India in the World Trading System

Romain Wacziarg

Research Papers from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business

Abstract: This paper examines the position of India in the world trading system. It considers three separate questions: Firstly, how integrated is India in the world trade? Secondly, what gains could India reap from further trade liberalization? Thirdly, what are the best means to achieve greater trade openness? The paper argues that while India's trade barriers have fallen since external sector reforms started in the early 1990s, they remain high relative to most developing countries, in particular China. As a result, the volume and structure of trade in India have experienced a slower evolution away from quasi-autarkic patterns than China's. A survey of existing estimates of the effect of trade openness on economic growth and the quality of policy and governance suggests that India would have much to gain from further integration into the world trading system. Finally, the paper assesses the scope for liberalization through unilateral, regional or multilateral means. The latter is both the most politically feasible path for further liberalization, and the most likely to deliver significant gains from trade. The extent to which India can shape upcoming multilateral negotiations, however, is unclear.

Date: 2002-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP1760.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:ecl:stabus:1760

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Papers from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().