The Doha Round must be concluded not because it will produce dramatic liberalization but because it will create greater security of market access. Its conclusion would strengthen, symbolically and substantively, the WTO’s valuable role in restraining protectionism in the current downturn. What...

The collapse in trade and contraction of output that occurred during 2008-09 was comparable to, and in many countries more severe than, the Great Depression of 1930, but did not give rise to the rampant protectionism that followed the Great Crash. Theory suggests several hypotheses for why it...

Global commodity markets are affected by a variety of government policies that may expand or lower overall supply and as a result affect world prices for the specific products concerned. Market failures and market structures (market power along the value chain) also affect supply. This paper...

Hoekman analyzes what actions could be taken in the context of the World Trade Organization's Doha negotiations to assist countries in reaping benefits from deeper trade integration. He discusses the policy agenda that confronts many developing countries and identifies a number of focal points...

This paper assesses the potential impacts of services trade liberalisation for a sample of African countries. The focus is on the relationship between labour productivity of manufacturing sectors and two types of services trade-related policies – restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI)...

This paper briefly reviews new indices of trade restrictiveness and trade facilitation that have been developed at the World Bank. The paper also compares the trade impact of different types of trade restrictions applied at the border with the effects of domestic policies that affect trade...

At the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, WTO members called for the launch of negotiations on disciplines relating to competition based on explicit consensus on modalities to be agreed at the fifth WTO ministerial meeting in 2003. WTO discussions since...

Hoekman analyzes what actions could be taken in the context of the World Trade Organization's Doha negotiations to assist countries in reaping benefits from deeper trade integration. He discusses the policy agenda that confronts many developing countries and identifies a number of focal points...