This paper examines the impact of the Australia-Thailand free trade agreement (TAFTA) on bilateral trade between the two countries, paying attention to the implications of rules of origins (RoO) and the utilization of tariff preferences. It is found that trade has expanded faster following TAFTA...

This paper surveys recent development in Sri Lankan trade policy, with an emphasis on emerging protectionist tendencies, using Sri Lanka’s Trade Policy Review (2010) by the World Trade Organization as a reference point. The Sri Lankan experience for over the three decades following the...

With exports almost half of its GDP and most of these directed to Europe and North America, negative financial shocks in those regions might be expected to retard China’s growth. Yet mitigating factors include the temporary flight of North American and European savings into Chinese investment...

As China becomes more industrial and urbanized, it is likely to become more dependent over time on imports of (especially land-intensive) farm products, most notably livestock feedstuffs. If farmers are slow to adjust to their declining competitiveness, for example by obtaining off-farm...

This paper projects Indonesia's production and trade patterns to 2020 and 2030 in the course of global economic development under various growth and policy scenarios. We employ the GTAP model and Version 8.1 of the GTAP database, along with supplementary data from a range of sources to support...

By how much did the cost of governmental barriers to trade change over the 20th century, and how might they change by the middle of the 21st century? This paper addresses that question by first reviewing evidence on the changing extent of global trade restrictions since 1900, particularly for...

This paper addresses three questions relating to the very extensive use of the GTAP global trade protection database: Are there additional price-distorting policy instruments worthy of inclusion in the base year? What is the appropriate counterfactual set of price distortions in the year of...

Rapid economic growth in some emerging economies in recent decades has significantly increased their global economic importance. If this rapid growth continues and is strongest in resource-poor Asian economies, the growth in global demand for imports of primary products also will continue, to...

This paper offers an empirical analysis of the proposal by some developing countries for an agricultural Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) in the World Trade Organization. It draws on political economy and market theory to demonstrate that the loss-averting domestic producer benefits that...