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CID Trade Forum: Trade Liberalisation and Poverty (7)

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Trade Protectionism in Developed Countries Exploits Vulnerable Economies in Developing Countries

This report in Power and Interest News Report (PINR) discusses the subsidies and protection by developed countries of their steel and agricultrual industries. It concludes "These actions further show that governments around the world are unwilling to ascribe to global free trade. Instead, developed countries have been able to reap the benefits of free trade, while shielding themselves from its drawbacks. Poor countries, on the other hand, are unable to shield themselves from the drawbacks of free trade and also find it extremely difficult to reap its benefits."

http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=69&language_id=1

(Added: Mon Mar 08 2004   Modified: Mon Jun 20 2005   Hits: 216)

Regional Integration and Development in Small States (PDF)

Maurice Schiff, Development Research Group, World Bank Working Paper 12292 This paper examines the impact of various trade policies for small developing states in the face of a changing world, including globalization, proliferation of regional integration agreements (RIAs), the changing relationship between ACP countries and the EU (the Cotonou Agreement), the erosion of ACP preferences in the EU market, the EBA, and the FTAA negotiations. The paper concludes that: i) South-South regional RIAs should further reduce their external trade barriers; ii) the trade component of the Cotonou Agreement is likely to harm the ACP countries, and these should liberalize their trade regime in order to reduce the size of transfers from the ACP countries to the EU; iii) small states should sign FTAs with the rest of the OECD and pursue multilateral liberalization; iv) small states and other developing countries should intensify South-South regional cooperation in the area of regional public goods; and v) the EU and other OECD countries should provide country-specific technical assistance for "behind the border" reforms in small states-something specified in the Cotonou Agreement for ACP countries--as well as assistance in implementing their WTO commitments. (PDF- 323kb)

http://econ.worldbank.org/files/12292_wps2797.pdf

(Added: Mon Nov 03 2003   Modified: Thu Jun 16 2005   Hits: 133)

Assessing the Impacts of Trade on Poverty and Inequality

By Jorge Saba Arbache, Universidade de Brasília & Francisco Galroa Carneiro, Universidade Católica de Brasilia. Abstract: This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to simulate different trade liberalization policy scenarios and counterfactual microsimulations to assess the impacts of greater trade openness on household income distribution and poverty ratios. Our conclusion is that trade liberalization alone may not be sufficient to significantly reduce poverty and inequality.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=447165

(Added: Thu Oct 16 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 449)

Tariff and non-tariff barriers benefit developing countries, study shows

Geneva, 17 Sep (Chakravarthi Raghavan) - There is considerable evidence for the hypothesis that under certain conditions, restrictions on trade can promote growth, especially of developing countries, according to a study published in the Journal of Development Economics (No. 72/2003). The study by Halit Yanikkaya, an academic at the College of Business and Administrative Services, Celal Bayar University (Turkey), has examined the growth effects on 108 economies of a large number of measures of trade openness, using the same yardsticks or measures of openness and over the same periods, and applying econometric models and regressions. The study has used two broad categories: measures of trade volumes and measures of trade restrictions and measures their effects on growth in the 108 economies. The study and the results of the data analysed challenges what the author calls "the unconditional optimism in favour of trade openness among the economic profession and policy circles."

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/5421a.htm

(Added: Fri Sep 19 2003   Modified: Mon Jun 20 2005   Hits: 122)

Free Trade Is War, by Naomi Klein

The Nation, Sept. 11, 2003. Naomi Klein weaves together themes like water privitisation in South Africa, and free market policies in Chile, to argue that free trade, free markets and the militaristic forces linked to it have violent outcomes for the majority of the world's population.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030929&s=klein

(Added: Tue Sep 16 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 313)

Global Trade Watch (GTW)

Global Trade Watch (GTW) promotes democracy by challenging corporate globalization, arguing that the current globalization model is neither a random inevitability nor "free trade." Our work seeks to make the measurable outcomes of this model accessible to the public, press, and policy-makers, while emphasizing that if the results are not acceptable, then the model can and must be changed or replaced. GTW works on an array of globalization issues, including health and safety, environmental protection, economic justice, and democratic, accountable governance.

http://www.citizen.org/trade/

(Added: Thu Sep 11 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 415)

World Vision Report on Development and Trade Liberalisation: Risky Development

This report is produced by World Vision Australia on behalf of the World Vision partnership. Published September 2003 "It is readily acknowledged that there are costs to trade restrictions. But are there also costs and risks associated with premature liberalisation and specialisation?... If so, then the question of appropriate trade and industrial policies remains open, and it becomes a matter of carefully weighing the long-term costs, benefits and risks of alternative strategies...."

http://www.worldvision.org.nz/reports/risky_development.pdf

(Added: Thu Sep 11 2003   Modified: Mon Jun 20 2005   Hits: 134)

Open Fire and Open Markets: Strategy of an Empire

What do the "war on terrorism" and "free trade" have in common? According to a new report by Food First, Open Fire and Open Markets: Strategy of an Empire, they are the two formidable pillars of U.S. foreign policy, custom-built to help privatize the world's resources for its corporations, and a matter of growing concern with the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico. "America's 'war on terrorism' is at one with its expansionary goals for the market: open invasion in some places and open markets everywhere," said Anuradha Mittal, Food First co-director and author of the report. "While thousands of Iraqi civilians have been terrorized, humiliated, maimed, injured, and killed through British and American bombing, contracts to rebuild Iraq were guided like smart bombs into the laps of large U.S. corporations."

http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2003/s03v9n3.pdf

(Added: Wed Sep 03 2003   Modified: Thu Mar 27 2008   Hits: 411)

The Icy Ideological Grip by Thabo Mbeki

If progressive politics is to have any meaning, it must start from the reality that you can't overcome global poverty through reliance on the market

http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,994280,00.html

(Added: Mon Aug 18 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 189)

The Rigged Trade Game

(CommonDreams) Editorial Published on Sunday, July 20, 2003 by the New York Times. "Put simply, the Philippines got taken. A charter member of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the former American colony dutifully embraced globalization's free-market gospel over the last decade, opening its economy to foreign trade and investment. Despite widespread worries about their ability to compete, Filipinos bought the theory that their farmers' lack of good transportation and high technology would be balanced out by their cheap labor. The government predicted that access to world markets would create a net gain of a half-million farming jobs a year, and improve the country's trade balance. It didn't happen."

http://commondreams.org/views03/0720-03.htm

(Added: Tue Jul 22 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 147)

Introduction to the Development Box: Finding Space for Development (PDF)

Authors: Sophia Murphy, Steve Suppan, Year: 2003, Publisher: IISD. This paper, prepared by IISD for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, was written as World Trade Organization negotiations were in progress. Its content was accurate as of the end of December 2002, but in the few months since, a great deal has happened. We have therefore added a postscript to review where things stand at the end of April 2003, as this paper goes to print. The rapidly-changing environment has changed the status of the "Development Box," which is a package of proposals from developing countries that describes what they would like to see in the next iteration of global trade rules for agriculture. In many respects, the Development Box has been overtaken by events. It was never likely to be a stand-alone element in the new agreement, as this paper explains. At this point, what may survive from the Development Box will be individual proposals from the package. Nonetheless, the paper is still timely. All of the issues raised by the Development Box discussion are still pertinent, and some of them need urgent attention from the international community, no matter how the multilateral trade community decides to handle them in this round of negotiations. The ideas will deserve and require consideration and debate for some time to come.

http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=533

(Added: Mon May 26 2003   Modified: Tue May 02 2006   Hits: 126)

I was wrong. Free market trade policies hurt the poor

"The IMF and World Bank orthodoxy is increasing global poverty". Commentary from Stephen Byers, a Labour MP for North Tyneside. He is a former trade and industry secretary and was a cabinet member from 1998 to 2002. The Guardian, Monday May 19, 2003.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,958731,00.html

(Added: Wed May 21 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 263)

Free market: at what cost? International trade and sustainable development

Trade liberalisation used to be uncontroversial. Today, it is blamed for many of the world's ills. What went wrong? This study assesses the evidence and suggests that we need an international trading system that contributes to sustainable development. It should be built from the bottom-up and all nations should take part in defining it. Until recently, trade liberalisation was uncontroversial. It appeared to stimulate economic growth and to consolidate co-operative relations among peoples. Yet in the seven years since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), trade policy has become increasingly vexed, and the number of people who hold a negative view of it is growing rapidly. This study by the International Institute For Environment and Development (IIED) examines the issues behind the new fears. It finds that trade liberalisation carries much of the blame in the public eye for the dislocation and negative impacts of globalisation. Globalisation itself is associated with the increasingly discredited macroeconomic paradigm known as the Washington consensus, which suggested that rapid opening of domestic markets to trade, and capital flows, would offer a sure road to prosperity.

http://www.id21.org/society/s7bnb2g1.html

(Added: Thu Mar 13 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 239)

The International Trade Regime: a Global Public Goods Perspective

The international trade regime is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy because it failed to deliver the efficiency gains of open trade in a just and equitable manner. However, compared to other international regimes, the multilateral trade system is already an advanced framework that fosters cooperation among countries. A Global Public Goods perspective casts new light on the way the regime can be further adjusted and turned into a solid architecture capable of delivering important emerging global public goods such as global market efficiency, global political stability and global equity.

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/matnet/th_maas/index.htm

(Added: Thu Mar 13 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 145)

World Trade Point Federation

This new website serves as a global e-business marketplace. The Trade Point Programme -- an UNCTAD creation -- primarily targets small and medium enterprises in developing countries, disadvantaged by structural and geographic factors, and seeks to help them integrate and take advantage of international trade opportunities.

http://www.wtpfed.org

(Added: Mon Mar 03 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 187)

UNDP: Making Global Trade Work For People (PDF)

On 30 January 2003 UNDP launched the book 'Making Global Trade Work For People', the culmination of an independent review of the multilateral trading regime. The comprehensive 341-page study, while supporting the belief that trade can improve the lives of people, calls into question the automatic link between trade liberalisation and human development that is often espoused by those promoting the current international trading system. Commenting on the reports most important message, Kamal Malhotra, lead author and UNDP Senior Advisor on Inclusive Globalisation, said "the current trade regime needs to shift its focus from promoting liberalisation and market access to providing developing countries with policy space". The book recommends four basic principles to be accepted and operationalised: i) trade is a means to an end - not an end in itself; ii) trade rules should allow for diversity in national institutions and standards; iii) countries should have the right to protect their institutions and development priorities; and iv) no country has the right to impose its institutional preferences on others. (PDF file, 2.4MB)

http://www.undp.org/dpa/publications/globaltrade.pdf

(Added: Sun Feb 23 2003   Modified: Wed Jan 10 2007   Hits: 154)

Trade Liberalization and Industrial Productivity: An Assessment of Developing Country Experiences (P

Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, Working Paper No. 77, Deb Kusum Das, (April 2002). This paper by Deb Kusum Das explores the relationship between trade liberalization and industrial productivity in developing countries, drawing upon a large number of studies in Latin America, Africa and Asia. It is based on the author's Ph.D dissertation " Some Aspects of Productivity Growth and Trade in Indian Industry" which has been submitted to the University of Delhi. Beginning with a discussion of an appropriate measure of trade liberalization, the paper reviews the relationship between trade liberalization and industrial productivity at different levels of disaggregation. By and large, there is evidence of a positive relationship between trade liberalization and productivity growth in the industrial sectors of the economies of Latin America, Africa and Asia. However, the author suggests need for caution in interpreting framework. More empirical work is being undertaken at ICRIER to explore the impact of trade liberalization on productivity in India. Studies such as the present one by Debkusum Das are very important in providing an international perspective on this very important subject.

http://www.icrier.org/pdf/deb.pdf

(Added: Mon Feb 10 2003   Modified: Mon Jun 20 2005   Hits: 141)

Responses to the Oxfam Trade report Rigged Rules and Double Standards

Various responses, both positive and negative

http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.php?file=28052002092914.htm&cat=3&subcat=3&select=2

(Added: Mon Jun 17 2002   Modified: Thu Oct 12 2006   Hits: 287)

What's Wrong With the Oxfam Trade Campaign

By Walden Bello. April 26, 2002. I have a lot of respect for Oxfam, and I do agree with many things in the Oxfam report, but I feel that it provides the wrong focus and wrong direction for the movement against corporate-driven globalization during this critical period. ...

http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2002/whats-wrong-with-the-oxfam-trade-campaign.html

(Added: Sat Jun 15 2002   Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006   Hits: 255)

The global governance of trade as if development really mattered

Danni Rodrik, July 2001. Harvard University. It is widely accepted, not least in the agreement establishing the WTO itself, that the purpose of the world trade regime is to raise living standards all around the world ...

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.drodrik.academic.ksg/UNDPtrade.PDF

(Added: Mon Jul 16 2001   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 194)

Increased investment and trade by transnational logging companies

The electronic version (pdf file) can be downloaded. The report looks at Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and the Implications for the Sustainable Management and Conservation of Tropical Forests.

http://assets.panda.org/downloads/tnc_report.pdf

(Added: Thu Jun 22 2000   Modified: Thu Feb 15 2007   Hits: 201)

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