Competition policy, today, is an essential element of the legal and institutional framework for the global economy. Whereas decades ago, anti-competitive practices tended to be viewed mainly as a domestic phenomenon, most facets of competition law enforcement now have an important international...

The aim of this paper is to analyse developing countries' participation so far in the current round of services negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda. The paper analyses developing countries' negotiating positions, as evidenced by their multilateral negotiating proposals; their initial...

The linkages between trade and resource mobilization are complex and not well defined in theory. To what extent does trade policy affect resource mobilization and what are the mechanisms? We argue that trade policy is a key factor of influencing the domestic fundamental balance between aggregate...

This paper examines how services trade and policies contribute to connectivity. It highlights the economic relevance of services and identifies some key channels through which trade in services contributes to physical and digital connectivity. The paper examines the impact of services trade...

This paper analyses to which extent domestic institutions affect trade flows. We use two complementary approaches, one focusing on the size of total trade flows and one focusing on bilateral trade patterns (gravity equation). Besides, we control for two other domestic policy variables: trade...

Since the recovery from the great financial crisis in 2010, global real trade flows grew much slower than pre-crisis, in both absolute terms (growth rates) and relative terms (relative to GDP, from 2:1 in the great 1990's to 1:1 since 2012) A debate has arisen as to whether this global trade...

When looking at the conditions of trade in natural resources the world appears upside down: tariff protection in natural resources sectors is generally lower than for overall merchandise trade, while export restrictions are twice as likely as in other sectors. On the other hand, tariff...

Natural resources account for 20% of world trade, and dominate the exports of many countries. Policy is used to manipulate both international and domestic prices of resources, yet this policy is largely outside the disciplines of the WTO. The instruments used include export taxes, price...

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...