How high were import tariffs when GATT participants began negotiations to reduce them in 1947? Establishing this starting point is key to determining how successful the GATT has been in bringing down trade barriers. If the average tariff level was about 40 percent, as commonly reported, the...

Rich countries' agricultural trade policies are the battleground on which the future of the WTO's troubled Doha Round will be determined. Subject to widespread criticism, they nonetheless appear to be almost immune to serious reform, and one of their most common defenses is that they protect...

The Zambian cotton sector went through significant reforms during the 1990s. After a long period of parastatal control, a process of liberalization in cotton production and marketing began in 1994. These reforms were expected to benefit agricultural farmers. In Zambia, these are rural, often...

A global computable general equilibrium model is used to analyze the economic impacts of rising oil prices with endogenously determined availability of biofuels to mitigate those impacts. The negative effects on the global economy are comparable to those found in other studies, but the impacts...

The focus of trade policy has shifted in recent years from economy-wide reductions in tariffs and trade restrictions toward targeted interventions to facilitate trade and promote exports. Most of these latter interventions are based on the new mantra of "aid-for-trade" rather than on hard...