Posts tagged…Wto
Can the G20 halt ‘murky’ protectionism?
Sun, Mar 08 2009
What should the G20 do, when they meet in London next month, to put an end to the growing use of what I've been calling 'wiggle-room' protection? Is 'murky' protectionism causing the coming collapse in trade volumes? Or will protectionism rise as a result? Supposing that they wanted to, could the G20 really crack-down on actions that close markets or discriminate against imports but are not…
Read more…Teacher’s Kit on WTO — Trade in Goods
Fri, Feb 13 2009
Time to continue my series of posts publishing the Teacher’s Kits on WTO, including class materials for Middle and Senior Schools, class exercises, and Teacher’s Notes.
Last time, I published links to the PDF files for the lessons called ‘About the WTO’. This time, two PDF files for lessons titled ‘Trade in Goods’.
Rodrik re-inventing the WTO’s wheel
Mon, Feb 09 2009I agree with Dani Rodrik's analysis, showing that strong global financial regulation won't work.
"Ken [Rogoff]'s preference for a 'global financial regulator with real teeth' overlooks three major problems. Global financial regulation is a bad idea because it is neither desirable, nor prudent, nor feasible. It is not desirable because countries at different levels of development and with…
Trade agreements and trade policy
Tue, Feb 03 2009Yesterday, I noted that for all the changes that have taken place in the trading system since the world last faced such a dramatic downturn in trade and production, there remains one question now that is more or less the same as the questions posed in the 1930s:
"… will trade agreements help to forestall these policy mistakes and encourage collaborative solutions? Or does our experience of the…
Teachers Kits on WTO
Thu, Jan 29 2009
I've noticed quite a few visitors to this site have used one or other of the search engines to look for basic information on the WTO, such as the WTO's 'objectives'. It's not something I often provide: the WTO itself does a lot of that, and pretty well, too.
Over the past decade or so, I've been commissioned by the WTO to write several books about the Agreements, about the history of WTO and…
Export subsidies: there they go again
Sun, Jan 25 2009Demonstrating, once again, its cynical regard for the letter of its obligations, the EC Commission has decided to reinstate dairy export subsidies that are primed to lock-in the low world dairy prices that are allegedly their rationale.
"The European Commission has announced plans to artificially boost prices by buying up 139,000 tonnes of diary products at a cost to the public purse of £237…
A better way ahead for WTO
Thu, Dec 18 2008"As we have argued before, governments need to look for other options such as smaller, more manageable standalone multilateral deals." extract from: FT Editorial - The broken promise of DohaA 'smaller, stand-alone' deal is almost certain to lead to a plurilateral agreement among a sub-set of WTO's 153 members because it will probably not offer sufficient gain to all of them. But that's OK in my…
A Pisgah sight of the Doha deal
Mon, Dec 08 2008(Update: the Ministerial meeting will not take place) Ahead of a likely attempt by WTO Minsiters to spy the promised land before the year is out In one last attempt to wrest consensus from growling discord, the (retiring) Chair of the WTO Agriculture Negotiations has released another version of his 120-page 'modalities' paper (.pdf, about 1mb) for the proposed Doha Round agreement on Agriculture.…
A better way to negotiate on agriculture
Thu, Dec 04 2008Next week, at the Institute for International Trade in Adelaide, Andrew Stoler (Institute Director, former Deputy Director-General of WTO) and I are presenting a conference in our project on future frameworks for WTO agriculture agreements.
In addition to our own research (some linked here) we've commissioned the help of leading agriculture and trade policy research centers in Brazil, China,…
The WTO’s objectives
Wed, Nov 26 2008On 11-12 December, the Institute for International Trade will host a conference that Andrew Stoler (its Director) and I have arranged as part of our year-long research project to find a better way to negotiate WTO agriculture agreements.
In a paper he has prepared for the conference on 'Variable Geometries', Professor Peter LLoyd of Melbourne University poses a question about WTO's objectives.…
A modest proposal for the ‘G-20’ summit
Sun, Nov 09 2008
The IMF's Managing Director should not try to talk down expectations for next weekend's summit. We deserve much more from these leaders that, so far, have done little to match their promises of reform of global governance over the past decade.
The G-20's role should be to set up the best conditions for a recovery in real markets, not just in financial markets. But, on their past behavior, it is…
The unravelling trade consensus
Tue, Aug 26 2008An much better account of the real, secular challenges facing the WTO than Larry Summers' jumbled column (see the Sidebar) can be found in Simon Evenett's dissection of the failure of the Doha Round, written almost a year ago. I think Simon has set the bar too high, but his call—presaging that of the Warwick Commission—for a period of reflection and a new start for the WTO is and intriguing…