The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly but Unevenly

Arvind Subramanian and Shang-Jin Wei

No 03/185, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper furnishes robust evidence that the GATT/WTO has had a powerful and positive impact on trade. The impact has, however, been uneven. GATT/WTO membership for industrial countries has been associated with a large increase in imports estimated at about 40 percent of world trade. The same has not been true for developing country members, although those that joined after the Uruguay Round have benefited from increased imports. Similarly, there have been asymmetric effects among sectors, with WTO membership associated with substantially greater imports in sectors where barriers are low. These results are consistent with the history and design of the institution, which presided over significant trade liberalization by the industrial countries except in sectors such as food and clothing; largely exempted developing countries from the obligations to liberalize under the principle of special and differential treatment; but attempted to redress the latter by imposing greater obligations on developing country members that joined after the Uruguay Round.

Keywords: GATT; World Trade Organization; Trade; Economic models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-10-17
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Related works:
Working Paper: The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly (2005)
Working Paper: The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly (2003)
Journal Article: The WTO promotes trade, strongly but unevenly (2007)
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