After a brief review of the literature to the early 1970s, this Paper assesses the contributions by economists during the past three decades to measuring the distortionary effects of trade policies. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey, but draws on selections from the literature...

Taking global value chains (GVCs) into account has important implications for trade policy. When production is vertically fragmented and trade in intermediate inputs is prevalent, one has to look differently at a certain number of issues. Through case studies, this paper provides new evidence on...

This paper assesses the possible impact of a Euro-Mediterranean Agreement (EMA) on Egypt and Jordan and identifies policy options that will increase the benefits of free trade with Europe. The extent to which these countries will benefit from an EMA depends greatly on the investment response and...

This report looks at procedures and processes related to non-tariff measures in agricultural trade. Based on the prior that countries are likely to make efforts to reduce the trade hindering effects of domestic food regulation within regional trade agreements, we focus on three different RTAs,...

The paper analyzes the potential trade distortion effects of state trading enterprises (STEs) on soybean imports to Korea. Traditionally, STEs have exercised exclusive rights to import the so-called strategic products, to ensure food security, domestic price stabilization, and import mark-ups....

Agricultural trade is widely considered as an important contributor to developing countries‘ economic growth, poverty alleviation and food security. This report identifies and analyses some of the most important supply-side constraints to developing countries‘ exports of agricultural...

Border processes for perishable agro-food products involve multiple agencies and raise complex compliance and enforcement issues. At the same time, the speed of border processes is of particular importance for exporters as delays at the border can have great negative impacts on the quality of...

Ce rapport présente un cadre conceptuel pour l’évaluation des coûts et bénéfices associés aux mesures non tarifaires. Il permet une évaluation comparative basée sur les faits des diverses approches réglementaires.

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...

This report examines the different channels through which trade openness (and reforms to achieve it) can affect a country’s food security. The overall conclusion is that trade openness has a positive net impact on food security, although specific constituencies, including some poor households,...