The WTO plays an important role in supporting efforts to achieve international regulatory cooperation (IRC) and to facilitate trade. First, the WTO provides a multilateral framework for trade among its 164 members, with a view to ensuring that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as...

Global value chains (GVCs) break up the production process so at different steps can be carried out in different countries. Today’s official statistical information systems, designed to measure economic activity in a pre-GVC world, have struggled to keep pace with these changes. Conventional...