Although average <EM t="s">oecd</EM> tariffs on imports from the least developed countries are very low; tariffs above 15 percent (peaks) have a disproportional effect on their exports. Products subject to tariff peaks tend to be heavily concentrated in agriculture and food products and labor-intensive...</em>

Because of concern that tariff reductions in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (<EM t="s">oecd</EM>) countries will translate into worsening export performance for the least developed countries, the erosion of trade preferences may become a stumbling block for multilateral trade...</em>

There are large differences between WTO Members in terms of resource capacity constraints and national trade policy and investment priorities. These affect the ability and willingness to incur the costs associated with implementation of new rules, as well as the net benefits of doing so. The...

This paper focuses on policies facilitating firm adjustment to globalization. We briefly review the effects of trade and investment liberalization on firms, focusing on within-industry effects. We postulate that governments' role in supporting the process is to: (i) ensure that firms face the...

Extensive research has demonstrated the existence of large potential welfare gains from trade facilitation—measures to reduce the overall costs of the international movement of goods. From an equity perspective an important question is how those benefits are distributed across and within...

In 2009, the United States imposed additional tariffs for a three-year period on imports of automotive tires from China under a special-safeguard provision included in China’s Protocol of Accession to the WTO. China challenged the measure in the WTO. The case marked the first WTO dispute in...

Plurilateral agreements in the WTO context allow sub-sets of countries to agree to commitments in specific policy areas that only apply to signatories, and thus allow for ‘variable geometry’ in the WTO. Current WTO rules make it much more difficult to pursue the plurilateral route than to...