An Economic Perspective on Russia's Accession to the WTO

Russia's application for accession to the WTO is currently in its final phases and may be completed by the end of 2003. In this context, this paper provides some background information on Russia's recent policy and structural reforms, the composition and geographic distribution of trade, tariff rates by commodity groups, and other aspects of trade and domestic policies at issue in the accession process. The accession proce-dure and the current status of the accession process are then discussed. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling analysis of China's WTO accession as a prototype, the potential use of CGE model-ing of Russian accession is considered as well as Russia's participation in the Doha Development Round and preferential trading arrangements. It is concluded that Russia may realize significant benefits from WTO accession and from the multilateral trade liberalization to be effected in the Doha Round.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39857/3/wp472.pd

Labor Standards and Trade Agreements

There is a wide disparity of views on issues of international labor standards. Labor and social activists are concerned about the increased imports from countries in which labor standards are ostensibly not enforced at a sufficiently high level. They fear that these imports will be detrimental to wages and employment conditions in the industrialized importing countries and that workers in the developing countries will be exploited, their wages suppressed, and that they will be subjected to abusive work conditions. This paper explores these different views and the available options for addressing the issues involved. The paper begins with the definition and scope of labor standards and then turns to theoretical aspects of the economic effects of labor standards and a summarizes the empirical evidence on the effects on wages, trade, and foreign direct investment, and the role of interest groups. Global, regional, national/unilateral, and other arrangements for the monitoring and enforcement of labor standards are discussed and implications for policy presented

An Economic Perspective on Russia's Accession to the WTO

Russia's application for accession to the WTO is currently in its final phases and may be completed by the end of 2003. In this context, this paper provides some background information on Russia's recent policy and structural reforms, the composition and geographic distribution of trade, tariff rates by commodity groups, and other aspects of trade and domestic policies at issue in the accession process. The accession proce-dure and the current status of the accession process are then discussed. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling analysis of China's WTO accession as a prototype, the potential use of CGE model-ing of Russian accession is considered as well as Russia's participation in the Doha Development Round and preferential trading arrangements. It is concluded that Russia may realize significant benefits from WTO accession and from the multilateral trade liberalization to be effected in the Doha Round.Russia, WTO Accession.

Trade in Financial Services--Has the IMF Been Involved Constructively?

This paper considers the key policy issues related to liberalization of trade in financial services that the IMF should be concerned with, and the role the IMF has played in advising on policies related to trade in financial services in its bilateral and multilateral surveillance and conditionality attached to lending programs. IMF staff were generally aware of the literature and country experiences showing the benefits of financial liberalization. But Fund advice in support of liberalization can be best interpreted to be in support of country unilateral policy actions and the dynamics of the WTO accession process.financial liberalization, foreign banks, GATS, IMF

An Economic Perspective on Russia's Accession to the WTO

Russia's application for accession to the WTO is currently in its final phases and may be completed by the end of 2003. In this context, this paper provides some background information on Russia's recent policy and structural reforms, the composition and geographic distribution of trade, tariff rates by commodity groups, and other aspects of trade and domestic policies at issue in the accession process. The accession proce-dure and the current status of the accession process are then discussed. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling analysis of China's WTO accession as a prototype, the potential use of CGE model-ing of Russian accession is considered as well as Russia's participation in the Doha Development Round and preferential trading arrangements. It is concluded that Russia may realize significant benefits from WTO accession and from the multilateral trade liberalization to be effected in the Doha Round.

Issues in U.S.-ROK Economic Relations Issues in U.S.-ROK Economic Relations

This paper builds on the analysis of Kiyota and Stern (2007) of the economic effects of a KoreaU.S. free trade agreement (KORUSFTA). We review the objectives and main features of the KORUSFTA as perceived prior to the negotiation of the agreement and then outline the main features of the actual KORUSFTA that was concluded at the end of June 2007 and is now awaiting legislative approval by the authorities in both nations. We summarize the results of a modeling study by the USITC (2007) that is based on the changes in bilateral tariffs and tariff rate quotas (TRQs) that were actually negotiated in the KORUSFTA. We also present for comparative purposes our earlier results from Kiyota and Stern (2007) that used the pre-negotiations data and some specially constructed estimates of services barriers. Finally, we presents some calculations of the effects of alternative negotiating options that may be considered especially if it turns out that the KORUSFTA is not approved by either or both Korea and the United States.

Economic Effects of a Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

This study presents an analysis of the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) that is being negotiated between Korea and the United States. The bilateral FTA negotiations were notified to the U.S. Congress by the United States Trade Representative in February 2006, and formal negotiations began in May 2006.1 It is anticipated that the negotiations may be completed and the agreement signed before mid-2007, which is when the current U.S. presidential negotiating authority expires. Once signed, the implementing legislation can be introduced in the U.S. Congress at any time. In Chapter 1, we set out what appear to be the primary objectives of the United States and Korea in their pursuit of an FTA. In Chapter 2, we review the existing studies of a Korea-U.S. FTA that have been done to date. Chapter 3 is devoted to comparative static and dynamic analyses of the FTA. We first provide an overview of the features and benchmark data of the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade, which is the computational general equilibrium (CGE) modeling framework that we use to analyze the economic effects of a Korea-U.S. FTA. Thereafter, we present the comparative static modeling results for the bilateral removal of tariffs and other trade barriers for agricultural products, manufactures, services, and all of these combined. This is followed by presentation of results of some dynamic computational scenarios that are specially constructed to take into account possible changes in capital formation that may be generated by the Korea-U.S. FTA. We then draw together the main conclusions from the review of previous studies and our own computational work. In Chapter 4, we provide a broader perspective on a Korea-U.S. FTA that takes into account alternative negotiating options for the two nations. These options include computational analyses of the other FTAs that each nation has concluded in recent years and that are currently in process. We also calculate the potential effects of the unilateral removal of trade barriers by the United States and Korea and the effects of global free trade in which all countries or regions covered in the model are assumed to remove their existing trade barriers on a multilateral basis. In Chapter 5, we present conclusions and implications for further research and policy.Free trade, Korea (South), Commercial treaties

Global Market Integration and National Sovereignty

In this paper, we first trace the evolution of the global trading system from the 19th century to the present-day GATT/WTO arrangements, calling attention to the key roles of reciprocity and nondiscrimination, and we note how the system is now challenged by the new paradigm of global market integration. We then consider the recent plethora of free trade agreements (FTAs), including those between industrial and developing countries, and their uneasy relationship with a multilateral system based on non-discrimination.. Thereafter, we seek to identify the boundaries of the WTO and examine how the potential expansion of these boundaries extension and weakening of the effectiveness and influence of the WTO.Reciprocity, Non-Discrimination; Boundaries of WTO Regime

EU Expansion and EU Growth

Almost from its inception as the European Economic Community, the European Union has excited the hope if not the expectation that it would generate dynamic gains from trade, including perhaps a permanent increase in the rates of growth of participating countries. This paper examines the empirical evidence relating to this issue and then interprets the economic performance of the EU countries in terms of a simple theoretical model of economic integration with increasing returns to scale. The paper concludes that evidence for increased long-run growth rates of the EU countries is weak, and that what may have happened instead is that countries have benefited asymmetrically from the formation and the later expansion of the EU. Benefits of economic integration appear to accrue - in the form of temporarily higher growth rates leading to higher levels of per capita income - first to large countries and then to some smaller countries that entered the arrangement relatively early.European integration, Trade and growth