The Impact of WTO Accession and Complementary Structural Reforms on the Economy of Belarus: A Quantitative Evaluation

Edward Balistreri, Zoryana Olekseyuk and David Tarr

No 332696, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: We develop a modern and innovative general-equilibrium simulation model of the economy of Belarus to undertake an assessment of WTO accession and key complementary reforms. Our results indicate that WTO accession is expected to increase the welfare of Belarusian nationals by 8.2% (of consumption). Thereby, a reduction of barriers against suppliers of services is the most important contributor to these benefits, especially a 25% reduction in the non-discriminatory barriers, which adversely impact both Belarusian and foreign service providers, generates a welfare gain of 5.5%. A more aggressive reduction of these barriers (50%) could have an even more substantial impact according to the estimated gain of 11.7%. Simulating partial privatization based on data for the relative productivity of various sectors in Belarus, we find that it would lead to a large increase in the productivity, competitiveness and output of the economy of Belarus, yielding gains of 36.2%. By increasing the productivity and competitiveness of Belarusian firms, the complementary structural reforms would lead to a reduction of imports, contrary to WTO accession. We hope that by identifying these complementary reforms to WTO accession, we may be able to assist the Government in its efforts to use the WTO accession process as a vehicle to make the economy more competitive.

Keywords: International; Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332696/files/8206.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:pugtwp:332696

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().