Global trade growth has slowed since 2012 relative both to its strong historical performance and to overall economic growth. This paper aims to quantify the role of weak economic growth and changes in its decomposition in accounting for the slowdown in trade using a reduced form and a structural...

The paper explores the relationship between trade policy and current accounts. The effect on the current account of a change in protection at home and then abroad is analyzed, assuming that the exchange rate floats. The “savings-and-investment approach” is used. It shows that there is no...

This paper studies the implications of the Uruguay Round for Kenya’s own trade regime and its external trading environment. The analysis indicates that Kenya did not undertake significant liberalization commitments under the Uruguay Round. There are however, several effects on Kenya’s...

The paper reviews Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) (i) own market access commitments in the Uruguay Round, and (ii) the nature of the constraints on SSA policies set by the Uruguay Round. It concludes that SSA failed to use the Uruguay Round to lock domestic reforms to an international anchor. Apart...

This paper reviews the economics of trade policy in financial services, highlighting differences between trade across borders and through commercial presence. Trade liberalization could complement other financial reforms by enhancing the efficiency, quality, and variety of financial services and...

This paper studies the relationship between trade policy and food prices. We show that, when individuals are loss averse, governments may use trade policy to shield the domestic economy from large food price shocks. This creates a complementarity between the price of food in international...

This paper surveys the literature on the relationship between international trade and inclusive growth. It examines claims that the rise in inequality in many countries can be attributed to the concurrent rise in trade competition, especially from EMEs like China, spurring trade tensions and...

This paper empirically investigates the impact of tariffs when production is organized in global value chains. Using global input-output matrices, we construct four different tariff measures that capture the direct and indirect exposure to tariffs at different stages of the production chain for...