Modeling Trade Policy

This book focuses on the World Bank projects, led by the author, based on computable general equilibrium models of international trade policy. The chapters show an unusual combination of policy relevance, advice and impact, with academic rigor and international trade theory insights. The author discusses some of the policy contexts for the requests from developing and transition countries to the World Bank, the key trade theory or policy insights, policy recommendations and conclusions, and the policy impacts. Contents:Introduction and OverviewTrade Policy: Quantitative Restraints, Foreign Exchange Surrender and Uniformity:Welfare Costs of US Quotas in Textiles, Steel and Autos (J de Melo and D G Tarr)Reforming Hungarian Agricultural Trade Policy: A Quantitative Evaluation (M Morkre and D G Tarr)Second-Best Foreign Exchange Policy in the Presence of Domestic Price Controls and Export Subsidies (D G Tarr)Trade Reform in the Partially Liberalized Economy of Turkey (G W Harrison, T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Evaluating the Impact of Services and FDI with Endogenous Productivity Effects:The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services: The Case of Russian Accession to the World Trade Organization (J Jensen, T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Regional Impacts of Liberalization of Barriers against Foreign Direct Investment in Services: The Case of Russia's Accession to the WTO (T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Impact of Local Content Restrictions and Barriers Against Foreign Direct Investment in Services: The Case of Kazakhstan's Accession to the WTO (J Jensen and D G Tarr)Modeling Services Liberalization: The Case of Tanzania (J Jensen, T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Trade and Poverty:Trade Policy and Poverty Reduction in Brazil (G W Harrison, T F Rutherford, D G Tarr and A Gurgel)Trade Liberalization, Poverty and Efficient Equity (G W Harrison, T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Poverty Effects of Russia's WTO Accession: Modeling “Real” Households with Endogenous Productivity Effects (T F Rutherford and D G Tarr)Trade, Exchange Rate and Energy Pricing Reform in Iran: Potentially Large Efficiency Effects and Gains to the Poor (J Jensen and D G Tarr)Regionalism:Trade Policy Options for Chile: The Importance of Market Access (G W Harrison, T F Rutherford and D G Tarr) Readership: Students and the general public who are interested to learn about the key trade theories or policy insights of World Bank projects, policy recommendations and their impact. Keywords:International Trade Policy;Developing Countries;Computable General Equilibrium;World Bank;Regional Trade Policy;Services Liberalization;Foreign Direct Investment;Trade and PovertyKey Features:Cover computable general equilibrium modeling of trade policy in a wide range of countries and of the wide range of trade policy issues combined with the policy context and policy advice discussionAn unusual combination of policy relevance, advice and impact, with academic rigor and international trade theory insightsThe author has virtually incomparable experience in providing trade policy advice to more than 25 countries on behalf of the World Bank

Applied Methods for Trade Policy Analysis provides a comprehensive introduction to the applied economic modeling of trade policies. The book introduces the reader to trade policy concepts, welfare measurement, accounting frameworks, and both partial and general equilibrium modeling approaches. It first covers these topics at a basic level and then introduces the reader to a number of more advanced topics: imperfect competition, dynamic modeling, labor market structure, and environmental modeling. Economic graduate students, professors, and policy makers will find the collection to be an important reference tool.

Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

This book, drawn from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), aims to help readers conduct quantitative analysis of international trade issues in an economy-wide framework. In addition to providing a succinct introduction to the GTAP modeling framework and data base, this book contains seven of the most refined GTAP applications undertaken to date, covering topics ranging from trade policy, to the global implications of environmental policies, factor accumulation and technological change.

Applied General Equilibrium (AGE) models have proven to be the tool of choice for analyzing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This collection contains the most important contributions to this burgeoning literature by many of the leading practitioners in the field. It also contains an extensive research survey, including comparisons of model dimensions, behavioral features, data sources, policy experiments, and main conclusions for policy. The volume contains a number of methodological advances in AGE modeling of trade policy.

This collection of original essays makes a substantial contribution to the empirical analysis of trade policy and to the current debate on a new international economic order. They address policy from a strictly economic viewpoint, using computable general equilibrium models as analytical tools and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of these models, which are being increasingly used for policy analysis in international trade and other branches of economics. The essays all examine the effects of 50 percent tariff cuts on the various economies modeled. However, since some models are global (multicountry) and others are single country, such cuts can take several forms: unilateral, multilateral, or bilateral. The models show wide variation in their results. This points up the need for caution in using such models for rigid policy advice and for further improvement in data and techniques if trade modeling is to become effective. Nonetheless, the strength of such models in making explicit the implicit assumptions of policymakers and in providing a quantitative framework for trade policy evaluation is clearly revealed. T. N. Srinivasan, coauthor with Jagdish Bhagwati of Lectures on International Trade(MIT Press 1983) is Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University. John Whalley, author of Trade Liberalization among Major World Trading Areas(MIT Press 1984) is Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario.

The need for careful research on trade policy is particularly acute, and this volume empirically addresses these and many other important issues. The contributors offer studies which integrate the institutional details of current trade policy with creative economic analyses. Marked by a shift from a traditional reliance on simulation models, these papers take their inspiration from recent changes in the assumptions traditionally underlying research in international trade theory. No longer are government policies viewed as being somehow "given" to the researcher; in part 1, "Analyses with a Political Economy Perspective," four papers treat such policies as endogenous and explicable in terms of political economy. Neither are product and factor markets seen as perfectly competitive; instead, the three papers in part 2, "Trade Policy Effects under Imperfectly Competitive Market Conditions," assume that firms consider the actions of other companies when formulating their decisions. In part 3, "A New Measure of Trade Restrictiveness and Estimates of Trade Policy Effects with CGE Models," the first essay explores the quantitative restrictions on cheese to develop and implement a new model of restrictive trade. Two final contributions address problems for which simulation modeling is especially useful. The first considers the effectiveness of an import surcharge in reducing the U.S. trade deficit and the second treats the welfare effects of liberalization in South Korea where increasing returns to scale are significant These innovative studies focus on economic behavior that will provide valuable insights for policymakers, academic economists, and students.