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Introduction
Education
September 1970 - December 1975
Publications
Publications (321)
All WTO members participate in the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), a rules-based bottom-up approach built on monitorable provisions (e.g., the publication of information, advance rulings, appeal or review of decisions, transparency and border agency cooperation) aimed at reducing time in customs. The paper draws on the OECD indicators of the st...
Bangladesh is widely seen as a 'paradox'. Over the last quarter of a century, it has maintained economic growth and has outperformed many countries on social indicators while scoring very low on the quality of governance. Moreover, its economic progress does not seem to indicate significant improvement in comparative institutional indicators. Is th...
This paper provides evidence on carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions for 51 African and 132 other countries in 163 sectors over the period 1995-2015. The resulting landscape is summarised in four patterns. Patterns identified for Africa differ from those identified for other regions but are closely related to a synthetic aggregate com-parator based on k...
The symposium focuses on the evolution and determinants of Africa's participation in Global Value Chains (GVC) through comparisons with other continents, but also across countries within Africa. Using firm, sector and country‐level data they provide a comprehensive micro and macroeconomic analysis of GVC in Africa that helps inform policymakers aim...
Rules of Origin (RoO) are critical components of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). They are designed to stop products coming into a PTA through the partner that applies the lowest tariff – a phenomenon known as trade deflection. While RoO are necessary, complex RoO may undo the benefits of trade agreements. Using a novel database of RoO, this p...
Cette étude explore les connaissances scientifiques sur la manière dont le commerce peut aider l’Afrique à s’adapter au changement climatique (CC) dans trois domaines : (i) les événements à déclenchement rapide provenant d’événements extrêmes de courte durée (inondations, températures extrêmes) ; (ii) les événements à évolution lente (augmentation...
Rules of Origin (RoO) are critical components of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). They are designed to stop products coming into a PTA through the partner that applies the lowest tariff – a phenomenon known as trade deflection. While RoO are necessary, complex RoO may undo the benefits of trade agreements. Using a novel database of RoO, this p...
An explosion of different preferential rules of origin (PROO) has accompanied the spread of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) around the world. Complying with PROO requirements entail costs for producers, exporters, and customs officials. Observers, firms, customs officials, and policymakers have advocated simplification as well as harmonization...
Economic analysis has produced ample insights on how international trade and climate policy interact (1). Trade presents both opportunities and obstacles, and invites the question of how domestic climate policies can be effective in a global economy integrated through international trade. Particularly problematic is the potential relocation of prod...
This paper investigates the long-term implications of climate change on global migration and inequality. Accounting for the effects of changing temperatures, sea levels, and the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, we model the impact of climate change on productivity and utility in a dynamic general equilibrium framework. By endogenizing...
To become operational, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must harmonize Rules of Origin (ROO) across Africa's Preferential Trade Agreements, usually defined at the level of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Negotiators have agreed on a set of common Regime-Wide (RWRs) rules and on about 82% of the expected different Product-Sp...
An explosion of different Rules of Origin (ROO) has accompanied the spread of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) around the world. Often tailor-made, these ROO are there to prevent trade deflection and transshipment. For developing countries, protection of regional producers of intermediate products in supply chains can be an important-if not the...
Ever since the creation of the WTO, attempts at bringing together the trade and climate regime have failed. This paper reviews attempts at reducing tariffs on products classified as Environmental Goods (EGs), causes of failure in past attempts, and suggests requirements for a meaningful agenda in future attempts. The start is the failure at the neg...
Africa is well endowed with organizations to promote regional cooperation and integration. It has 8 African Union (AU)-recognized regional economic communities (RECs), 7 other economic organizations and 25 specialized regional organizations (ROs). On average each country is member of 3 RECs and 4 other ROs. The number of continental treaties signed...
To become operational, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must harmonize Rules of Origin (ROO) across Africa’s Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) along two dimensions: regime-wide rules and product-specific rules. This paper describes and evaluates these ROO across the major multiple-membership PTAs engaged in these harmonization ne...
African countries are negotiating the African Continental Free Trade Area with the aim to spearhead global value chain (GVC) trade among African countries as a driver for robust economic growth. This paper evaluates the participation of Sub-Saharan African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in GVC-related trade over the period 1990–2015 using mea...
Treaties implemented by Regional Organizations (ROs) among which the eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have piloted integration across the African continent. The recently created Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), effective since May 2019, is the latest effort along the roadmap started with the Abuja Treaty of 1994 and continued...
Treaties implemented by Regional Organizations (ROs) among which the eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have piloted integration across the African continent. The recently created Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), effective since May 2019, is the latest effort along the roadmap started with the Abuja Treaty of 1994 and continued...
This paper studies how bilateral digital connectivity resulting from telecommunications submarine cable (SMC) deployment affects firm participation in export markets. Using an unbalanced panel of bilateral trade data from 48 countries during the period 1997-2014, we find that a SMC connection between two countries is associated with an increase in...
Treaties implemented by Regional Organizations (ROs) among which the eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have piloted integration across the African continent. The recently created Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), effective since May 2019, is the latest effort along the roadmap started with the Abuja Treaty of 1994 and continued...
Few developing countries have participated in the environmental goods agreement (EGA) negotiations to reduce barriers on trade in Environmental Goods (EGs). Reasons for this reluctance are first reviewed along with a comprehensive description of barriers to trade (tariffs and NTBs) on two lists of EGs used in negotiations: the APEC list comprising...
Decade-long negotiations on the reduction of tariffs on Environmental Goods (EGs) at the Doha Round using a list approach to define EGs, failed to produce an agreement. In July 2014, fourteen countries entered plurilateral negotiations under the ambit of the WTO. If successful, the resulting Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) would have eliminated...
Bangladesh is widely seen as a 'paradox'. Over the last quarter of a century, it has maintained economic growth and has outperformed many countries on social indicators while scoring very low on the quality of governance. Moreover, its economic progress does not seem to indicate significant improvement in comparative institutional indicators. Is th...
This paper reviews integration among the eight African Regional Economic Communities by comparing their characteristics and progress with three other South–South Regional Integration Arrangements. Three conclusions emerge: (i) slow progress towards meeting overly ambitious objectives; (ii) small changes in the destination of trade across all Region...
Decade-long negotiations on the reduction of tariffs on Environmental Goods (EGs) at the Doha Round using a list approach to define EGs, failed to produce an agreement. In July 2014, 14 countries entered plurilateral negotiations under the ambit of the WTO. If successful, the resulting Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) would have eliminated tarif...
Few developing countries have participated in the environmental goods agreement (EGA) negotiations to reduce barriers on trade in Environmental Goods (EGs). Reasons for this reluctance are first reviewed along with a comprehensive description of barriers to trade (tariffs and NTBs) on two lists of EGs used in negotiations comprised mostly industria...
The value of preferential market access schemes has fallen sharply. Drawing on a relaxation announcement of July 2016 simplifying origin requirements for access to the EU that should help improve market access, thereby contributing to alleviate the refugee crisis in Jordan, this paper argues that a simplification of origin requirements is a straigh...
An open world trading system with low barriers to trade in Environmental Goods (EGs) and Environmental Services (ESs) accompanied by corrective SPS and TBT measures is necessary for the World Trading System to be compatible with the environmental objectives in the SDGs. So far, the political process and technical difficulties in defining EGs and ES...
The Paris Agreement (PA) signed by 175 parties is now a Treaty since a quorum of signatories has been obtained. This Treaty is really the first important step taken to limit temperature increase, as pledges, if sustained and far more ambitious beyond 2030, would drastically limit the projected temperature increase from projections in the absence of...
This paper reviews integration among the eight African Regional Economic Communities by comparing their characteristics and progress with three other South–South Regional Integration Arrangements.
Three conclusions emerge: (i) slow progress towards meeting overly ambitious objectives; (ii) small changes in the destination of trade across all Regi...
The Aid for Trade (AFT) initiative, launched in 2005 to help developing and especially the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) integrate the rules of the World Trade System adopted in the Uruguay Round turned out to be more about mobilizing support for the stalled Doha Round negotiations. A decade later, a broadened AFT agenda has eluded effective eva...
This chapter shows that as per capita incomes increase, services sectors in resource-rich countries of the Arab World have declined as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) and of non-mining GDP. This negative relationship between the share of services in GDP and income per capita is opposite to global patterns and is linked to the large rents ge...
Avec une croissance soutenue, une vague d’investissements directs étrangers sans précédent et un net recul de la pauvreté, le bilan des quinze dernières années est largement positif pour l’Afrique sub-saharienne. Ce regain de croissance, qui s’est accompagné de réformes économiques importantes, de progrès démocratiques et d’une moindre incidence de...
The thrust of our argument in this chapter is that the present WTO ‘negative contract’ is a legal constraint that does not suffice to promote climate change-friendly policies, as WTO members do not have to adopt similar policies. Moreover, some of their policies might be judged inconsistent with the WTO, even if adopted in order to address external...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to revisit the celebrated conflict that lasted close to two decades and pitted the EU against the USA and against MFN suppliers of bananas. It starts by recalling the major turning points in the dispute and argues that the EU-USA conflict could largely be explained by the changing landscape on trade-policy mak...
This paper appraises the likely effects of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the East African Community (EAC) and the European Union (EU). Customs data are used to estimate the revenue and welfare effects of an EPA with and without an exception list. Revenue and welfare effects are rather small. The paper then discusses the benefits...
This paper discusses the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ‘virtual trade’ in emissions resulting from production activities; (iii) the pro...
The demand for accountability in 'Aid-for-Trade' (AFT) is increasing but monitoring has focused on case studies and impressionistic narratives. The paper reviews recent evidence from a wide range of studies, recognising that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to learn what works and what does not. The review concludes that there is some support...
Barriers to trade in Environmental Goods (EGs) and Environmental Services (ESs) are documented for a large sample of countries and compared with barriers to trade in other goods and other services. Some progress at reduction in barriers has occurred at the national, regional and sectoral levels but not at the multilateral level, where countries hav...
At the Davos forum of January 2014, a group of 14 countries pledged to launch negotiations on liberalising trade in 'green goods' (also known as 'environmental goods' (EGs)), focussing on the elimination of tariffs for an 'APEC list' of 54 products. The paper shows that the 'Davos group', with an average tariff of 1.8%, has little to offer as count...
This paper reviews the extent of reductions in tariffs on environmental goods (EGs) by country participation in the negotiations mandated by a Doha Ministerial Decision in November 2001. Symptomatic of the cleavages across countries throughout the Round, little progress was achieved during the negotiations in defining an approach to a multilateral...
The ‘distance effect' measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been found to be rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the ‘distance puzzle'. However, this puzzle is regularly challenged by new developments in the specification of the gravity equation or in its estim...
Least developed countries rely on preferential market access. Proof of sufficient transformation has to be provided to customs in importing countries by meeting Rules of Origin requirements to benefit from these preferences. These Rules of Origin have turned out to be complicated and burdensome for exporters in the least developed countries. Starti...
The least developed countries rely on preferential market access. To benefit from these preferences, proof of sufficient transformation must be provided to customs in importing countries by meeting the rules of origin requirements. These rules of origin are complicated and burdensome to exporters in least developed countries. Since 2001, under the...
Trade in a “Green Growth” Development Strategy. Issues and Challenges
This paper discusses the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ‘virtual t...
RESUME Les conclusions de la 15ème conférence des Parties de la CCNUCC à Copenhague ont mis en lumière un changement d'approche dans les négociations. On est passé d'une approche descendante (de type top-down) dont le but collectif est d'atteindre des objectifs environnementaux à une approche ascendante (bottom-up) qui privilégie la faisabilité pol...
Using an “event analysis”, this paper complements the cross-country approach to the study of fiscal correlates of growth. Data on fiscal expenditures and growth for a database of 140 countries (118 developing countries) over 1972–2005 are reorganized around turning points providing a summary but encompassing description of “what is in the data”. Fo...
The paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ‘virtual trade’ in emissions resulting from production activities; (iii) the produc...
The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because the global climate regime and the global trade policy regime, represen...
This paper tackles the 'pollution haven' argument by estimating the pollution content of imports (PCI). The PCI is then decomposed into three components: a 'deep' component (i.e. traditional variables unrelated to the environmental debate); a factor endowment component and a 'pollution haven' component reflecting the impact of differences in enviro...