and/or the largest populations, such as, China and India. However, in recent years, emissions have surged among a different, much less-examined group of countries, raising the issue of how to address a next generation of high-emitting economies that need strong growth to reduce relatively high levels of poverty. They are also among the countries most at risk from the adverse impacts of climate change. Compounding the paucity of analyses of these emerging emitters, the long-term effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on economic activity and energy systems remain unclear. Here, the authors analyze the trends and drivers of emissions in each of the fifty-nine developing countries whose emissions over 2010-2018 grew faster than the global average (excluding China and India), and then project their emissions under a range of pandemic recovery scenarios. Although future emissions diverge considerably depending on responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) and subsequent recovery pathways, the authors find that emissions from these countries nonetheless reach a range of 5.1-7.1 Gt CO2 by 2040 in all their scenarios, substantially in excess of emissions from these regions in published scenarios that limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius . The authors results highlight the critical importance of ramping up mitigation efforts in countries that to this point have played a limited role in contributing the stock of atmospheric CO2 while also ensuring the sustained economic growth that will be necessary to eliminate extreme poverty and drive the extensive adaptation to climate change that will be required.