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This paper summarizes the major arguments and proposals to reform the modus operandi of the World Trade Organization-including decision-making procedures, negotiating modalities, and dispute settlement. Much has already been done to improve the internal and external transparency of World Trade Organization processes. Some proposals for structural reform ignore incentive constraints and the fact that the World Trade Organization is an incomplete contract that must be self-enforcing. Others-such as calls for a "critical mass" approach to negotiations-can already be pursued (and have been). The agenda for international cooperation increasingly revolves around "behind-the-border" regulatory externalities that do not necessarily lend themselves to binding commitments in a trade agreement. This suggests a focus on strengthening notification/surveillance and developing more effective mechanisms for dialogue on regulatory policies that may create negative spillovers.

Consensus --- Dispute settlement --- Economic Theory & Research --- Free Trade --- Governance --- Institutional reform --- International cooperation --- International Economics & Trade --- Trade and Services --- Trade Law --- Trade negotiations --- World Trade Organization --- WTO

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International trade is the life-blood of the countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Faced with several global trade issues the ASEAN countries individually and collectively pursue a multilateral approach by actively participating in the current Uruguay Round of GATT. The seven studies in this volume assess the strengths and weaknesses of international trading.

Uruguay Round --- Cycle d'Uruguay --- Gyros Ourougouaēs --- Gyros tēs Ourougouaēs --- Jawlat Ūrūjuwāy --- Multilateral Trade Negotiations, the Uruguay Round --- Negociaciones Comerciales Multilaterales, Ronda Uruguay --- Négociations commerciales multilatérales, Cycle d'Uruguay --- Putaran Uruguay --- Ronda Uruguay --- Rō̜p ʻUrukwai --- Uruguai Raundŭ --- Uruguay Round of MTNs --- Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations --- Uruguay Runde --- Urugwai Raundŭ --- Wu-la-kuei hui ho --- Southeast Asia --- Asia, Southeast --- Asia, Southeastern --- South East Asia --- Southeastern Asia --- Commercial policy --- POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / Trade & Tariffs.

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For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers' contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with ongoing regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: How much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modeling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. The authors generate time series of country level indexes, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. They also provide annual commodity market indexes for the region, and a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used.

Agriculture --- Benchmark --- Competitive markets --- Consumers --- Development assistance --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Equilibrium --- Exchange rates --- Exports --- Free Trade --- GDP --- Gross value --- Index numbers --- International Economics and Trade --- International trade --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- National income --- Price elasticity --- Private Sector Development --- Taxation --- Trade negotiations --- Trade policies --- Trade Policy --- Transition economies --- Welfare economics

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December 1999 - The Uruguay Round tariff negotiations did not achieve a country-by-country balancing of concessions given and concessions received. How governments bargained was determined less by their national interests than by the interests of their politically important industrial constituencies. How tightly are trade negotiators held to winning a dollar of concession for each dollar of concession granted? The outcome of the Uruguay Round tariff negotiations suggests that such constraints were not tight. None of the delegations interviewed by Finger, Reincke, and Castro had tried to calculate for themselves the extent of concessions received. And the surplus or deficit of concessions received (over concessions given) varied widely among countries. Measuring the percentage point dollar of concessions given and received (a percentage point dollar being a reduction of the tariff by one percentage point on USD 1 of imports, or by trading partners on exports), they found that the outcome of negotiations varied enormously from one country to another. For 13 of 27 countries, net concessions (positive or negative) were at least 75 percent of the size of concessions received. Negotiations were widely perceived to involve equal sacrifice for the common good, with all countries expected to cut tariffs on the same percentage of imports. Ability to pay was also a consideration: a smaller fraction of imports was liberalized for developing countries. The authors found a tendency toward equality (in percentage of imports affected) across participating countries' concessions, particularly when developing countries' unilateral liberalization was considered - including the part of it that was not bound at the Uruguay Round. Delegations emphasized how important it was for them to look after the interests of politically important sectors (including rice for Japan and the Republic of Korea and textiles for the United States and the European Union). This paper is a product of Trade, Development Research Group. Michael Finger may be contacted at jfinger@worldbank.org.

Concessions --- Debt Markets --- Domestic Market --- Duty Reduction --- Export Industries --- Exports --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Foreign Markets --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- International Trade --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Market Access --- Market Access Bargaining --- Public Sector Development --- Reciprocal Concessions --- Reciprocal Reduction --- Reciprocity --- Tariff --- Tariff Concessions --- Tariffs --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Negotiations --- Trade Policy --- Trade Restrictions --- Unilateral Free Trade --- Unilateral Liberalization

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For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers' contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with ongoing regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: How much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modeling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. The authors generate time series of country level indexes, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. They also provide annual commodity market indexes for the region, and a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used.

Agriculture --- Benchmark --- Competitive markets --- Consumers --- Development assistance --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Equilibrium --- Exchange rates --- Exports --- Free Trade --- GDP --- Gross value --- Index numbers --- International Economics and Trade --- International trade --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- National income --- Price elasticity --- Private Sector Development --- Taxation --- Trade negotiations --- Trade policies --- Trade Policy --- Transition economies --- Welfare economics