After Doha: Evolution or Revolution in the World Trading System?

Garhy Hufabeur and Costantino Poschedda
Additional contact information
Garhy Hufabeur: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Costantino Poschedda: Peterson Institute for International Economics

No 1101, Information Bulletins from Western Centre for Economic Research

Abstract: The Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations (often referred as the DDR) came to a halt in July 2006. This break followed several unsuccessful attempts to agree on modalities for reducing agricultural subsidies and protection. At Davos, in January 2007, world leaders pledged to resurrect the DDR talks and reach a successful agreement. Yet, in February 2007, the outcome remains in doubt. It seems most unlikely that a robust DDR agreement will be concluded – even though, with much effort, a shallow deal is still in sight. In this brief, we start with a short overview of the world trading system since the Second World War, emphasizing the contribution that trade liberalization makes to world growth. Next we summarize the causes of the DDR breakdown. This is followed by an examination of three different scenarios for the future of the world trading system, highlighting risks and opportunities associated with each. We conclude with bold predictions.

Keywords: International Trade; Free Trade; Doha Development Agenda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2007-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10402/era.31106

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:alb:series:1101

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Information Bulletins from Western Centre for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().