Agriculture is yet again causing contention in international trade negotiations. It caused long delays to the Uruguay round in the late 1980s and 1990s, and it is again proving to be the major stumbling block in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations...

China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a watershed event for both China and the WTO. After 30 years of effective isolation from the world economy, and close to a quarter century of autonomous reforms, China joined the legal framework of the world trading system. In doing so...

This article: a) summarizes the costs of current merchandise trade distortions to developing and other economies; b) examines some scenarios that might emerge as part of an eventual Doha agreement consistent with the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial declaration, particularly with respect to...

This article summarizes some of the results and findings emerging from an ongoing World Bank a research and capacity-building project that focuses on the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiating agenda from a developing country perspective. Recent research suggests that the potential gains...

A fundamental objective of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries. The 2001 declaration from the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, commits the member governments to negotiations aimed at substantial improvements in market access...

This paper uses detailed data on bound and applied tariffs to assess the consequences of the World Trade Organization s December 2008 Modalities for tariffs levied and faced by developing countries, and the welfare implications of these reforms. The authors find that the tiered formula for...

This paper provides new estimates of the global gains from multilateral trade reform and their distribution among developing countries in the presence of trade preferences. Particular attention is given to agriculture, as farmers constitute the poorest households in developing countries but are...

Anderson and Martin examine the extent to which various regions, and the world as a whole, could gain from multilateral trade reform over the next decade. They use the World Bank's linkage model of the global economy to examine the impact first of current trade barriers and agricultural...