The authors argue that India should engage more actively in the multilateral trading system for four reasons: First, such engagement could facilitate domestic reform, and improve access to export markets. If the government could show that domestic reform would pay off with increased access to...

Developing countries became full-fledged participants in multilateral trade negotiations only with the Uruguay Round, during which they succeeded in bringing agriculture into the GATT/WTO, reaching agreement on phasing out the Multi-Fibre Arrangement within ten years, and beginning work on...

Will the current wave of regional integration arrangements lead to the world being divided into competing inward-looking trading blocs? Or will it lead to a more open multilateral trading system? Using a multi-country political economy model, and after having shown that global free trade is...

A crucial step in policy analysis involves computing consequences of policy actions. The author shows how to implement numerically a general equilibrium model in EViews. Computable general equilibrium models are now commonly used in both industrial and developing countries to assess the impact...

Food safety standards, and the tradeoff between these standards, and agricultural export growth, are at the forefront of the trade policy debate. How food safety is addressed in the world trade system, is critical for developing countries that continue to rely on agricultural exports. In a...

Preferential trading agreements (PTAs) are increasingly including elements of"deep"integration--efforts to agree on common regulatory regimes. The author explores what the PTA experience suggests about the relationship between shallow integration--attaining unconditional intra-area free trade...

The differences in financial development between advanced and developing countries are pronounced. It has been observed, both theoretically and empirically, that these differences in countries'financial systems are a source of comparative advantage and trade. This paper points out that to the...

A well developed financial system enhances competition in the industrial sector by allowing easier entry. The impact varies across industries, however. For some, small changes in financial development quickly induce entry and dissipate incumbents'rents, generating strong incentives to oppose...

Network externalities exist when the benefit a consumer derives from a good or service depends on the number of other consumers using the same good, or service (as happens, for example, with telecommunications, television broadcasting standards, and many other technology-related goods and...

The authors evaluate the potential benefits of international disciplines on policies toward foreign direct investment for developing countries. They conclude that the case for initiating negotiations on investment policies is weak at present. Negotiating efforts that center on further...