This note series is intended to summarize good practice and key policy findings on Economic Policy, Gender, Governance and Public Sector Reform, Poverty and Trade.
A separate Trade Notes series is also available. Click here to view the Trade Notes.
The Pattern of Antidumping and other Types of Contingent Protection PREMNote 144 Many of the major economies in the multilateral, rules-based trading system find themselves in a situation in which their applied tariff rates are quite close to the tariff binding levels that form their legal commitments at the WTO. This implies that they cannot simply raise applied tariff rates to respond to domestic industry demands for additional trade barriers to protect them from imports. One of the fundamental and potentially WTO-legal ways in which national governments can respond to domestic industry calls for additional protection from imports is by resorting to trade remedy policy instruments such as antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duty (antisubsidy) policies. This note, which describes newly collected data made available through the World Bank-sponsored Global Antidumping Database, reports on the combined use of such policies, comprehensively collected across the major WTO member economies.
October 2009
Breaking into New Markets, Raising Quality, and Improving Services: Neglected Avenues for Export Diversification PREMNote 143 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 countrys vulnerability to pronounced price swings in international markets.
September 2009
Managing Trade Policy During The Economic Crisis PREMNote 140
July 2009
Trade-Related Policy Responses to the Crisis: A Stock Taking PREMNote 139
The Crisis Resilience of Services Trade PREMNote 135
April 2009
Achieving WTO Compliance for Special Economic Zones in Developing Countries PREMNote 134
Global Economic Crisis and Vertical Specialization in Developing Countries PREMNote 133
Global Food Price Crisis - Trade Policy Options PREMNote 120 The current global food price crisis has deep historical roots in the distortions of the world trading system (see companion note, Global Food Price CrisisTrade Policy Origins). Trade policy options to deal with the crisis involve correcting these historical distortions. They include removing export controls on agricultural products, eliminating restrictions on humanitarian food aid, reducing excessive stocks of food grains, reversing biofuel subsidies and protection to inefficient producers, lowering customs duties on agricultural products, facilitating agriculture trade, completing the Doha round of trade negotiations, and, in the long run, further liberalizing agricultural trade on a multilateral basis. Many importing countries have already embarked on this agenda by slashing tariffs to lower the costs in their domestic markets.
June 2008
Global Food Price Crisis - Trade Policy Origins PREMNote 119 The current spike in global food prices has deep roots in decades of trade-distorting policies that have encouraged inefficient agricultural production in rich countries and discouraged efficient production in developing countries. Overall, the world has suffered from declining agricultural prices, overproduction in high-income countries, and underproduction in poor countries. This has resulted in thinner global agricultural markets than otherwise would be the case, more volatility, and lower overall reserve supply capacity and food security. This note discusses the trade policy origins of the global food price crisis. A companion note reviews the trade policy options to deal with the crisis.
Access to Preshipment Export Finance PREMNote 113 Many small- and medium-sized emerging exporters in developing countries have inadequate access to short-term working capital to finance their export transactions. This is mainly due to a market failure resulting from informational asymmetries on the part of banks about exporters ability to execute export orders according to buyers standards of quality, cost, and delivery. Several countries have established preshipment export finance guaranty facilities to help alleviate this market failure. This note draws on Tunisias experience to outline the necessary conditions for the success of these facilities.
April 2007