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India: Shadow WTO Agricultural Domestic Support Notifications
In this study, we examined India’s domestic support policies to understand their classification and measurement for the purposes of official World Trade Organization (WTO) notifications. We then employed the underlying methods to prepare shadow notifications of India’s domestic support for 1998-2005. Following that, we explored alternative support-definition scenarios and their possible effects on shadow notifications. Preliminary support estimates for 2006-2007 and a projection for 2015 are also provided with a discussion on how the latest WTO (2008) ………….
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1156861
Barriers to Trade in Higher Education Services in the Era of Globalisation
This paper highlights the issues surrounding trade in education services in India. Concentrating on the ease and difficulty of trade in education services through different modes in India, it shows that the process of trade in education services through World Trade Organisation modes 3 and 4 has just begun in India, whereas mode 2 is still the most prevalent mode of trade in education services. A field survey undertaken in this context also identifies some barriers to movement of foreign students to India.
http://www.epw.org.in/epw//uploads/articles/12605.pdf
The WTO Doha round impasse: Implications for Africa
The latest World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiation round, launched in November 2001 in Doha, was seen as a positive response to the terrorist attacks on the USA. The negotiations, known as the ‘Development Round’, had the ultimate objectives of reducing poverty and promoting development. Seven years later, the outlook is bleak. The Doha talks were suspended in July 2008, with trade negotiators increasingly lacking support from their governments. Future elections and rising food and energy prices have exacerbated protectionist tendencies …………
http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing-papers/41-wto-doha-round-impasse-implications-for-africa.pdf
A Positive Theory of WTO Adjudication
The positive theory of litigation predicts that under certain conditions plaintiffs and defendants achieve an unremarkable and roughly equivalent share of litigation success. This article, grounded in an empirical analysis of WTO adjudication from 1995 through 2007, reveals a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates: Complainants win roughly 90 percent of the disputes. This disparity transcends case type, country identity, income level and other litigant-specific characteristics. After analyzing and discarding standard ………..
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1266244
China: Shadow WTO Agricultural Domestic Support Notifications
This paper reviews recent agricultural policy changes in China and presents estimates of domestic support for the period 1996-2005. A set of relevant alternative subsidy-definition scenarios and their effects on the calculated levels of support are analyzed, and a projection of domestic support through 2013 is presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of new WTO rules that may be negotiated in the Doha Round and their implications for China. Based on standard WTO subsidy calculation methods, our results indicated that China’s domestic support for the period ………
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/ifpridp00793.asp
Relations between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean: The partnership phase
Latin America seems to be managing to keep its feet dry in the midst of a global economic storm. This demonstrates that Latin American trade offers not only a favourable climate for European investment, but also a timely political opportunity for the European Union (EU). The EU would do well to improve the quality of its engagement with the region, to take greater advantage of the growing consensus on issues that face both regions.
http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/107-europe-latin-america-caribbean-relations.pdf
Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: A Critical Assessment and WTO Regulatory Reform Proposal
At this writing, most-favored-nation (MFN) principle notwithstanding, every nation save Mongolia has entered into at least one bilateral or regional free trade agreement. The European Union, for example, is so heavily engaged in bilateral deals that it has MFN trade relations with only seven countries. Hundreds of bilaterals have been negotiated since the early 1990s. The apparent failure of the Doha Round virtually guarantees their dominance of international trade law and policy. This article reviews the history of bilateral and regional free trade agreements ….
http://ilreports.blogspot.com/2008/09/folsom-bilateral-free-trade-agreements.html
Emerging regional architecture in Asia
With a combined population of nearly half a billion and GDP of over a trillion dollars, ASEAN countries provide a large market for Indian companies. The conclusion of India-ASEAN FTA after four years of negotiations in Singapore at the ASEAN Economic Ministers meeting last week will pave the way for India to play its due role in emerging broader regional architecture in Asia. India had begun to engage ASEAN since 1992 as a part of the Look East Policy. Look East was perhaps a response to the growing recognition of East Asia’s potential to emerge as the centre of gravity with rapid growth sustained over the past three decades ………
http://www.ris.org.in/
Some Arguments Concerning Promotion of Cross-Border Cooperation and European Union Integration
With the process of EU integration at hand, cross-border cooperation has become a top priority in East-Central Europe. In fact, there is no viable alternative to integrated regional development. From the perspective of advancing European integration process, the existence of the appropriate legislative framework, economic and social policies aimed at ensuring the three movement of persons, labor, material and spiritual goods across the borders is of an utmost importance. Another important argument for the elaboration and implementation of integrated ……….
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1274087
Dealing with the Proliferation of Bilateral Trade Agreements: Consolidation, Multilateralization, Harmonization, or Dilution?
Bilateral free trade agreements (BTAs) have been proliferating. The outcome of this proliferation of often overlapping BTAs and plurilateral free trade agreements is described as the spaghetti bowl effect or, in the Asian region, the noodle bowl effect. This is costly and welfare-reducing. How should this situation be remedied? This paper evaluates the various options proposed in dealing with the spaghetti bowl. A general limitation of these proposals is their tendency to group all kinds of BTAs together and treat them as a homogeneous group.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/ERD/Working_Papers/WP123.pdf
Achieving the MDGs: The fundamentals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent the most determined effort in history to galvanise international action around a common set of development targets (Box 1). Their success or failure will have immense consequences, not only for the world’s poor, but also for the credibility of collective action by the international community. The MDGs are about basic economic and social rights for all, with clear targets to be reached by the year 2015. They may, however, seem presumptuous to those working in development, appearing disconnected ………..
http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing-papers/43-mdgs-fundamentals-poverty-social-protection.pdf
Ending Aid Dependence
Developing countries reliant on aid want to escape from this dependence, and yet they appear unable to do so. This book shows how the developing countries can liberate themselves from the aid that pretends to be developmental but is not. Exiting aid dependence should be at the top of the political agenda of all countries. This timely book cautions countries of the South against endorsing the Accra Action Agenda (AAA) offered by the OECD. If adopted, it would subject the recipients to a discipline of collective control by the donors right down to the village level.
http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=672&Itemid=1
How Effective are Food for Education Programs? A Critical Assessment of the Evidence from Developing Countries
Food for education (FFE) programs, including meals served in school and take-home rations conditional on school attendance, have recently received renewed attention as a policy instrument for achieving the Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education and the reduction of hunger in developing countries. FFE programs attract children to school by providing nutritious meals in exchange for school participation. If children are undernourished, the programs may also boost learning and cognitive development by improving attention spans and nutrition.
http://www.ifpri.org/PUBS/fpreview/pv09.asp#dl
MDGs and the environment: Are environmental institutions ‘fit for purpose’?
Millennium Development Goal 7 is, simply put: ‘to ensure environmental sustainability’. Local efforts on environmental sustainability are linked intimately to global commitments. Achieving this goal, therefore, depends heavily on action at both the national and international level. There is a growing recognition that institutions – agencies and other bodies working on environment issues – matter in securing the linkages between these levels. The role of the national government administration, in particular, is critical to the delivery of environmental results.
http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/110-environment-mdgs-institutions-poverty.pdf
Rising Agricultural Prices: Causes, Consequences and Responses
World prices of wheat, coarse grains (in particular corn), rice and oilseed
crops nearly doubled between 2005 and 2007 and continued to rise in early 2008. These prices, along with those of meat, sugar and dairy products, are likely to ease somewhat in the next 10 years, but are likely to stay well above the average of the past decade. This price spike in agricultural commodities is due to a combination of factors, including droughts in key grain-producing regions, low stocks of cereals and oilseeds, increased used of feedstock ………..
http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,3425,en_2649_34489_41227217_119696_1_1_1,00.html
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