The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly
- Tags:
- Developing Country,
- Finance,
- Free Trade,
- GATT,
- IMF,
- Import,
- World Trade Organization
- Source:
- International Monetary Fund
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Overview: This paper furnishes robust evidence that the GATT/WTO has had a powerful and positive impact on trade. The impact has, however, been uneven. GATT/WTO membership for industrial countries has been associated with a large increase in imports estimated at about 40 percent of world trade. The same has not been true for developing country members, although those that joined after the Uruguay Round have benefited from increased imports. Similarly, there have been asymmetric effects among sectors, with WTO membership associated with substantially greater imports in sectors where barriers are low. These results are consistent with the history and design of the institution, which presided over significant trade liberalization by the industrial countries except in sectors such as food and clothing; but attempted to redress by imposing greater obligations on developing country members that joined after the Uruguay Round.
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Format: PDF | Size: 1,362KB | Date: Sep 2003 | Pages: 41
