Towards More Inclusive Trade Policy Making

"International trade and investment are central to economic prosperity. But new global realities, including rising antitrade sentiment, are challenging long-held policy approaches in these areas. With the global trading system at a critical juncture, now is the time to examine new trade realities and explore appropriate responses. In this volume, the culmination of a comprehensive interdisciplinary research initiative, the Institute for Research on Public Policy has brought together groundbreaking contributions from more than thirty experts in eight different countries. Together, they analyze how longer-term changes and emerging trends in international commerce, technology and economic power are affecting Canada, and what these changes mean for public policy. The authors take an in-depth, firm-level look at Canada's trade, and assess its integration in global value chains. They provide a rigorous analytical framework, supported by new empirical evidence, that will help readers better understand the global economy. Among the topics they examine are the new business models driving the more fragmented and global nature of production; the technological developments that are allowing new traders to expand their reach; and the shift in economic activity toward emerging markets that is dispersing power and raising new challenges for trade negotiations. The editors' conclusion distills the research findings into a forward-looking policy agenda for more inclusive trade." --

Outcome of the Fostering Equity and Accountability in the Trading System Project.

Trade is a well-established driver of growth and poverty reduction.But changes in trade policy also have distributional impacts that create winners and losers. It is vital to understand and clearly communicate how trade affects economic well-being across all segments of the population, as well as how policies can more effectively ensure that the gains from trade are distributed more widely. The Distributional Impacts of Trade: Empirical Innovations, Analytical Tools, and Policy Responses provides a deeper understanding of the distributional effects of trade across regions, industries, and demographic groups within countries over time. It includes an overview (chapter 1); a review of innovations in empirical and theoretical work covering the impacts of trade at the subnational level (chapter 2); highlights from empirical case studies on Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and Sri Lanka (chapter 3); and a policy agenda to improve distributional outcomes from trade (chapter 4). This book comes at a time when the shock from COVID-19 (coronavirus) adds to an already uncertain trade policy environment in which the value of the multilateral trading system has been under increased scrutiny. A better understanding of how trade affects distributional outcomes can lead to more inclusive policies and support the ability of countries to maximize broad-based benefits from trade.

In recent decades, the global economy has experienced a profound transformation due to trade integration and technological progress as well as important political changes. This transformation has been accompanied by significant positive effects at the global level, as increased trade integration has helped to raise incomes in advanced and developing economies, lifting millions out of poverty. At the same time, it has translated into changes experienced by individuals, companies and communities. While overall, better job opportunities are on the rise, workers who are forced to leave their existing jobs may find it difficult to share in these improvements. Policies aimed at facilitating adjustment can reduce the number of those left behind by trade or technology, while at the same time raising the net gains from these developments, improving overall efficiency and boosting incomes. Given the role of skills in productivity and in trade performance as well as in access to employment and wage distribution, a strong emphasis on skills development is vital for both firms and workers. This publication argues that in the current fast-changing context of globalization, where technology and trade relations evolve rapidly, the responsiveness of skills supply to demand plays a central role not only from an efficiency perspective, but also from a distributional perspective. Featuring results from the ILO's Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED) programme, this report shows that appropriate skills development policies are key to helping firms participate in trade, and also to helping workers find good jobs.

This report presents recommendations to boost the participation of women in trade through free trade agreements. Policymakers and trade negotiators will find a new toolkit to gauge gender responsiveness in their agreements. These lessons are based on a research assessment of 73 selected free trade agreements in force among 25 Commonwealth countries, and top-line recommendations and model clauses for countries to adapt. The recommendations include embedding gender provisions in the preamble, leveraging corporate social responsibility, using reservations, waivers and general exceptions, and strengthening monitoring and dispute settlement mechanisms.

Trade can dramatically improve women’s lives, creating new jobs, enhancing consumer choices, and increasing women’s bargaining power in society. It can also lead to job losses and a concentration of work in low-skilled employment. Given the complexity and specificity of the relationship between trade and gender, it is essential to assess the potential impact of trade policy on both women and men and to develop appropriate, evidence-based policies to ensure that trade helps to enhance opportunities for all. Research on gender equality and trade has been constrained by limited data and a lack of understanding of the connections among the economic roles that women play as workers, consumers, and decision makers. Building on new analyses and new sex-disaggregated data, Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality aims to advance the understanding of the relationship between trade and gender equality and to identify a series of opportunities through which trade can improve the lives of women.

Two high-level commissions—the Sutherland report in 2004, and the Warwick Commission report in 2007—addressed the future of the World Trade Organization and made proposals for incremental reform. This book goes further; it explains why institutional reform of the WTO is needed at this critical juncture in world history and provides innovative, practical proposals for modernizing the WTO to enable it to respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Contributors focus on five critical areas: transparency, decision- and rule-making procedures, internal management structures, participation by non-governmental organizations and civil society, and relationships with regional trade agreements. Co-published with the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for International Governance Innovation

This edition focuses on trade connectivity, which is critical for inclusiveness and sustainable development. Physical connectivity enables the movement of goods and services to local, regional and global markets.