the challenge of reducing international trade and migration barriers

the challenge of reducing international trade and migration barriers
Author: Kym Anderson
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2008
Genre: Agriculture
ISBN:

Abstract: While barriers to trade in most goods and some services including capital flows have been reduced considerably over the past two decades, many remain. Such policies harm most the economies imposing them, but the worst of the merchandise barriers (in agriculture and textiles) are particularly harmful to the world's poorest people, as are barriers to worker migration across borders. This paper focuses on how costly those anti-poor trade policies are, and examines possible strategies to reduce remaining distortions. Two opportunities in particular are addressed: completing the Doha Development Agenda process at the World Trade Organization (WTO), and freeing up the international movement of workers. A review of the economic benefits and adjustment costs associated with these opportunities provides the foundation to undertake benefit/cost analysis required to rank this set of opportunities against those aimed at addressing the world's other key challenges as part of the Copenhagen Consensus project. The paper concludes with key caveats and suggests that taking up these opportunities could generate huge social benefit/cost ratios that are considerably higher than the direct economic ones quantified in this study, even without factoring in their contribution to alleviating several of the other challenges identified by that project, including malnutrition, disease, poor education and air pollution.

The Challenge of Reducing Subsidies and Trade Barriers

The Challenge of Reducing Subsidies and Trade Barriers
Author: Kym Anderson
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2004
Genre: Free trade
ISBN: 0410140910

"This is one of 10 studies for the Copenhagen Consensus Project that sought to evaluate the most feasible opportunities to improve welfare globally and alleviate poverty in developing countries. Anderson argues that phasing out distortionary government subsidies and barriers to international trade will yield an extraordinarily high benefit-cost ratio. A survey is provided of recent estimates using global economywide simulation models of the benefits of doing that by way of the current Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations. Even if adjustment costs are several times as large as suggested by available estimates, the benefit-cost ratio from seizing this opportunity exceeds 20. That is much higher than the rewards from regional or bilateral trade agreements or from providing preferential access for least-developed countries' exports to high-income countries. Such reform would simultaneously contribute to alleviating several of the other key challenges reflected in the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals"--Abstract.

Trade in Forest Products

Trade in Forest Products
Author: Ian James Bourke
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1988
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9789251026557

Free Trade In The World Economy

Free Trade In The World Economy
Author: Herbert Giersch
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429689837

International trade policy is facing a cross-roads. This is creating uncertainty, impairing world economic growth. Unless a policy of more open markets is pursued, protectionism may well turn into a self-perpetuating and cumulative process. This is why the 1986 Kiel Conference was devoted to Free Trade in the World Economy: Towards an Opening of Markets. We felt that such a conference would help to stimulate policy discussion preceding the Uruguay Round under the auspices of the GATT and the moves within the European Community towards completing a common internal market by 1992.

Developing Countries in the GATT Legal System

Developing Countries in the GATT Legal System
Author: Robert E. Hudec
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1139495534

In this reissued edition of the classic work Developing Countries in the GATT Legal System, Robert E. Hudec's clear insight on the situation of developing countries within the international trade system is once again made available. Hudec is regarded as one of the most prominent commentators on the evolution of the current international trade regime, and this long out-of-print book offers his analysis of the dynamics playing out between developed and developing nations. A significant contribution when the book was first published, this work continues to serve as a thoughtful and important guide to how current and future trade policy must seriously adapt to the demands of the developing world. This new edition includes a new introduction by J. Michael Finger that examines Hudec's work to understand how the GATT got into its current historical-institutional predicament and the lasting impact of his work on current research on international trade systems.

Trade and Development

Trade and Development
Author: World Bank
Publisher:
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1985
Genre: Commercial policy
ISBN: 9780821306505

This document contains background material on trade policy issues prepared by the staff of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Part 1 reviews recent developments in trade and represents a part of the ongoing work by IMF staff on trade policies. It emphasizes policy developments in the major trading nations as they relate to trade in industrial and agricultural products and reviews trade policies in developing countries. Part 2 focuses on nontariff measures that inhibit trade in both industrial and developing countries. It argues that action to liberalize these restraints is of the greatest importance in stimulating trade and economic growth and in strengthening the international trade system. Evidence is presented on the extent and prevalence of nontariff measures in world trade; the significant costs of these measures both for the countries imposing them and for their trading partners are analyzed; and the linkages between trade, finance, and structural adjustment are discussed.

The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty

The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN: 9789287042323

The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty looks at the complex relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction and trade, and examines the challenges that poor people face in benefiting from trade opportunities. Written jointly by the World Bank Group and the WTO, the publication examines how trade could make a greater contribution to ending poverty by increasing efforts to lower trade costs, improve the enabling environment, implement trade policy in conjunction with other areas of policy, better manage risks faced by the poor, and improve data used for policy-making.