A comprehensive inventory of bilateral FTAs on a global scale, with sections on Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. It highlights the key points of each agreement, and details planned future developments. Background paper prepared for the...

This issue of Global Employment Trends for Youth provides an update on youth labour markets around the world, focusing both on the continuing labour market crisis and on structural issues in youth labour markets. The report provides an overview of youth labour markets at the global and regional...

Is the high degree of gender inequality in developing countries in education, personal autonomy, and more explained by underdevelopment itself? Or do the societies that are poor today hold certain cultural views that lead to gender inequality? This article discusses several mechanisms through...

India’s foreign policy has had an anomalous quality since the time Jawaharlal Nehru resolutely attempted to steer clear of Cold War alliances. This continues to be so given India’s unique situation of establishing “strategic relations†with both Israel and Iran, as part...

This paper assesses the impact of India’s unilateral tariff reductions and lowering of quantitative restrictions since 1991. It then evaluates the WTO commitments on nonagricultural market access in the light of these reductions. This short paper based on hard quantitative analysis is a...

Much more than comparative advantage and free markets have been at play in shaping China's export success. Government policies have helped nurture domestic capabilities in consumer electronics and other advanced areas that would most likely not have developed in their absence. As a result, China...

This article analyses the importance of international commercial service transactions relating to both trade and investment, which form an essential element of analyzing production fragmentation and economic integration in Asia. Following an aggregative analysis the authors discusses data...

The EU Commission argues that radical changes to he origin rules will both simplify processes and make them more development friendly. Will they? There are different opinions on what Rules of Origin should achieve – which complicates the task of setting the right level. A substantial...

Taking into account the latest data of exports of textiles and clothing to the European Union from South Asia and China, a year-end assessment of the impact of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) introduced by the EU in January last. Despite loss of GSP benefit on textiles, Indian...

Policy makers are particularly concerned about the extent and speed of exchange rate pass-through into domestic prices. However, in recent times there seems to be a growing degree of disconnect between exchange rate changes and domestic consumer prices in general, or, for that matter, even into...