Publication: Making Trade an Engine of Growth for All: The Case for Trade and for Policies to Facilitate Adjustment
Loading...
Published
2017-04-10
ISSN
Date
2017-04-18
Editor(s)
Abstract
Longstanding tension between the benefits of open commerce and public support for it has become particularly salient today. G20 leaders pledged to work harder to build an open world economy and to promote greater inclusiveness. They called for action to communicate better the benefits of open markets to the wider public and for domestic policies to distribute those benefits more widely. G20 leaders saw the issue not as a tradeoff between openness and inclusiveness, but as a challenge to achieve more of both. Improved domestic policies and further trade reform can stimulate growth that is more inclusive. Addressing the source of discontent is important in its own right and also critical to shoring up support for trade. This paper draws on a wide range of recent policy analysis. Existing studies from international organizations provide greater depth in a number of areas that goes beyond what is possible in the present paper. Throughout the paper, references to key pieces of research and policy analysis from academics, think tanks, and international organizations help to document the statements made and provide options for readers who wish to delve into certain topics. Lessons are also drawn from country experience.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“International Monetary Fund; World Bank; World Trade Organization. 2017. Making Trade an Engine of Growth for All: The Case for Trade and for Policies to Facilitate Adjustment. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26389 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Preferential Trade Agreements and Their Role in World Trade(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10)The author investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows using a comprehensive database of PTAs in force and a detailed matrix of world trade. He shows that total trade between PTA partners is a poor proxy for preferential trade (trade in tariff lines where preferences are likely to matter): while the former amounted to one-third of global trade in 2000-02, the latter was between one-sixth and one-tenth of world trade. His gravity model estimates indicate that using total rather than preferential trade to assess the impact of PTAs leads to a significant downward bias in the PTA coefficient. The author finds that product exclusions and long phase-in periods significantly limit preferential trade, and their removal could more than double trade in tariff lines above 3 percent of most-favored-nation (MFN) duties. He also shows that the effects of PTAs on trade vary by type of agreement and are increasing in the incomes of PTA partners.Publication Sustainable Agricultural Productivity Growth and Bridging the Gap for Small-Family Farms(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-06-12)Global agriculture will face multiple challenges over the coming decades. It must produce more food to feed an increasingly affluent and growing world population that will demand a more diverse diet, contribute to overall development and poverty alleviation in many developing countries, confront increased competition for alternative uses of finite land and water resources, adapt to climate change, and contribute to preserving biodiversity and restoring fragile ecosystems. Climate change will bring higher average temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme events, multiplying the threats to sustainable food security. Addressing these challenges requires co-ordinated responses from the public and private sectors and civil society that will need to be adapted to the specific circumstances of different types of farmers in countries at all levels of development. The recommendations provided are broadly of two types: specific actions that can contribute in some way to improving productivity growth or sustainable resource use (whether building on existing initiatives or suggesting new activities) and more general proposals that may not be actionable as presented but that serve to highlight areas for priority attention. This report also invites G20 countries to engage in a medium, to long-term, analysis-based peer review of policies fostering sustainable productivity growth, which would identify specific constraints and opportunities, beginning with their own food and agriculture sectors. In addition to possible benefits to participating countries, a peer review process could contribute to the identification of best policies and best policy packages to achieve the widely held aim of sustainably improving productivity of the global food and agriculture system. While such an initiative is proposed to and for G20 countries, it could have much wider application to interested countries.Publication Enhancing the Prospects of Growth and Trade of the Kyrgyz Republic(Washington, DC, 2005)The Kyrgyz Republic has made major strides in the past decade in its transition to a market-based economy. Its trade and investment policies are arguably the most liberal among the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. This report is aimed at assisting authorities fashioning this agenda by focusing on three key challenges: Identifying strategic options to strengthen prospects for medium- and long-term growth and poverty reduction; Assessing ways of leveraging domestic trade policy reforms and existing regional and multilateral trade agreements for further regional and global integration; and Identifying key areas where greater efforts are necessary to facilitate improvements in enterprise capability and productivity.Publication Deepening Trade Reforms in Syria for Improving Competitiveness and Promoting Non-Oil Exports(Washington, DC, 2010-09)Syria made promotion of non-oil exports one of the main objectives of its development strategy to counter the emerging twin balance of payments and fiscal deficits resulting from secular decline of oil production and exports. To realize this objective, the Government has implemented a number of trade policy reforms and took complementary measures in other policy areas during the 10th five-year plan to improve competitiveness of Syrian products in international markets. Non-oil exports responded strongly to the policy improvements. There is now a wide recognition of the need for further reforms to maintain this momentum. This paper tried to assess the achievement so far, identify the remaining gaps in the trade regime, and recommend follow up measures for broadening and deepening the trade reforms. The principal recommendations are presented in the attached policy matrix. The objective of export incentives is to reduce the costs of exported products with policy instruments consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.Publication Trade Preferences to Small Developing Countries and the Welfare Costs of Lost Multilateral Liberalization(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2006-05-17)The proliferation of preferential trade liberalization over the last 20 years has raised the question of whether it slows multilateral trade liberalization. Recent theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that this is the case even for unilateral preferences that developed countries provide to small and poor countries, but there is no estimate of the resulting welfare costs. This stumbling block effect can be avoided by replacing the unilateral preferences with a fixed import subsidy, which generates a Pareto improvement. More importantly, this paper presents the first estimates of the welfare cost of preferential liberalization as a stumbling block to multilateral liberalization. Recent estimates of the stumbling block effect of preferences with data for 170 countries and more than 5,000 products are used to calculate the welfare effects of the European Union, Japan, and the United States switching from unilateral preferences for least developed countries to an import subsidy scheme. In a model with no dynamic gains to trade, the switch produces an annual net welfare gain for the 170 countries that adds about 10 percent to the estimated trade liberalization gains in the Doha Round. It also generates gains for each group: the European Union, Japan, and the United States ($2,934 million), least developed countries ($520 million), and the rest of the world ($900 million).
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Gender-Based Violence Country Profile(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-01)Jamaica is a small island developing state situated in the Caribbean. It is the third largest island in the Caribbean, with an approximate population of 2.8 million and a gross domestic product (GDP) of 14.6 billion dollars. Agriculture and tourism are two of Jamaica’s main industries, with the latter contributing significantly to the country’s economy as well as the tourism industry. Jamaica has a high prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), with a domestic violence rate that increased by 15.6 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year. Exposure to violence has been found to have negative implications for women’s physical and emotional health. Survivors were more likely to have suicidal thoughts and to use recreational drugs. The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified intimate partner violence (IPV), with a higher percentage of women reporting frequent experiences of IPV. Overall, the data highlights the need for continued efforts to prevent and address GBV in Jamaica.Publication Mining in Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank and Agence Francaise de developpement, 2017-02-21)This study focuses on the local and regional impact of large-scale gold mining in Africa in the context of a mineral boom in the region since 2000. It contributes to filling a gap in the literature on the welfare effects of mineral resources, which, until now, has concentrated more on the national or macroeconomic impacts. Economists have long been intrigued by the paradox that a rich endowment of natural resources may retard economic performance, particularly in the case of mineral-exporting developing countries. Studies of this phenomenon, known as the “resource curse,” examine the economy-wide consequences of mineral exports. Africa’s resource boom has lifted growth, but has been less successful in improving people’s welfare. Yet much of the focus in academic and policy circles has been on appropriate management of the macro-fiscal and governance risks that have historically undermined development outcomes. This study focuses instead on the fortune of local communities where resources are located. It aims to better inform public policy and corporate behavior on the welfare of communities in Africa in which the extraction of resources takes place.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Assessing the Environmental, Forest, and Other Natural Resource Aspects of Development Policy Lending(Washington, DC, 2008)The operations policy on Development Policy Lending (DPL), approved by the Board in August 2004, requires that the Bank systematically analyze whether specific country policies supported by an operation are likely to have "significant effects" on the country's environment, forests, and other natural resources. The implicit objective behind this requirement is to ensure that there is adequate capacity in the country to deal with adverse effects on the environment, forests, and other natural resources that the policies could trigger, even at the program design stage. DPL operations are associated with a whole array of policies such as macro policy reforms, fiscal policies, and specific sectoral policies, particularly in key sectors such as agriculture, health and education, energy, etc. In some cases, the operation may deal directly with reforms in certain environmentally sensitive sectors such as energy, transport, water and sanitation, agriculture, and forestry. In these cases, there is an obvious need for careful analysis of environmental, natural resource, and forestry impacts. In other cases, such as public sector reform and governance, there is less potential for likely significant impacts on the natural environment and natural resources. The toolkit is designed to be concise and user-friendly. It consists of three specific modules. The first module identifies relevant transmission channels through which the proposed reform would have a likely effect on the identified environmental, forest, and other natural resource priorities. The second module provides assistance in identifying key environmental issues in the country, regions, or sectors likely to be influenced by the DPL program. The third module presents different tools and methodologies for rapid assessment of the likely significant effects of each reform.