In its latest Report on the “financial and economic crisis and trade-related developments” (26 March 2009), the WTO used the term “significant slippage” to qualify changes in protection observed from late 2008 to March 2009. Most of the newspapers in the world translated these terms into...

This paper forms part of an OECD project which addressed the issue of the structure and change in the distribution systems of seven OECD countries. This paper gives an overview of the structure, policy and performance of the French distribution system for the period 1970-90. This analysis is...

The European Union’s recent trade policy strategy towards China, which focuses on bilateral market access and involves a strong U S-style confrontational stance, is ineffective and short-sighted. Today there exists no genuine dialogue between China and the EU on crucial commercial issues. This...

In June 2001, seven countries1 of South East Europe (SEE) agreed to conclude bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in order to develop their mutual trade and promote economic integration in the region. This approach implied the signature of 21 agreements, of which 5 already existed. The 21 FTAs...

By increasing the costs of imports, minimum unit import reference prices not only generate the usual distortions one expects from tariff protection but add new ones that a pure tariff system would not generate. Reference prices substantially reduce the price gap between imports with prices above...

This following study is a “meta-evaluation” of the way aid agencies evaluate and assess their trade-related operations – and was undertaken as part of the OECD’s broader efforts to improve the effectiveness of aid-for-trade. It focuses on 162 evaluations of operations in two countries -...

This paper has analyzed implications of the U.K, French and German voluntary export restraints (VERs) negotiated with Japanese carmakers. The paper shows how VERs do not protect domestic industries and probably end up costing consumers more. First, most EC countries followed suit after the...

The Doha Development Agenda is the first "round" of multilateral trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization and is also the first time that multilateral trade talks have explicitly sought to focus on the interests of developing countries. Developing Asia therefore has much at stake in...

In Europe After the NO Votes, Professor Patrick Messerlin of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, argues that the NO votes in the French and Dutch referenda on the proposed EU constitution highlight the need to design an economic agenda for the future of the EU congruent with its...

Negotiators in Geneva are still struggling to conclude the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, after seven years of negotiations, many people - and especially many industrialists in Europe and the United States - are not convinced that the...