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Is the World Trade Organization attractive enough for emerging economies? : critical essays on the multilateral trading system
\"Do countries benefit from their Membership in the WTO? This book addresses this question and examines the role of the WTO in the process of economic development of emerging markets and other developing countries\"--Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Different paths to power: The rise of Brazil, India and China at the World Trade Organization
New powers, such as China, India and Brazil, are challenging the traditional dominance of the US in the governance of the global economy. It is generally taken for granted that the rise of new powers is simply a reflection of their growing economic might. In this article, however, I challenge this assumption by drawing on the case of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to show that the forces driving the rise of new powers are more heterogeneous and complex than suggested by a simple economic determinism. I argue that these countries have in fact taken different paths to power: while China's rise has been more closely tied to its growing economic might, the rise of Brazil and India has been driven primarily by their mobilization and leadership of developing country coalitions, which enabled them to exercise influence above their economic weight. One important result is that Brazil and India have assumed a more aggressive and activist position in WTO negotiations than China and played a greater role in shaping the agenda of the Doha Round. Thus, although the new powers are frequently grouped together (as the 'BRICs', for example), this masks considerable variation in their sources of power and behaviour in global economic governance.
Journal Article
Cooperation in WTO’s Tariff Waters?
This paper examines the extent to which tariff cooperation is observed among World Trade Organization members. With the help of a simple political economy model, we show that tariffs are positively correlated with the importer’s market power when they are set noncooperatively but negatively correlated when set cooperatively. We use this prediction to empirically identify the extent of cooperation in the WTO and find that more than three-quarters of WTO members’ tariffs are set noncooperatively.
Journal Article
A “New Trade” Theory of GATT/WTO Negotiations
I suggest a novel theory of GATT/WTO negotiations based on Krugman’s “new trade” model. It emphasizes international production relocations and is easy to calibrate to bilateral trade data. Focusing on the major players in recent GATT/WTO negotiations, I find that it implies reasonable noncooperative tariffs as well as moderate gains from GATT/WTO negotiations.
Journal Article
Policy Uncertainty, Trade, and Welfare
We examine the impact of policy uncertainty on trade, prices, and real income through firm entry investments in general equilibrium. We estimate and quantify the impact of trade policy on China’s export boom to the United States following its 2001 WTO accession. We find the accession reduced the US threat of a trade war, which can account for over one-third of that export growth in the period 2000–2005. Reduced policy uncertainty lowered US prices and increased its consumers’ income by the equivalent of a 13-percentage-point permanent tariff decrease. These findings provide evidence of large effects of policy uncertainty on economic activity and the importance of agreements for reducing it.
Journal Article
WTO Accession and Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms
We examine the effects of trade liberalization in China on the evolution of markups and productivity of manufacturing firms. Although these dimensions of performance cannot be separately identified when firm output is measured by revenue, detailed price deflators make it possible to estimate the average effect of tariff reductions on both. Several novel findings emerge. First, cuts in output tariffs reduce markups, but raise productivity. Second, pro-competitive effects are most important among incumbents, while efficiency gains dominate for new entrants. Third, cuts in input tariffs raise both markups and productivity. We highlight mechanisms that explain these findings in the Chinese context.
Journal Article
Does the GATT/WTO promote trade? After all, Rose was right
This paper re-examines the effect of the GATT/WTO on trade using recent econometric developments that allow us estimating structural gravity equations with the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator on a large dataset that requires computing high-dimensional fixed effects. By doing so, we overcome computational limitations that are present in previous studies. In line with Rose’s (Am Econ Rev 94:98–114, 2004) seminal work, we find that, unlike regional trade agreements and currency unions, the GATT/WTO accession has not generated positive trade effects. This result is robust to the use of alternative measures of trade flows, across periods and country groups, to changes in the periodicity of the data, when taking into account the GATT/WTO accession dynamics, to controlling for the participation of only one country of the dyad in GATT/WTO, to the consideration of non-member participants, and to the use of alternative datasets. Notwithstanding, we also find that PPML results are sensitive to the definition of the dependent variable.
Journal Article
Transience of (In)Formality: The Role of the Joint Initiatives in Reforming the WTO Negotiations
This paper develops the concept of transience of (in)formality to refer to the intersection of formal and informal negotiating procedures in the WTO decision-making system. It argues that both formal and informal negotiating processes are essential for delivering negotiating outcomes in the WTO. Particularly, the article assesses how informal negotiating practices emerge within the WTO formal framework and align with it. The analysis highlights how negotiating practices (re)shape existing norms, both formal and informal, adapting the WTO to overcome challenges and meet current needs. It also disputes legal formalistic perspectives that permeate trade literature and offer limited accounts of Members' agency in the WTO. The paper uses the Joint Initiatives as a case study to illustrate the convergence between formality and informality and a possible way ahead for the WTO negotiations. By broadening the understanding of law-making, it contributes to the discussion on WTO reform. It provides alternatives that reflect the reality of WTO negotiations and underlines the institution's relevance.
Journal Article
Multilateral Trade Bargaining
This paper empirically examines recently declassified tariff bargaining data from the GATT/WTO. Focusing on the Torquay Round (1950–1951), we document stylized facts about these interconnected high-stakes international negotiations that suggest a lack of strategic behavior among the participating governments and an important multilateral element to the bilateral bargains. We suggest that these features can be understood as emerging from a tariff bargaining forum that emphasizes the GATT pillars of MFN and multilateral reciprocity, and we offer evidence that the relaxation of strict bilateral reciprocity facilitated by the GATT multilateral bargaining forum was important to the success of the GATT approach.
Journal Article