Journal Special Issue
Developing Countries in the WTO Regime
When the Uruguay Round was being negotiated and it was coming to a close, a number of estimates were made about the impact of the agreement on poor countries. Many of the assessments indicated that there would be a net loss for them while others came...
Working Paper
Institutional and policy adjustments to implement Free Trade Agreements with the European Union
Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between the European Union (EU) and trade partners go far beyond mere elimination of tariffs to include such diverse issues as non-tariff barriers, competition legislation, investment protection, and more. Implementing...
Working Paper
Costa Rica
Over the last thirty-five years, Costa Rican exports (in dollars) have grown at an average annual growth rate of 10.8 per cent. In the context of an import substituting industrialization and subregional integration, exports grew at increasingly...
Working Paper
Liberalization, Globalization and Income Distribution
Recent mainstream analyses of changes in income distribution over the post World War II period have concluded that income inequality within countries tends to be stable, that there is no strong association between growth and inequality and that...
Working Paper
External Liberalization, Economic Performance, and Distribution in Latin America and Elsewhere
As seen from the year 2001, economic policy in developing and post-socialist economies during the preceding 10-15 years had one dominating theme - external 'liberalization' or the drastic lowering or removal of long-standing barriers to almost all...
Working Paper
Factor Shares and Resource Booms
This paper studies the evolution of Venezuelan inequality since 1970. It finds a striking increase in Venezuelan inequality that has been due mainly to the rise in capital's share of GDP. It shows that the increase can be traced back to the coupling...
Working Paper
From GATT to WTO and Beyond
The object of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the international trading system from its inception as GATT in 1947 to its latest incarnation as WTO, comprising the complex array of agreements forming its substance and mandate. The study...
Working Paper
Liberalization of Capital Movements and Trade
A two-period, two-sector optimizing model is used to study the effects of liberalization of trade and capital movements on the real exchange rate, unemployment, and welfare. The mechanism creating unemployment is assumed to be real wage rigidity...
Working Paper
Causes and Lessons of the Mexican Peso Crisis
This paper analyses in depth the causes of the Mexican peso crisis, so as to learn relevant lessons for similar crisis occurring in other developing or transitional economies. The study follows a relatively chronological order, examining first the...
Working Paper
Export Performance in Chile
Since the mid-1970s, Chile's exports have expanded at a fast rate, and the export basket has diversified considerably, away from copper towards other primary commodities and commodity-intensive manufactures. This paper explores the causal factors and...
Journal Article
Tracing the Special and Differential Treatment Principle through the CARIFORUM EPA
The EU's decision to replace unilateral Lomé preferences with Article XXIV-compliant reciprocal agreements remains a subject of ongoing debate in trade circles. The major issue stems from the inequality of bilateral negotiations between the world's...
Book
Globalization, Marginalization and Development
This excellent new book contains contributions from a number of leading experts and is the result of the UNU/WIDER project on globalization and low-income countries. The discussion focuses in on how to harness globalization for the benefit of present...
Working Paper
The Asian Currency Crisis
What started in the summer of 1997 as a regional economic and financial crisis in East and Southeast Asia had developed into a global financial crisis within the span of a year. This crisis followed the crisis in the European Monetary System in 1992...
Working Paper
Effects of foreign aid on income through international trade
This paper presents a review of recent studies that estimate the trade effects of foreign aid. It also provides new results obtained using panel data techniques to estimate the direct effects of aid on international trade, accounting for countries’...
Working Paper
Impact of Liberalization, Economic Growth and Trade Policies on Current Accounts of Developing Countries
The objectives of this paper are to examine the impact of liberalization on trade deficits and current accounts for developing economies. Attempts at liberalization in trade could lead to an increase in imports in the short run and this could cause...
Working Paper
Foreign Trade and the Gender Earnings Differential in Urban Mexico
This paper examines the effect of foreign trade induced product market competition, upon workplace gender discrimination in urban Mexico as measured by the gender earnings differential. More than four decades ago, Becker argued that labour market...
Working Paper
Impact of Globalization and Liberalization on Growth, Employment and Poverty
While globalization is viewed as a key to future economic development, it is also argued that it increases poverty, threatens employment and living standards of the poor. Like many other developing countries, Pakistan also attempted to integrate its...
Working Paper
Assessing the Impact of One Aspect of Globalization on Economic Growth in Africa
Using panel data, this paper explores the effects of openness to international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth. Fixed-effect and adjusted fixed-effect (regional-effect) estimations yield results consistent with the...
Working Paper
A CGE Analysis of the Short-run Welfare Effects of Tariff Liberalisation in Uganda
The promotion of human welfare is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of economic development. To achieve this, many developing countries adopted trade liberalisation in the late 1980s, premised on the theoretical evidence based on the...
Journal Article
US Free Trade Agreements and Policy Flexibility
Free trade agreements have become a central feature of many developing countries' growth strategies, encouraged by an evaluation literature that quantifies their positive impact on trade. However, trade gains come at the cost of policy space...
Journal Article
Trade Liberalisation and Economic Performance
The last five decades have witnessed a profound evolution of economic policy in developing countries, particularly in the case of trade strategies. Both internal, as well as external, factors have prompted the need for more outward-oriented (or...