It has sometimes been argued that "globalization" benefits only a small number of countries, and that this leads to greater marginalization of excluded countries. This paper argues that globalization is not necessarily biased towards greater concentration in international trade and investment...

The establishment of the multilateral trading system over seven decades ago was based on the understanding that interdependence and cooperation contribute to peace and shared prosperity. More recently, however, new challenges, such as geopolitical tensions, rising inequalities and climate...

This paper quantifies the extent of preferential trade as a share of total world trade in different regions of the world and for two periods. Results show that: i) preferential trade represented 40% of world trade in the period 1988-1992 and it slightly increased to 42% during the period 1993-1997;...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of increasingly frequent and more intense natural and man-made disasters raise important questions about the resilience of the global economy to such shocks. The World Trade Report 2021 explores the basic, binary assumption driving much of the current...

The world is changing with extraordinary rapidity, driven by many influences, including shifts in production and consumption patterns, continuing technological innovation, new ways of doing business and, of course, policy. The World Trade Report 2013 focuses on how trade is both a cause and an...

The theme of this year’s Report is “Trade in a Globalizing World”. The Report provides a reminder of what we know about the gains from international trade and highlights the challenges arising from higher levels of integration. It addresses a range of interlinking questions, starting with...