Trade

With the Doha Round dead if not buried, the United States has no excuse for not acting on its rhetoric and providing improved market access for all of the world’s least developed countries.

Until recently, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been an effective framework for cooperation because it has continually adapted to changing economic realities. The current Doha Agenda is an aberration because it does not reflect one of the biggest shifts in the international economic and...

This paper analyses the case of the International Labour Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) project as a transnational instrument to create the institutional space for industrial relations in Cambodia. Based on the principle of social dialogue among the social partners as well as with...

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich country policies that...

In this note, CGD fellow Kimberly Ann Elliott discusses how flexible rules of origin can improve trade for the least developed countries.

In this brief Kimberly Ann Elliott discusses the two main priorities the Obama administration should focus on in order to revive the AGOA program and expand its benefits.

The United States ranked 17th in the 2009 Commitment to Development Index with strengths in trade and security but weaknesses in aid and environment. This CGD Note describes how the United States could boost its score.

Cutting tariffs across the board on Pakistani exports would expand economic opportunities and increase stability in Pakistan with vanishingly small effects on U.S. producers.

This brief summarizes the findings of the CGD Global Trade Preference Reform Working Group and its recommendations to make preference programs better promote prosperity and stability in the world's poorest countries.

The CGD Working Group on Global Trade Preference Reform shows how changes to trade preference programs could greatly benefit those living in the poorest countires at very little cost to preference-giving countries.

This paper examines the potential benefits and costs of providing duty-free, quota-free market access to the least developed countries (LDCs), and the effects of extending eligibility to other small and poor countries.

CGD senior fellow Kimberly Ann Elliott submitted a written statement for the congressional record following the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee hearing on preference reform. Elliott urges policymakers to consider the special needs of the poorest countries as they debate the future of U.S....

The authors suggest a new approach assessing carbon taxes on imports to address the concerns from high-income countries about the effect of taxes on competition without damaging trade from developing countries.

In this paper Arvind Subramanian and co-authors investigate the differential effects of cooperatitve policy action on climate change and find that one size doesn't fit all. Policy instruments should distinguish between low- and high-carbon countries to avoid serious trade consequences.

Despite six decades of trade liberalization, trade policies in rich countries still discriminate against the exports of the world’s poorest countries. Much remains to be done to achieve the goal of meaningful market access for the poorest countries, including reformed rules of origin that...

What happens when capital and sophisticated goods flow uphill, from poorer to richer countries? With a new dataset of foreign direct investment and a measure of the sophistication of exports, CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and his co-author Aaditya Mattoo find that developing countries...

Visiting fellow Nora Lustig examines the policy dilemmas rising food prices force on developing countries. Letting prices adjust can generate inflationary pressure while efforts to stabilize domestic prices often exacerbate global price increases; during the recent food price crisis, many...

The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global...

While the precise contribution of biofuels to surging food prices is difficult to know, policies promoting production of the current generation of biofuels are not achieving their stated objectives of increased energy independence or reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Reaching the congressionally...

Successful poverty reduction hinges on successful structural transformation, but poor countries must cope with political pressures resulting from deteriorating income distribution and simultaneously retain the policies that generate rapid economic growth. Based on historical and statistical...

In this CGD Essay, visiting fellow Nancy Lee provides the full details and policy recommendations for a strategy of regional investment integration in the Americas. The essay, excerpted from her chapter in the forthcoming White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S....

How committed are the world's richest countries to the development of Africa, the world's poorest continent? Rich countries are usually compared on how much foreign aid they give as a percentage of their GDP, but helping Africa involves much more than aid. CGD's Commitment to Development Index has...

The loss of rice production in Myanmar is worsening the crisis in world rice markets, where prices have trebled this year. Meanwhile, Japan has 1.5 million tons of surplus rice, most of it imported from the U.S. Releasing this rice to global markets would prick a speculative bubble and bring rice...

Each year since 2003, the Commitment to Development Index (CDI) has ranked 21 rich countries on their dedication (or not!) to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poor countries. The CDI moves beyond simple comparisons of aid funding and in so doing embodies the mission of CGD,...

This CGD brief summarizes the results of the 2007 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 21 of the world's richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. The Netherlands comes in first on the 2007 CDI on the strength of...

By any measure, the United States is one of the most open economies in the world—importing more than $1 trillion worth of goods duty-free in 2006 alone. Yet poor nations still pay much higher U.S. tariffs than rich countries—an average of 15 percent on a quarter of their imports,...

Core labor standards--an end to forced and child labor, nondiscrimination, and respect for workers' right to organize--are important for sharing the benefits of globalization. But how to enforce them remains contentious. In this CGD Note, senior fellow Kimberly Elliott says that U.S. policy should...

Although many countries must share responsibility for the negotiating stalemate in the Doha Round of trade negotiations, the proximate cause of the talks' collapse last summer was the U.S. refusal to offer additional reductions in agricultural subsidies. In this CGD Note, senior fellow Kimberly...

In this CGD/ Peterson Institute Brief, CGD senior fellow Kimberly Elliott argues that agriculture liberalization is crucial to the successful completion of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, since it is the sector with the highest remaining barriers in rich countries and the...

Agricultural market liberalization is the linchpin for a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations because these are the most protected markets remaining in most rich countries. But the implications for developing countries, especially the poorest, are...

The collapse of the Doha trade talks puts at risk one of the rich world's most important commitments to developing countries: to reform policies that make it harder for poor countries to participate in global commerce. Trade has the potential to be a significant force for reducing global poverty by...

Development refers to improvements in the conditions of people’s lives, such as health, education, and income. It occurs at different rates in different countries. The U.S. underwent its own version of development since the time it became an independent nation in 1776. Learn more about Rich...

Trade has the potential to raise incomes worldwide. But trade creates losers as well as winners. This Rich World, Poor World brief provides an accessible introduction to the impact of global trade on U.S. jobs and suggests policies that the U.S. can pursue to maximize the gains and minimize the...

With foreign investment in the U.S. increasingly in the spotlight, this working paper by William Cline explores the U.S. external deficit and the fact that the U.S. relies on foreign lending to finance its trade deficit. Cline emphasizes the dangers of a hard landing for the U.S., and why this...

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 21 countries across six policy areas, is widely seen as the most comprehensive and substantive measure of rich country policies towards development. In response to requests from other would-be index builders, CDI architect David Roodman...

Does openness in trade and the free flow of capital promote growth for the poor? In this new working paper, CGD president Nancy Birdsall describes asymmetries in globalization and their implications for poverty reduction. She argues that poor countries lack effective social contracts, progressive...

The ninth negotiating round, named the "Doha" Round for the city in Qatar where it was launched, has proven to be unique, because many developing countries are flexing their political muscle as never before. As a result, the Doha Round seems destined to fail unless rich countries cut the trade...

With the prospects for an ambitious outcome in the Doha Round of trade negotiations seemingly fading, many are lamenting the welfare gains that would be lost from a superficial agreement while others are asking whether it matters for the world's poorest and, if so, how.

Senior Fellow William R. Cline outlines a "grand bargain" that negotiators can strike at the upcoming "Doha Development Round" that would ahieve increased trade liberalization.

All eyes are on Geneva in the next few weeks as negotiators try to salvage the Doha Round of trade talks before the Hong Kong WTO meetings in mid-December. A new brief by CGD and IIE Research Fellow Kimberly Elliott. Learn more

How is America's debt of 22% of GDP and its $670 billion trade deficit sustainable? What are the challenges to the rest of the world as the US’ fiscal accounts and exchange rates adjust to correct this imbalance? In this important new book, CGD/IIE Senior Fellow William R. Cline argues that...

These new estimates of rich-country barriers to developing country exports show that the poorest countries face the highest barriers. The trade component of the 2005 CDI is based on this paper.

In this posthumously published working paper, Dick Sabot argues that the U.S. external deficit is putting at risk the welfare of poor people in developing countries. This accessible paper draws on a forthcoming book, The U.S. as a Debtor Nation, by William Cline, and has been updated to include...

After two decades of neglect, interest in agriculture is on the rise. This new working paper by one of the leading thinkers in rural development argues that the reach and efficiency of rural infrastructure, coupled with effective investment in agricultural research and extension, hold the key to...

Time to put to rest the stale debate over whether the World Bank should disburse grants or loans to the world’s poorest countries. It is critical that the Bank provide more of its funding as grants, but in a more rational manner than has been the case to date. A third Bank window should...

In this brief we focus on potential disruptions in poor countries and the policy priorities for coping with them. In particular, we recommend that the United States, which is the only rich country that does not grant tariff-free access for imports from all least-developed countries, provide this...

Sugar is a prototypical case of a policy that favors the few at the expense of the many. Thanks to a government policy that supports prices by sharply restricting imports, a small number of American sugar cane and beet growers are enriched at the expense of US consumers and of more efficient...

A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.

This brief summarizes five key recommendations from the CGD book A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis. It presses for reform on a broad front with a renewed, more legitimate, and more effective United Nations as the overarching framework for global governance...

Is there any reason to think trade negotiations are more likely now than in the past to encourage substantial reform of rich countries’ farm policies? This paper looks at the evolution of and current approaches to agricultural policies in rich countries to see if there are lessons from the past...

Trade Policy and Global Poverty by William Cline examines how changes in trade policies in the United States and other industrial countries could help reduce poverty in developing countries. Cline first reviews the extent of global poverty and its relationship to trade and growth. He then examines...

This brief examines the potential positive synergies between globalization, development, and labor standards. It argues that certain core labor standards can be applied globally without undermining comparative advantage, and that doing so would be good for development. The issues are also examined...

This paper re-examines the evidence linking poor growth during the era of import substituting industialization with trade restrictions.

This policy brief is a preview of the analysis and recommendations in Trade Policy and Global Poverty, by William R. Cline.

We use a public economics framework to consider how pharmaceuticals should be priced when at least some of the R&D incentive comes from sales revenues. We employ familiar techniques of public finance to relax some of the restrictions implied in the standard use of Ramsey pricing. We use this...

This brief assesses the impact of AGOA to date and recommends measures to improve its development potential.

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 the nations of the world committed to join forces to meet a set of measurable targets for reducing world poverty, disease, illiteracy and other indicators of human misery—all by the year 2015. These targets, later named the Millennium Development...

I suggest in this paper the logic of going beyond the standard, poverty-targeted, elements of good social policy to a modern social contract adapted to the demands and the constraints of an open economy. Such a contract would be explicitly based on broad job-based growth. Second, it would be...

This study develops an index of trade policy designed to synthesize the state of developing country access to import markets in each of the major industrial country areas.

I present here a proposal for constructing a global patent regime, which could be a reasonable compromise to the current bitter dispute fueled by TRIPS. It allows the right line to be drawn between prices and incentives because different lines can be drawn for different products.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act took effect in January 2001 to allow qualifying sub-Saharan African countries to export qualifying goods duty free to the US. The act was expressly designed to "increase trade and investment between the US and sub-Saharan Africa." The evidence over the short...

In this paper we argue that neither the level nor the change in a country's trade/GDP ratio can be taken as an indication of the "openness" of a country's trade policy. In particular, we examine the ways in which terms of trade shifts have affected trade/GDP ratio over the past two decades, and...

This paper examines arguments in favor and against the of patent rights on pharmaceuticals in the developing world as required by World Trade Organization membership. It emphasizes that these new pharmaceutical patents promise benefits and costs that differ with the characteristics of diseases. It...