Formulas and Flexibility in Trade Negotiations : Sensitive Agricultural Products in the WTO's Doha Agenda / Laborde, David
Contributor(s): Resource type: Ressourcentyp: Buch (Online)Book (Online)Language: English Publisher: Washington, D.C : The World Bank, 2010Description: Online-Ressource (36 p)Additional physical formats: Laborde, David: Formulas and Flexibility in Trade Negotiations DOI: DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5200Online resources: Summary: Many trade negotiations involve large cuts in high tariffs, with flexibilities allowing much smaller cuts for an agreed number of politically-sensitive products. The effects of these flexibilities on market access opportunities are difficult to predict, creating particular problems for developing countries in assessing whether to support a proposed agreement. Some widely-used ad hoc approaches to identifying likely sensitive products - such as the highest-bound-tariff rule - suggest that the impacts of a limited number of such exceptions on average tariffs and on market access are likely to be minor. This paper uses a rigorous specification based on the apparent objectives of policy makers in setting the pre-negotiation tariff. Applying this approach with detailed data allows the authors to assess the implications of sensitive-product provisions for average agricultural tariffs, economic welfare, and market access under the Doha negotiations. The authors conclude that highest-tariff rules are likely to seriously underestimate the impacts on average tariffs, and that treating even 2 percent of tariff lines as sensitive is likely to have a sharply adverse impact on economic welfare. The impacts on market access are also adverse, but much smaller, perhaps reflecting the mercantilist focus of the negotiating processPPN: PPN: 834965836Package identifier: Produktsigel: ZDB-1-WBA | ZDB-110-WBLNo physical items for this record
Reproduktion, 2010. (World Bank eLibrary) |2010||||||||||