Because of concern that OECD tariff reductions will translate intoworsening export performance for the least developed countries, trade preferences haveproven a stumbling block to developing country support for multilateral liberalization.We examine the actual scope for preference erosion,...

Notwithstanding some progress in market and product diversification - including services - LDCs remain particularly vulnerable to external shocks. With the exception of 2006-2008, the LDCs as a group have systematically recorded a trade deficit. The 2008-2009 global crisis and the bumpy recovery...

This paper takes a step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial Revolution phenomena - the industrialization and growth take-off of rich 'northern' nations, massive global income divergence, and rapid trade expansion. Specifically, we present a stages-of...

Global Manufacturing and International Supply Chains changed the way trade and international economics are understood today. The present essay builds on recent statistical advances to suggest new ways of looking at the demand and supply side approaches when Global Value Chains (GVCs) -...

Trade finance shortfalls now appear regularly. Does this matter for trade expansion and economic development in developing countries? Global trade finance has resumed following the 2009 global financial crisis. However, the pattern of recovery has been uneven across countries and categories of...

Trade finance shortfalls now appear regularly. Does this matter for trade expansion and economic development in developing countries? Global trade finance has resumed following the 2009 global financial crisis. However, the pattern of recovery has been uneven across countries and categories of...

This paper explores the kinds of demands governments in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) could and should be formulating and submitting in the context of the e-commerce negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as any current or proposed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) they are...

The most extensive tariff cuts in the history of GATT were completed with the fifth and final stage of the Kennedy Round. Tariffs on a volume of trade in excess of $ 40 bn have been reduced by an average of 50 p.c.

High on the agenda of the UNCTAD III Conference is the problem of least developed countries. It is realised that these countries need special cooperative action to improve their chances of overcoming the worst handicaps of poverty stabilised by stagnation. The hard-core cases within the group of...

Early in May the UN Secretary-General, Kurt Waldhelm, felt obliged to Intervene in the proceedings of the Third Conference for Trade and Development. By pointing out that there were no funds available to permit the Conference to extend its work beyond the five weeks that had been planned for it,...