Tag Archives: International Trade

New evidence on WTO membership after the Uruguay Round: an analysis at the sectoral level.

Magnus dos Reis (Unisinos), André Filipe Zago de Azevedo (CNPq), and I have a forthcoming paper at Open Economies Review that examines the effects of WTO membership on trade flows, with a special focus on sectoral trade flows. The full paper is available upon request.

Abstract

The creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 brought several changes to the world trade system, including more stringent accession commitments, separate agreements for agricultural products and for textiles and garment. This study examines the effects of WTO membership on disaggregated sectoral trade flows and their extensive and intensive margins by means of a gravity model estimated by Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood. We employ a panel dataset on bilateral imports for agriculture, textile, and manufacturing sectors for the 1995–2017 period. Our estimates suggest that WTO membership has succeeded in expanding trade flows for new members. Nevertheless, this growth occurred asymmetrically between developed and developing countries, and among the different types of products. In the period under review, developing countries benefited most from this WTO-promoted increase in world trade, in stark contrast to the findings of the extant literature for 1950–2000. The largest trade growth occurred in the agriculture sector, which is also at odds with earlier findings of growth in manufacturing products only. Furthermore, our results show that the increase in trade due to WTO liberalization took place exclusively in the extensive margin of trade, most of which also happened in the agricultural sector.

Labor Provisions in Trade Agreements

A very important question for those concerned with job precarization is whether and how this phenomenon is impacted by globalization and more specifically by international trade. A key hurdle has been the absence of a well organized dataset of the labor provisions included in trade agreements. This would allow not only for a cleaner identification of the effects of trade but also for an estimation of the impact of the labor provisions. Fortunately, the International Labour Organization recently made available a dataset of this type. It covers more than 100 trade agreements and 140 countries! You can find more about the typology used here, about the dataset here, and in the video below.

New book about the Brazilian economy

The International Monetary Fund published a new book about the Brazilian economy. It first provides an overview of the Brazilian economy, and then cover the following important topics: Economic Growth, Social Progress, Fiscal Framework, Challenges to the Monetary and Financial Framework, and Fighting Corruption. This book can be downloaded for free here.

The third chapter (Current Constraints on Growth) is of interest for those trying to understand some of the reasons for the poor performance of productivity growth in Brazil, which many observers suggest to be the key structural problem of the Brazilian economy.

New book about Brazil’s Foreign Policy

A very interesting book about Brazil’s foreign policy edited by Funag and Ipea is available for download here. This book covers Brazil’s foreign policies after the 2008 crisis. Chapters 5 through 9 are of special interest for international economists. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about Brazil’s foreign affairs.

New Trade Agreement between Brazil and Chile

On November 21, 2018 Brazil and Chile signed a new trade agreement in Santiago, Chile. This new treaty expands the original agreement of 1996 that focused solely on the reduction of tariff barriers. Chile is the second largest trade partner of Brazil in South America, and in 2017 Brazil and Chile traded approximately 8.5 billion dollars in goods and services.

The new agreement is about 24 topics related to non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and services including electronic commerce, and intellectual property rights. Both countries agreed to exchange electronic customs paperwork and to recognize each other’s Operadores Economicos Autorizados. These measures will considerably expedite the customs procedures and reduce the customs clearing time. Another interesting item of the new treaty is the commitment to eliminate roaming charges for cell phone and data transmission. Additional information about this initiative can be found at Brazil’s MDIC webpage.

Trade Facilitation Agreement between Brazil and Peru

Today (11/27/2018) Brazil signed a trade facilitation agreement with Peru. Such agreement is related to the Operador Econômico Autorizado (OEA) program regulated in Brazil by the Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.598/2015. The purposes of this type of agreement are a reduction in red tape and in the number and frequency of import and export shipment inspections, and therefore to foster international trade. Similar agreements have been signed between Brazil and other countries, like Bolivia in 2017. You can find more information about the Brazilian OEA program in the following link.