The Global Costs of Protectionism

Kutlina-Dimitrova, Zornitsa ; Lakatos, Csilla

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: PROTECTIONISM;    PREFERENTIAL TARIFFS;    BOUND TARIFFS;    WTO;    GLOBAL ECONOMY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8277
RP-ID  :  WPS8277

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper quantifies the wide-rangingcosts of potential increases in worldwide barriers to tradein two scenarios. First, a coordinated global withdrawal oftariff commitments from all existing bilateral/regionaltrade agreements, as well as from unilateral preferentialschemes coupled with an increase in the cost of tradedservices, is estimated to result in annual worldwide realincome losses of 0.3 percent or US$211 billion relative tothe baseline after three years. An important share of theselosses is likely to be concentrated in regions such as EastAsia and Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean whichtogether account for close to one-third of the globaldecline in welfare. Highlighting the importance ofpreferences, the impact on global trade is estimated to bemore pronounced, with an annual decline of 2.1 percent ormore than US$606 billion relative to the baseline if thesebarriers stay in place for three years. Second, a worldwideincrease in tariffs up to legally allowed bound ratescoupled with an increase in the cost of traded serviceswould translate into annual global real income losses of 0.8percent or more than US$634 billion relative to the baselineafter three years. The distortion to the global tradingsystem would be significant and result in an annual declineof global trade of 9 percent or more than US$2.6 trillionrelative to the baseline in 2020.