Aid for Trade supports developing and least-developed countries in building their trade capacity and in increasing their exports by turning market access opportunities into market presence. It does so by addressing four key areas: trade policy & regulations; economic infrastructure; building...

This paper looks at the various trade policies WTO Members have put into place to foster women's economic empowerment. The analysis below is based on the information provided by WTO Members as part of their Trade Policy Review (TPRs) process from 2014 to 2018. Reports from the WTO Secretariat,...

From its initial focus on minimizing waste generation, the circular economy has evolved into a broad-based approach to make resource use more sustainable. A big part of the appeal of a circular economy is the opportunities it creates not only for resource savings and better human health and...

In order to ensure transparency and to keep abreast of trade policies in support of sustainability, the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) mandated the WTO Secretariat to compile and collate all environment-related measures notified to WTO. The database also includes...

This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some...

One of the goals of the multilateral trading system is to enhance the stability and predictability of the environment in which traders operate.Binding tariffs at the WTO reduces the scope for their discretionary use. But, countries have bound tariffs at ceiling levels often substantially above...

This paper studies the effects of trade policy uncertainty on the extensive and the intensive margins of trade for a sample of 149 exporters at the HS6 digit level. We measure trade policy uncertainty as the gap between binding tariff commitments under trade agreements (multilateral and regional...

In addition to cross-border supply, the Agreement covers three additional types of transactions, i.e. the supply of services via consumer movements abroad as well as the presence of foreign firms and foreign service professionals in the respective markets. At the same time, the GATS accommodates...

We investigate to what extent the probability that a Specific Trade Concern (STC) is raised in the WTO against a Member in a given sector is affected by past reductions in applied tariffs. Employing an identification strategy based on 'new measures', we find evidence of a substitution of...

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements,...