The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly

Shang-Jin Wei and Arvind Subramanian

No 2003/185, 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: WP; WTO member; WTO dummy; WTO coefficient; WTO effect; WTO document; WTO; GATT; gravity; special and differential treatment; WTO exporter; WTO variable; Imports; Tariffs; Trade barriers; Customs unions; Trade liberalization; Global; WTO membership; members in the WTO; developing country member (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41
Date: 2003-09-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (63)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=16822 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The WTO promotes trade, strongly but unevenly (2007)
Working Paper: The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly (2005)
Working Paper: The WTO Promotes Trade, Strongly But Unevenly (2003)
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:imf:imfwpa:2003/185

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().