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,...

Governments in more developed economies partially compensate import-competing industries when world prices fall, i.e. they lean against the wind. In less developed economies we often observe liberalization in response to the same shock. We use a political-support maximization model with revenue...

Central to the following discussion is the assertion that a foreign trade policy which maximizes the static efficiency gains from trade may result in reduced dynamic or X-efficiency and thus impair a developing country’s development potential. The dominant view of the relation between...

This volume offers a rousing defense of pro-free-trade policies and their benefits for developing countries. Through cross-country evidence and detailed case studies, Arvind Panagariya demonstrates the need for trade openness for sustained growth and poverty alleviation.

This volume offers a rousing defense of pro-free-trade policies and their benefits for developing countries. Through cross-country evidence and detailed case studies, Arvind Panagariya demonstrates the need for trade openness for sustained growth and poverty alleviation.

More than 170 years ago, Frédéric Bastiat noted in his masterly work Economic Sophisms that the “opposition to free trade rests upon errors, or, if you prefer, upon half-truths.”1 Ever since Adam Smith successfully replaced mercantilist orthodoxy with free trade doctrine in his celebrated...