What’s Left for the WTO?

Bown, Chad P.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: URUGUAY ROUND;    EXPORT MARKETS;    ECONOMIC GROWTH;    MULTILATERAL TRADE;    WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7502
RP-ID  :  WPS7502

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Suppose that when addressing thequestion of “what’s left for the WTO?,” tariff negotiatorsrelied not on the agenda established in 2001 but instead onthe terms-of-trade theory of trade agreements to identifynegotiating priorities. This paper uses the lens of theterms-of-trade theory to investigate three areas in which itis frequently alleged that currently applied tariffs remain“too high”; the implication being that the WTO’s jobperformance to date is incomplete. This includes appliedtariffs for countries that are not members of the WTO,applied MFN tariffs for WTO members that are unbound, andapplied MFN tariffs for WTO members set in the presence oflarge amounts of tariff binding overhang. These are almostexclusively the domain of developing countries’ own tradepolicies and they are collectively important; 3.5 billionpeople currently live in countries in which the WTO has hadminimal effect for one of these three reasons. This paperbuilds upon recent developments in the empirical literatureto present evidence—some direct, some indirect—that shedslight on each area. It then identifies specific needs foradditional research to clarify policy implications for thefuture role of the WTO in the ever-changing internationaltrading system.