Rules of Thumb for Evaluating Preferential Trading Arrangements : Evidence from Computable General Equilibrium Assessments

Harrison, Glenn W. ; Rutherford, Thomas F. ; Tarr, David G.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADDITIVE FREE TRADE;    ADDITIVE FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS;    ADDITIVE REGIONALISM;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3149
RP-ID  :  WPS3149

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Most interesting results on the welfareeffects of regional arrangements are ambiguous at atheoretical level. Many questions only have quantitativeanswers that are specific to the particular structuralfeatures of the economy and the policy considered. So, todetermine the impact of prospective regional arrangementsgovernments often rely on a quantitative evaluation. Usuallyat the request of client governments of the World Bank, theauthors have implemented many computable general equilibrium(CGE) models to inform policymakers. The authors summarizethe main conclusions drawn from these studies. The principalconclusions are: 1) Countries excluded from a preferentialtrade arrangement almost always lose. 2) Market access is akey determinant of the net benefits of a preferential tradearrangement. 3) With a free trade agreement (FTA) theexternal tariff can be lowered such that a poor FTA becomesattractive. 4) For Southern countries, North-Southagreements offer a beneficial increase in competition intheir home markets, and involve little increase in thesupply price of Northern country sales in Southerncountries. 5) Multilateral trade liberalization results insignificantly larger gains to the world than the network ofregional arrangements. 6) For individual countries withouthigh protection, "additive regionalism" willlikely result in substantially larger gains than unilateraltrade liberalization. 7) Tax replacement requirements reducethe set of desirable regional arrangements. 8) Trade taxesare often an inefficient source of tax revenue. 9) Tradeliberalization should be expected to be pro-poor indeveloping countries, but results will be diverse at thehousehold level so safety nets are important. 10) Dynamiceffects to reverse conclusions regarding regionalism are not expected.