Download or read book Trade Policy Options for Chile written by Glenn W. Harrison and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the net economic benefits and government revenue implications for Chile of forming a free trade area with MERCOSUR as an associate member, forming a free trade area with NAFTA, and reducing its external tariff multilaterally and unilaterally.

Download or read book Trade Policy Options for Chile A Quantitative Evaluation written by David Tarr and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 1997 Welfare in Chile would be improved by moving toward uniformity in the value-added tax and lowering the Chilean tariff to between 6 and 8 percent. Chile is currently evaluating a wide range of possible trade policies. Using a global computable general equilibrium model, Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr examine a range of trade policy and complementary tax policy options for Chile. They focus on Chile's principal preferential trade policy options: a free-trade area with MERCOSUR, a customs union with MERCOSUR, and a free trade area with NAFTA. They also examine such options as complementary tariff reduction with nonpartner countries in combination with implementing the free trade area options; unilateral or global trade liberalization; and the optimum unilateral tariff. Their principal policy conclusions: * Lowering Chile's tariffs preferentially or multilaterally leads to only small gains as Chile starts with a rather efficient external trade regime, uniform tariffs of 11 percent. * Largely because of its efficient uniform tariff, preferential tariff reduction will reduce Chilean welfare through trade diversion, unless Chile can improve its access in the markets of partner countries. * NAFTA offers enough access to benefit Chile; MERCOSUR does not, once the trade diversion costs of MERCOSUR are taken into account. * Under their preferred-elasticity scenario, Chile can convert the MERCOSUR agreement from a loss to a gain if it lowers its external tariff to between 6 and 8 percent. Doing so will also increase the gains from a potential agreement with NAFTA. * Chile's current value-added tax imposes distortionary costs because collection rates are not uniform. Chile will gain if it can collect the VAT more uniformly. * Tariff reductions from trade reform will require an increase in domestic taxes, so greater uniformity in domestic taxes (less distortion in replacement taxes) will maximize the benefits from trade reform. Welfare will be improved by moving toward uniformity in the VAT and lowering the Chilean tariff to between 6 and 8 percent. This model ignores dynamic gains from trade liberalization, the result of importing either a greater variety of products or more technologically advanced products. This paper - a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to examine the impact of regional trade integration in developing countries.

Download or read book Applied Trade Policy Modeling In 16 Countries Insights And Impacts From World Bank Cge Based Projects written by David G Tarr and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the World Bank projects, led by the author, based on computable general equilibrium models of international trade policy. The chapters show an unusual combination of policy relevance, advice and impact, with academic rigor and international trade theory insights. The author discusses some of the policy contexts for the requests from developing and transition countries to the World Bank, the key trade theory or policy insights, policy recommendations and conclusions, and the policy impacts.

Download or read book Regional Multilateral and Unilateral Trade Policies of MERCOSUR for Growth and Poverty Reduction in Brazil written by Angelo Gurgel and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper determines the impacts of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) for Brazil under alternative assumptions concerning the returns to scale and the nature of competition in several industries, emphasizing the effects on the agribusiness activities. The GTAPinGAMS applied general equilibrium model is used to run the simulations. The results suggest different changes in output, imports, exports, and prices under alternative assumptions about market structure. The FTAA allows the exploitation of economies of scale and reduction of markups in almost all industries, with evidences of rationalizing and pro-competitive effects occurring in the industries under imperfect competition. The welfare gains from the FTAA are larger in the model with market imperfections. If the FTAA excludes products from the agribusiness sectors, the Brazilian agricultural industries will exploit less the economies of scale.

Download or read book Trade Policies for Development and Transition written by David G Tarr and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author has virtually incomparable experience in both providing trade policy advice to more than 25 countries on behalf of the World Bank and also publishing quality journal articles in most of those cases. In this volume, he focuses on his work on: (i) trade policies for countries making the transition from planned to market economies; (ii) his trade policy guideline papers for the World Bank on trade policies for poverty alleviation, uniform tariff policy, adjustment costs of trade liberalization, exchange rate overvaluation, globalization and technology transfer and rules of thumb on regional trade policies; (iii) multilateral, dynamic and environmental issues in trade policy using computable general equilibrium models; (iv) trade policy of the United States in the auto and steel industries; and (v) mathematical methods for modeling. The papers show an unusual combination of policy relevance, advice and impact, with rigor and international trade theory insights. The papers in this volume have appeared in many of the economics profession's more prestigious journals, including Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Economic Journal, the Journal of International Economics, International Economic Review, European Economic Review, Canadian Journal of Economics, Economic Inquiry, the Journal of Comparative Economic, Review of International Economics, World Economy, the Southern Economic Journal, the World Bank Economic Review, the Japanese Economic Review and the Latin American Journal of Economics. In this book, the author elaborates on the articles by discussing some of the policy contexts for the requests for the work from developing and transition countries to the World Bank, the key trade theory or policy insights, policy recommendations and conclusions and the policy impacts.

Download or read book Trade Policy Options for Chile written by Glenn W. Harrison and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welfare in Chile would be improved by moving toward uniformity in the value-added tax and lowering the Chilean tariff to between 6 and 8 percent. Chile is currently evaluating a wide range of possible trade policies. Using a global computable general equilibrium model, Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr examine a range of trade policy and complementary tax policy options for Chile.They focus on Chile's principal preferential trade policy options: a free-trade area with MERCOSUR, a customs union with MERCOSUR, and a free trade area with NAFTA. They also examine such options as complementary tariff reduction with nonpartner countries in combination with implementing the free trade area options; unilateral or global trade liberalization; and the optimum unilateral tariff.Their principal policy conclusions:Lowering Chile's tariffs preferentially or multilaterally leads to only small gains as Chile starts with a rather efficient external trade regime, uniform tariffs of 11 percent.Largely because of its efficient uniform tariff, preferential tariff reduction will reduce Chilean welfare through trade diversion, unless Chile can improve its access in the markets of partner countries.NAFTA offers enough access to benefit Chile; MERCOSUR does not, once the trade diversion costs of MERCOSUR are taken into account.Under their preferred-elasticity scenario, Chile can convert the MERCOSUR agreement from a loss to a gain if it lowers its external tariff to between 6 and 8 percent. Doing so will also increase the gains from a potential agreement with NAFTA.Chile's current value-added tax imposes distortionary costs because collection rates are not uniform. Chile will gain if it can collect the VAT more uniformly.Tariff reductions from trade reform will require an increase in domestic taxes, so greater uniformity in domestic taxes (less distortion in replacement taxes) will maximize the benefits from trade reform. Welfare will be improved by moving toward uniformity in the VAT and lowering the Chilean tariff to between 6 and 8 percent.This model ignores dynamic gains from trade liberalization, the result of importing either a greater variety of products or more technologically advanced products.This paper - a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to examine the impact of regional trade integration in developing countries.

Download or read book Trade Policy and Global Poverty written by William R Cline and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2004-06-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stakes of the poor in trade policy are large: Free trade can help 500 million people escape poverty and inject $200 billion annually into the economies of developing countries, according to author William R. Cline. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the potential for trade liberalization to spur growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. It quantifies the impact on global poverty of industrial-country liberalization, as well as liberalization by the developing countries. Half or more of the annual gains from trade would come from the removal of industrial-country protection against developing-country exports. By removing their trade barriers, industrial countries could convey economic benefits to developing countries worth about twice the amount of their annual development assistance. By helping developing countries grow through trade, moreover, industrial countries could lower costs to consumers for imports and realize other economic efficiencies. The study estimates that free trade could reduce the number of people earning less than $2 per day by about 500 million over 15 years. This would cut the world poverty level by 25 percent. Cline judges that the developing countries were right to risk collapse of the Doha Round at the Cancun ministerial meeting in September 2003 by insisting on much deeper liberalization of agriculture than the industrial countries were then willing to offer. The study calls for a two-track strategy: first, deep multilateral liberalization involving phased but complete elimination of industrial-county protection and deep reduction of protection by at least the middle-income developing countries, albeit on a more gradual schedule; and second, immediate free entry for imports from "high risk" low-income countries (heavily indebted poor countries, least developed countries, and sub-Saharan Africa), coupled with a 10-year tax holiday for direct investment in these countries.

Download or read book Chile s Regional Arrangements and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas written by Glenn W. Harrison and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: July 2001 - Among Chile's bilateral regional agreements, only Chile's agreements with "Northern" partners provide enough market access to offset the costs to Chile of trade diversion. Because of preferential market access, however, "additive regionalism" is likely to provide Chile with far more gains than the static welfare gains from unilateral free trade. At least one partner country loses from each of the regional trade agreements considered in this study, and excluded countries always lose. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) produces gains for almost all the member countries, but the European Union is a big loser. Countries of the Americas gain more in aggregate from global free trade than from the FTAA. Using a multisector, multicountry, computable general equilibrium model, Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr examine Chile's strategy of negotiating bilateral free trade agreements with all of its significant trading partners (referring to this policy as additive regionalism). They also evaluate the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and global free trade. Among Chile's bilateral regional agreements, only Chile's agreements with "Northern" partners provide enough market access to offset the costs to Chile of trade diversion. Because of preferential market access, however, additive regionalism is likely to provide Chile with many times as many gains as the static welfare gains from unilateral free trade. Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr find that at least one partner country loses from each of the regional trade agreements they consider, and excluded countries as a group always lose. They estimate that the FTAA produces large welfare gains for the members, with the European Union being the big loser. Gains to the world from global free trade are estimated to be at least 36 times greater than gains from the FTAA. Even countries of the Americas in aggregate gain more from global free trade than from the FTAA. This paper--a product of Trade, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to examine the impact of regional trade arrangements on development and poverty reduction. David Tarr may be contacted at [email protected].

Download or read book A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis written by Marc Bacchetta and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

Download or read book Russian Trade Policy Reform for WTO Accession written by Harry G. Broadman and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia has manifested considerable interest in accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). This volume contains four policy papers that focus on the most prominent topics during the ongoing WTO accession process: 1. the dispersion of Russia's tariff structure; 2. trade and investment in the service sectors; 3. the treatment of state trading enterprises; and 4. the policy regime governing foreign direct investment. Bringing the Russian Federation into the rules-based WTO system is an objective broadly shared by the world community. Accession to the WTO comes at a critical juncture for the Russian government to focus on many important policy issues to stimulate growth. As part of the process of making liberalization commitments, as required by the existing members of the WTO, accession provides an opportunity to lock in reforms.

Download or read book Regional Integration Arrangements written by Dean A. DeRosa and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Using Tariff Indices to Evaluate Preferential Trading Arrangements written by Eric Bond and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Regional Integration and Development written by Maurice W. Schiff and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text examines regionalism from the perspective of developing countries. It presents a comprehensive account of existing theory and empirical results and incorporates the findings of formal analyses ofthe politics and dynamics of regionalism.

Download or read book Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2002 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition of the annual publication considers the need to reshape the global architecture of world trade, in order to help strengthen the economies of developing countries and reduce world poverty. The report focuses on four policy areas: the establishment of a development round of WTO negotiations to reduce trade barriers; global co-operation to expand trade outside the WTO; the adoption of pro-trade development policies by high-income countries; and enacting trade reforms in developing countries. The findings of the report suggest that developing countries could significantly increase their incomes, if all countries progressively implement the proposed trade reforms. This would result in a world with a much higher standard of living, an estimated 300 million people lifted out of poverty by 2015, and a significant increase in the number of children living beyond their fifth birthday throughout the developing world.

Download or read book Standards and Conformity Assessment as Nontariff Barriers to Trade written by Sherry Stephenson and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Expanding NAFTA written by Carmen Zechner and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2002 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world economy has witnessed a sudden increase in free trade agreements, generating a renewed debate on their economic impact. In Expanding NAFTA Carmen Zechner focuses on the economic effects on Chile of the potential free trade agreement with the United States. The author creates a framework for analyzing the impact of economic integration between a developed and a developing country from the developing country's perspective. This book goes beyond earlier analyses of the static gains from free trade to examine the dynamic and more intangible effects that are critical to the welfare evaluation of trade agreements. Expanding NAFTA is an important contribution to the research on preferential trade liberalization and to understanding developing countries' trade policy choices. This book will be indispensable to anyone interested in trade policy making and the Chilean economy.

Download or read book The Impact on Russia of WTO Accession and the Doha Agenda written by Thomas Fox Rutherford and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking price changes from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade, the authors use a small open economy computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of global free trade and a successful completion of the Doha Agenda on the Russian economy, and especially on the poor. They compare those results with the impact of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. The model incorporates all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as "real" households. Crucially, given the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization as part of Russian WTO accession, the authors also include FDI and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects from liberalization of import barriers against goods and FDI in services. The authors estimate that Russian WTO accession in the medium run will result in gains averaged over all Russian households equal to 7.3 percent of Russian consumption (with a standard deviation of 2.2 percent of consumption), with virtually all households gaining. They find that global free trade would result in a weighted average gain to households in Russia of 0.2 percent of consumption, with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption, while a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda would result in a weighted average gain to households of -0.3 percent of consumption (with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption). Russia, as a net food importer, loses from subsidy elimination, and the gains to Russia from tariff cuts in other countries are too small to offset these losses. The results strongly support the view that Russia's own liberalization is more important than improvements in market access as a result of reforms in tariffs or subsidies in the rest of the world. Foremost among the own reforms is liberalization of barriers against FDI in business services.