Two objectives of international commodity policy have been to reduce instability in exporter's earnings and importer's prices through international (buffer stock) agreements and to encourage further processing of domestically produced commodities by developing countries. However, it appears that...

World Bank demographic and country characteristic statistics identify 16 small landlocked countries that are similar to Lesotho. The authors attempt to determine what useful policy information can be derived from the recent trade performance of these"comparators."Among questions they pose are...

The alarming increase in the number of antidumping actions pursued by both industrial and developing countries has caused considerable concern among economists, lawyers, and trade reformers. These concerns have led to suggestions to substitute antitrust principles for antidumping laws and...

The authors quantify the impact on Cameroon of three aspects of its new regional trade agreement with the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (the CEMAC agreement): i) improved access to markets in CEMAC; ii) preferential tariff reduction; and iii) reduction of its external tariff...

A policy of national exhaustion says that the rights to control distribution, end upon first sale only within a country, thereby permitting rights holders to exclude parallel imports. A policy of international exhaustion states that such rights end upon first sale anywhere, and therefore permits...

Many countries use duty drawbacks on exports, yet they have been given little attention in the literature and there is no consensus whether countries should embrace or abandon them. The author asserts that the answer depends on a country’s development priorities and economic conditions. An...

There has been a resurgence of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). This has led to renewed debate about how PTAs affect both welfare and the multilateral system. The author examines two ideas: the welfare impact of PTAs and the effect of structural and policy changes on PTAs. He asks how the...

High levels of protection and domestic support for farmers in industrial countries significantly affect many developing countries, both directly and through the price-depressing effect of agricultural support policies. High tariffs--in both rich and poor countries--and domestic support may also...

Dumping accurs when a firm charges a price in the foreign market below its price in the domestic market when it supplies the indentical good to both markets. Provisions within the GATT allow member countries to impose antidumping (AD) duties to counteract this behavior and return the price of...

The authors explore the effects on the terms of trade of regional economic integration. They show why it is an appropriate measure of the welfare effects of such integration, comparing it with the many ex post studies that base their conclusions on changes in the import shares of member and...