Beyond their key contribution to value chains in all sectors, services represent a centrally important source of economic and export diversification. This paper discusses how to promote trade in services as a channel for growth, employment, and diversification by assessing services trade costs...

In 2016, the Government of India proposed negotiations on an agreement to facilitate trade in services to complement the 2013 World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement in goods. The proposal did not find much support, but plurilateral talks launched in 2017 on various policy areas...

The growing importance of services trade for countries across the world is well-documented in the services and trade literatures. At the same time, regulatory and administrative barriers to the movement of service suppliers to deliver services internationally have resulted in very low shares of...

This paper uses a case study approach to explore the effects of NAFTA and GATT membership on innovation and trade in the Mexican soaps, detergents, and surfactants (SDS) industry. Several basic findings emerge. First, the most fundamental effect of the NAFTA and the GATT on the SDS industry was...

The authors use a panel of manufacturing firms to analyze the adjustment process in capital blue collar and white collar employment in Uruguay during a period of trade liberalization when average tariff protection fell from 43 to 14 percent. They calculate the desired factor levels arising from...

This paper describes how different policy distortions have been impeding better integration of Brazil's external and internal product markets and discusses how these distortions have prevented domestic firms from benefiting from multiple sources of efficiency gains. The paper first focuses on...

This paper studies the effects of trade policy uncertainty on the extensive and intensive margins of trade for a sample of 65 exporters at the Harmonized System six-digit level. The paper measures trade policy uncertainty as the gap between binding tariff commitments under trade agreements...

The Arab Republic of Egypt is yet to meet its exports potential, which has been historically hampered by several domestic market distortions and multiple barriers, resulting in weak export performance and modest regional and global integration. Although the liberalization of the exchange rate in...

This paper examines the effects of robotization on trade patterns, wages and welfare. It develops a Ricardian model with two-stage production and trade in intermediate and final goods in which robots can take over some tasks previously performed by humans in a subset of industries. An increase...

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...