What we do and don’t know about trade liberalization and poverty reduction

Robert Vos

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: Strong opinions about the impact of globalization on poverty are not always backed by robust factual evidence. As argued in this paper, however, it is not all that easy to lay our hands on ‘robust’ facts. Quantitative analyses of trade liberalization appear highly sensitive to basic modelling and parameter assumptions. Altering these could turn the expectation that, for instance, Africa’s poor stand to gain from further trade opening under the Doha Round into one in which they would stand to lose. Most studies agree though that trade opening probably adds to aggregate welfare, but gains are small and unevenly distributed.

Keywords: computable general equilibrium models; trade policy; economic integration; trade and labour market interactions; welfare and poverty; international linkages to development; foreign exchange policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C68 F13 F15 F16 I3 O19 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2007-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:50

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