elements of domestic policy that national legislatures have typically controlled. In order to avoid the experience of the unsuccessful side-agreement in the Kennedy Round, drafters of the US 1974 Trade Act devised a procedure called “fast track.” This procedure specified that a bill to approve agreements on nontariff measures could not be amended once introduced, that it would be reported out of committee within a specified time limit, and that floor debate would be limited. This procedure worked remarkably well in 1979 for the bill implementing the Tokyo Round. Given that successful precedent, Canada insisted that the fast-track procedure apply to the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement. 11 The Tokyo Round addressed NTBs through separate codes and agreements in several areas: subsidies, technical barriers to trade; import licensing procedures; government procurement; customs valuation; and dumping. Not all countries signed these codes, and they were not automatically administered through the same dispute resolution mechanism as the tariff agreement. The reliance on codes and their potentially limited applicability across countries raised the fear of a GATT à la carte, where countries could pick and choose what provisions to accept. The subsequent Uruguay Round sought to avoid that outcome. The principle of preferential tariff treatment for imports from developing countries was adopted in the Tokyo Round. The rationale for this approach is a variant of the infant- industry argument. The US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) grants duty-free entry for imports of goods on an approved list, but it imposes a number of restrictions and qualifications on developing countries. Many commodities were excluded from the list, especially where imports already threatened to injure domestic producers (eg. textiles, steel, footwear, glass, and watches). Also, the tariff preference was denied to any developing country that supplied 50 percent or more of total US imports of a given article, or that sup- plied more than $30 million worth of the article. As a result, only about 12 percent of the exports of developing countries to the United States qualified for GSP treatment. European coverage under the Lomé Convention was similar in magnitude. The Uruguay Round This round, which took over 7 years to complete, was by far the most difficult to conclude and almost failed. Negotiations began in 1986, were suspended in 1990 and 1992 due to an impasse over agricultural provisions, and finally were completed on 15 December 1993, the day that US fast-track negotiating authority was to end. The round was more difficult than its predecessors because tariffs had already been reduced to very low levels. Nontariff barriers were the dominant remaining issue, but these were less easily quantified and it was much 8 – Commercial policy 191 Table 8.1 Average tariff rates in selected economies Tariffs on industrial products (percent) Before Tokyo After Tokyo Reduction Round Round European Community 6.6 4.7 29 Japan 5.5 2.8 49 US 6.4 4.4 31 All industrial countries 7.1 4.7 34 Source: International Monetary Fund, Developments in International Trade Policy, Occasional Paper no. 16, 1982. harder to reach an acceptable balance of concessions. Although further tariff cuts were a goal of this round, other important issues included: 1 Agricultural trade and subsidies. Most developed countries subsidize agricultural prices, making free trade very improbable. The European Union maintains very high support prices under the Common Agricultural Policy and produces large surpluses. These commodities are sold at very low prices in export markets, reducing prices received by Australia, Canada, and other countries with a comparative advantage in farm products. The United States and other agricultural exporters wanted tight limits on the ability of the European Union to subsidize production and exports, a goal that France strongly opposed. 2 Textiles and garments. The Multi-Fibre Agreement had become an exceedingly complex web of product- and country-specific quotas that limit sales of products where devel- oping countries have a comparative advantage. It discriminated against countries that received small quotas (such as India) and provided large monopoly rents to the large- quota holders (such as Hong Kong and Korea). Garment and textile producers in industrialized countries strongly opposed a move away from quotas to tariffs. 3 Intellectual property. Several industrialized countries wanted stronger protection for patents, copyrights, and trademarks. 4 Services. Purchases by foreigners of banking, insurance, medical care, education, telecommunications, tourism, and other services have grown rapidly in recent years. The United States, which tends to have a comparative advantage in many of these services, wanted barriers to its exports of such services to be reduced, although it was much less anxious to liberalize construction or transportation. 5 Dispute resolution and US unilateralism. During the 1980s the United States became increasingly frustrated with the GATT dispute resolution mechanism. The GATT procedures had evolved over time and reflected two different motivations, one that they provide a clear basis for rule-based trade, and another that they facilitate negotiation between disputing members. Referring a dispute to a panel of three or five experts to rule on the compatibility of a country’s practices with its GATT obligations addresses the first view. Requiring that contracting parties adopt any report by consensus (a unanimous vote) reflects the second view. The European Union particularly felt that some issues were of such central importance, such as the operation of its Common Agricultural Policy, that entrusting the outcome to a panel of outsiders was unsatis- factory. In spite of considerable US delay in bringing some of its own practices into compliance after unfavorable GATT rulings, the United States sought a dispute resolution mechanism with more teeth in it. The United States unilaterally initiated actions under its own trade laws against foreign trade practices it regarded as unfair but which were not adequately addressed by the GATT. These Section 301 proceedings (a reference to the section of the Trade Act of 1974 under which they were taken), together with US administration of its dumping and countervailing duty laws, were sources of considerable dissatisfaction among US trading partners. Foreign countries, including allies such as Canada, viewed the US procedures as biased toward a finding of guilt, extremely expensive to defend against for foreign firms, and generally threatening to open trade. These countries wanted GATT-enforced rules that would limit the ability of the US government to unilaterally determine appropriate trade remedies. This agenda was a challenging one, almost too challenging, as demonstrated by the 192 International economics breakdown of talks at various points. Regional trade groupings looked more and more attractive to stymied negotiators. With the deadline for the US government’s loss of its negotiating authority approaching, the participants produced an agreement at almost the last possible moment. Although not all goals were met, it was a surprisingly successful outcome, given the difficulty of the issues. 12 The major accomplishments of the Uruguay Round can be summarized as follows: 1 Tariffs. Industrialized countries reduced tariffs on manufactured goods by over one-third, with over 40 percent of such goods to enter without tariff. 2 Agriculture. Subsidies of exports and import barriers were cut significantly over 6 years. Domestic farm supports, which generate the surpluses that become a problem, were decreased by 20 percent. Subsidized exports were cut by 36 percent in value. Japan and Korea agreed to some opening of their rice markets. Countries converted their 8 – Commercial policy 193 Box 8.1 Tariff bindings and applied tariffs Agreements to reduce tariff rates multilaterally have been central to GATT negotiations since 1947. Also important has been the effort to encourage each country to bind its existing tariffs at maximum rates that cannot be exceeded without consulting with its trading partners, should a country choose to alter its trade policy in the future. Binding creates predictability in the world trading system and warrants greater investment to serve the world market. The Uruguay Round resulted in a substantial increase in the extent to which countries bound their tariffs, especially developing countries. The figures shown demonstrate that tariffs in industrialized countries generally are much lower than in developing countries, but many developing countries have accepted the rationale for making tariff bindings. Those countries illustrate the pattern of binding tariffs at rates much higher than the rates actually applied. (More generally, for industrial goods, Latin American bindings were three times the applied rates, and in South-East Asia the corresponding ratio was 2.5.) Nevertheless, bindings represent a useful step in ensuring that trade liberalization is permanent. Table 8.2 Tariff bindings and applied tariffs Simple average bound rates Simple average applied rates Share of Agricultural Industrial Agricultural Industrial bound lines European Union (2002) 100.0 16.3 4.0 16.3 4.1 Japan (FY 2002) 98.7 26.5 3.8 26.5 3.9 United States (2001) 100.0 8.1 4.0 8.1 4.4 South Africa (2001) 95.7 46.8 18.1 11.3 10.9 Brazil (2000) 100.0 35.9 29.6 12.9 13.8 Bangladesh (1999) 0.9 195.2 50.0 25.1 21.9 India (2001) 68.2 115.7 36.2 41.7 31.0 Source: WTO, 2002, p. 7–8. quantitative restrictions to tariffs and guaranteed at least as much market access as existed prior to the agreement; this gave rise to the tariff rate quotas discussed in Chapter 5. Tariffs on tropical agricultural products, which largely come from developing countries, were cut by 40 percent. 3 Textiles and garments. The Multi-Fibre Arrangement quotas were to be phased out over 10 years and tariffs to be reduced. The phase-out of quotas, however, is “back-end loaded,” so an important part of the liberalization does not occur until 2005. 4 Intellectual property. The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was established as part of the WTO. Developing countries agreed to much stricter protection for intellectual property. Patents for products and processes are to be provided for 20 years from the filing of an application. Copyright protection of music, literature, computer programs, and computer chip designs, among other items, is to be provided. Even geographic indications are protected: thus, if a cheese carries the name of a French region, it must come from that region of France. 5 Services. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was established as part of the WTO. Less was accomplished in the services area, particularly financial services and telecommunications. Subsequently, in 1997, agreements were reached in these two areas, a somewhat surprising result because any potential disadvantages arising from these concessions were not balanced by favorable benefits in some other agreement. Perhaps the important role played by an adequate financial and communications infrastructure in producing other goods provided enough incentive for progress to be made. 6 Dispute resolution and US unilateralism. The World Trade Organization was established as the successor to the GATT, and a stronger basis for dispute resolution procedures was established. Panel reports are automatically approved unless appealed to a newly created Appellate Body. Its findings are adopted automatically unless there is consensus not to do so. Although offending countries cannot be forced by the WTO to bring their practices into compliance, the complaining country may be granted the right to retaliate. Voluntary export restraints are now illegal, but any limits on antidumping actions were minor. 7 Limitations on trade-related investment measures (TRIMs). Many multinational corpora- tions that operate in developing countries are required by host governments to export a minimum percentage of their production or to refrain from importing parts and components. Such laws distort trade flows away from efficient patterns and harm the trade performance of developed countries. The Uruguay Round resulted in domestic content requirements or trade balance requirements being prohibited, but export performance requirements still are allowed. The United States was disappointed over the lack of progress with respect to other TRIMs, such as technology transfer requirements and the right to repatriate profits. Negotiations under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of largely higher- income countries, were initiated in 1995 under the label Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). An agreement seemed more likely among countries with similar interests. Nevertheless, these talks broke down in 1998, due to objections raised over potential infringement of an individual country’s ability to deal with environmental degradation, food safety, cultural diversity, and social cohesion. 13 A key aspect of the Uruguay Round was its treatment of the various agreements under the World Trade Organization as a single package. Countries did not have the opportunity to pick and choose what sections to accept. Because countries did not expect a favorable 194 International economics balance of concessions in every group, but rather gains in one area could offset losses in another, a much more ambitious agreement was reached. After almost collapsing, the Uruguay Round turned out to be a far greater success than had been expected. 8 – Commercial policy 195 Box 8.2 WTO dispute resolution and the banana war In 1999 the European Union and the United States had severe disagreements over several trade issues, including bananas, beef, and biotechnology. The value of trade involved did not seem to explain very well the intensity of the rhetoric from each side, and the difficulty in resolving the least significant one, the banana dispute, was not a good omen for the future operation of the dispute resolution mechanism. The EU banana regime adopted in 1993 extended to the EU market prior British and French preferences for bananas from former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Those sources were to be guaranteed 30 percent of the EU market. Europeans were reluctant to reopen this issue, which effectively passed the cost of supporting high banana prices on to other European partners. The change in policy harmed more efficient Latin American producers who previously supplied the EU market, as well as US distributors who handled those bananas. The World Bank judged the policy to be a highly inefficient way of aiding the Caribbean states and recommended a more generous development program. In May 1993 a GATT panel ruled against the EC banana regime, but under GATT rules that required panel reports to be adopted by consensus, the EC was able to block adoption of the report. The EC issued new regulations in July, which it claimed met its GATT obligations. In January 1994 a GATT panel ruled against this regime as well, and the EC again blocked the adoption of the report by the GATT council. With the formation of the WTO, panel reports could no longer be blocked by the offending party. A 1997 panel found that the EU banana regime violated both the GATT and the GATS. The EU appealed against these findings to the WTO Appellate Body, which upheld the panel ruling. Efforts to negotiate a settlement were not fruitful, and in 1998 the EU announced modifications to the banana regime that it claimed were WTO-consistent. The EU blocked reconvening the WTO panel in the fall of 1998 and the US announced retaliatory steps. Eventually, the panel was reconvened, and yet again it ruled against the EU program. In April 1999 WTO arbitrators ruled that the US could impose retaliatory trade measures that affected $191 million of imports from the EU. Items selected by the US included handbags, paper, bed linen, and coffee makers, although some lawmakers favored a rotating retaliation list, to create maximum political pressure for a settlement. 14 In fact, a successful compromise between the US and the EU was reached in April 2001 to resolve this dispute. At the time observers hoped that was a good omen for more amiable trade relations between the two. The goodwill seemed to evaporate quickly, however, as additional disputes arose over US export subsidies and steel safeguards. Latin-American banana exporters conditioned their acceptance of a WTO waiver for an EU–Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Economic Partnership upon good faith implementation of the banana accord. Nevertheless, the success of the agreement will depend upon the way individual countries implement their commitments and the way they use WTO procedures. If member countries treat WTO procedures as a forum to handle minor disputes, but rely on bilateral negotiations to deal with major issues, the tension between rule of law and rule of negotiating power will remain. There has been considerable use of the WTO dispute resolution procedures. As of July 2002 the number of requests for consultation had been 261. The major complainants were the United States (71) and the EU (57), although developing countries brought 93 complaints. Early examples of panel rulings favorable to developing countries, as were made in the case of US restrictions on underwear imports from Costa Rica, wool shirts from India and reformulated gasoline from Brazil and Venezuela, demonstrate the advantages of a rule- based system to smaller countries. The goal of dispute resolution is that countries bring their practices into conformity with WTO obligations, but in cases where insufficient adjustments were made, retaliation was authorized: the EU ban on hormone-treated beef imports, the EU banana import regime, Brazilian export financing of aircraft, and US export subsidies provided through its tax code. 15 Table 8.3 lists dispute settlement cases initiated in 2002 to indicate the breadth of complaints brought to the WTO. 196 International economics Table 8.3 Cases brought for WTO dispute resolution in 2002 Respondent Issue Complainant Canada Exports of wheat and treatment of imported grain US Venezuela Import licensing on certain agricultural products US US Safeguards on imports of steel products Chinese Taipei Korea Trade in commercial vessels EC Peru Antidumping duties on vegetable oils Argentina Australia Importation of fresh pineapple Philippines Australia Importation of fresh fruit and vegetables Philippines EC Customs classification of frozen boneless chicken Brazil US Antidumping measures, oil country tubular goods Argentina US Subsidies on upland cotton Brazil EC Export subsidies on sugar Brazil, Australia US Antidumping measures, softwood lumber Canada EC Imports of wine Argentina US Antidumping and countervailing duties, steel products France, Germany Uruguay Tax treatment on certain products Chile EC Safeguards on imports of steel products US US Safeguards on imports of steel products Brazil, New Zealand US Countervailing duties, softwood lumber Canada Turkey Import ban on pet food Hungary Peru Tax treatment on certain imported products Chile US Safeguards on imports of steel products Norway, Switzerland, China, Korea US Excise taxes by Florida on orange and grapefruit products Brazil US Safeguards on imports of steel products Japan, EC US Antidumping duties, softwood lumber Canada EC Conditions for granting tariff preferences to developing countries India Japan Importation of apples US US Antidumping duties, carbon steel flat products Japan US Rules of origin for textiles and apparel products India Source: www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_status_e.htm (January 1, 2003). Intellectual property The treatment of intellectual property rights under the WTO has proven particularly contentious. Developed countries have a comparative advantage in research-and- development intensive industries, and they benefit from the monopoly profits earned before their technology becomes widely available in other countries. As a consequence, developed countries were strong advocates of the TRIPs agreement. Prior to the step, the United States had taken action unilaterally under provisions of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act to retaliate against the exports of countries whose governments did not make reasonable efforts to enforce US patents and copyrights within their borders. China particularly was seen as a flagrant violator. 8 – Commercial policy 197 Box 8.3 Pharmaceutical flip flops and the TRIPS agreement The Uruguay Round TRIPs Agreement stipulated that members provide patent protection for pharmaceutical products, among its various provisions. While copyrights and patents for other products were important, the economic value of pharmaceutical patents is particularly high. At the same time, poor countries reliant on foreign technology are concerned that their failure to gain access to patented medicines at low prices will cost human lives. The tension between these two points of view explains some ambiguities in the agreement over the flexibility of countries to take measures to protect public health. Just as the textile agreement phased in slowly over time, developing and transition economies were given 5 years, and least developed countries 11 years, to fulfill this commitment. Over that time-frame, however, discussion changed substantially due to the AIDS epidemic and high rates of HIV infection in many developing countries, who could not afford to pay the high price of treatment in industrialized countries. Protests in favor of compulsory licensing for HIV drugs occurred in Thailand and South Africa. An Indian generic drug producer offered to sell HIV drugs at a 90 percent discount from prices in industrialized countries. Brazil produced its own copies of several of these drugs, and its expenditures per AIDS patient were roughly one-third of the $12,000 annual expense in the United States. As Brazil succeeded in containing the spread of the virus and cutting its AIDS-related deaths by 50 percent, its program was viewed as a model for other middle-income countries to follow. 16 For countries that had no indigenous generic producers, that raised a further trade issue regarding the rights of such countries to import drugs from producers that had no assent from the patent holders. Yet, if pharmaceuticals could be freely exported and imported by any country, including the United States, what would happen to the ability of drug firms to price discriminate and charge high prices in the US market where there was a higher ability and willingness to pay? Without these high-priced sales, the return to innovation of new drugs would be much lower, and many fewer life-saving remedies would be developed. Discourse on this topic further changed with the terrorist attacks on the United States and a subsequent scare over an anthrax epidemic in 2001. The US Secretary for Health and Welfare demanded a lower price from the makers of Cipro, a powerful antibiotic, to be able to address this emergency. Many developing countries noted that Although the loss of profits to firms that innovate makes the issue of copying appear to be just a matter of transferring funds from the North to the South, the world as a whole has a wider interest in ensuring that innovation continues to occur in the future. Stricter enforcement of patents and copyrights allows higher returns to be earned by the creators of existing literary and musical innovative works, new products, and more efficient production processes. Those profits also provide an incentive for future innovation and result in greater willingness to finance current research and creative activity. Thus, intellectual property protection affects the speed at which science and technology advance. Developing countries often have weak regimes to protect intellectual property, because that effort drains funds and skilled personnel away from alternative uses that directly benefit their residents rather than foreign copyright and patent holders. Charles Dickens com- plained of weak US copyright protection in the nineteenth century, and in a similar vein developing countries see little direct benefit from stricter enforcement today. Rather they expect to gain from free riding on the efforts of others to promote innovation. While that strategy may mean that few products are developed that primarily benefit developing countries, in the case of products aimed at a worldwide market developing countries may take little action in the absence of external pressure. What is the effect on world welfare of enforcing rules to extract greater payments for innovators of new products? To answer that question economists need to know whether too little research is carried on presently, a likely outcome when much of the benefit from an innovation spills over to others. They also must judge whether granting monopoly power to an innovator for a 20-year period, the patent life agreed to in the Uruguay Round, is a reasonable rule of thumb. Does it appropriately balance the payoff from future innovation against the welfare loss that comes from charging monopoly prices that far exceed marginal costs of production? In turn, that requires assessing how productive is another dollar spent on research in generating new ideas, and how great will the incentive be for a monopolist to introduce a new product that undercuts demand for one of its existing products. The Uruguay Round agreement represents a judgment that the world is underinvesting in research and development, and that promoting more research effort will lead to higher standards of living. Not all countries necessarily gain from stricter enforcement of intel- lectual property rights, which suggests why trying to reach agreement on this issue outside of a round where several other items are considered at the same time is unlikely to be successful. From a world perspective, even coming up with an ideally designed policy may founder because of difficulties in enforcing any agreement. 198 International economics AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria constituted public health emergencies in their countries, and their demands for lower prices or compulsory licensing agreements were comparable. The issue became a major element of the Doha Development Agenda established at the November 2001 ministerial meeting to launch a new round of trade talks. Least developed countries were given until 2016 to provide patents for pharmaceutical products. The Doha Round will attempt to clarify what circumstances constitute national emergencies that warrant compulsory licensing or under what conditions the initial producer can control trade in drugs after their original sale. (The latter issue covers “parallel imports”; to be effective, price discrimination strategies rely upon control over parallel imports.) Related issues to address include the treatment of traditional knowledge and folklore. The rocky road to further multilateral agreements Although the Uruguay Round broke ground in many new areas, it merely marked the status quo in some of them and therefore most countries anticipated a subsequent round of nego- tiations to address this unfinished business. For example, the commitment to convert quotas on agricultural imports into tariffs resulted in countries imposing extremely high tariffs, over 1000 percent in the case of rice in Japan. The Uruguay Round mandated that negotiations start no later than 2000 to ensure that improved agricultural market access was accom- plished. Similarly, in the service area countries made commitments in some sectors, but the Uruguay Round more nearly represented a stand still on further restrictions, not a major opening. The expectations of initiating another round were not met at the ministerial meeting at Seattle in November 1999. Prior to the meeting wide gaps in country positions still existed, and further pressures were created by the protests of industrial country labor unions, environmental activists, and other antiglobalization forces. Complaints were raised over secrecy and the decision-making processes within the WTO. US and EU representatives talked of the need to incorporate labor rights and environmental protection into the WTO, while many developing countries saw these as code words to limit their potential exports. Subsequent bilateral agreements, such as the Canadian–Chilean or US–Jordanian free trade agreements, have addressed those topics, but no clear basis for broader action exists. In 1998 the International Labor Organization declared that all 175 members had an obligation to promote four fundamental rights by guaranteeing: (1) freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining; (2) elimination of all forms of forced labor; (3) effective abolition of child labor; and (4) elimination of discrimination in employment. 17 Yet, there is little agreement on what these provisions reasonably require, or whether they necessarily make workers better off in a world with imperfect capital markets and the inability to borrow against future earnings. Labor interests in industrialized countries have seen the ILO as ineffective in ensuring adherence to these standards, and therefore they have pushed for inclusion of this issue in trade agreements where a stronger dispute resolution mechanism is available. Various European and North American groups have promoted “fair trade” movements to ensure that production in developing countries does not exploit workers or the environment. For example, some attempt to certify that rugs are produced without child labor or that a higher price is paid to small, organic producers of cocoa or coffee. Anti-sweatshop activists object to working conditions in the apparel and footwear industries, and they attempt to pressure brand name producers like Nike to subcontract only with companies that meet basic health, safety, and human rights standards. Advocates of these changes claim that few jobs will be lost, because any increase in costs will come primarily at the expense of profits, especially in quota-constrained apparel markets. Many developing countries, however, fear that their jobs are at risk, and correspondingly that their opportunity to take the first step toward industrialization and away from low productivity agriculture or undesirable activities such as prostitution will be blocked. In the case of environmental issues, activists are particularly alarmed that the WTO dispute resolution bodies will allow trade rules to dominate the provisions of domestic legislation and international environmental agreements. Examples of those concerns are discussed in Chapter 11. 8 – Commercial policy 199 The Doha Development Agenda After the pronounced failure of WTO members to agree upon an agenda for further multi- lateral trade negotiations at the Seattle ministerial meeting of 1999, a new round of multi- lateral trade negotiations was initiated at the WTO’s fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. Developing countries were skeptical of participating in such a round, because they claimed that few concrete benefits to them had emerged from the Uruguay Round. Therefore, industrialized nations made a major effort to ensure that concerns of developing countries would be addressed more directly through the Doha Development Agenda. Again, the goal is to establish a single agreement covering several areas. Because 70 percent of poor country exports are in agriculture and textiles and apparel, progress in these two areas is a priority. 18 Continued negotiations in agriculture were man- dated by the Uruguay Round Agreement to begin in 2000, but the political sensitivity of agricultural tariff rates, export subsidies and domestic supports in the EU may limit progress here. Japanese and European negotiators sought a broader agenda including environmental issues and competition policy, perhaps to be able to demonstrate new areas where their interests were addressed or perhaps to slow down the entire negotiating process. With respect to textiles and apparel, the United States found this a particularly sensitive area, especially given promises made by the Bush Administration to gain fast-track trade negotiating authority. Many peak rates in the US tariff schedule occur in this sector, and therefore major reductions in these barriers may be difficult to achieve. Several important items are to be addressed which include the following: • implementation of WTO commitments by developing countries; • tariffs on nonagricultural goods, including the peak rates mentioned above; • TRIPs, especially public health concerns as discussed in Box 8.2; • antidumping and subsidies disciplines, with particular reference to fisheries; • regional trade agreements and determination of their compatibility with WTO standards; • the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO rules; and • services, an area where further negotiations also were mandated by the Uruguay Round to begin in 2000. Working groups were to develop proposals that might be included in the single package, as determined at the fifth ministerial conference in 2003: TRIMs; the interaction of trade and competition policy; and transparency in government procurement. Expanding the World Trade Organization Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) became the 144th member of the WTO on 1 January 2002. Several additional countries are in the process of negotiating accession to the WTO, and their entry will require further attention to the unwieldy nature of decision-making in such a large organization. The entry of China and the prospective entry of Russia and other former communist states pose a particular challenge, due to their limited historical reliance on market institutions. Other nonmarket economies are WTO members, but their smaller size means that their actions have limited impact on producers in other countries or on international prices. In the case of Russia and China that is far from true. Determining whether the prices of goods 200 International economics [...]... 1 05, 813.90 101,2 05. 60 99,699.00 94,311.90 93,424.80 91,176.60 85, 929.20 85, 866.00 82,999.10 79,287.30 77, 358 .90 77,140.10 72,944.00 71, 756 .60 Revenues 6,671 15, 320 601 8,010 5, 453 NA 59 3 10 ,58 2 13,684 4,9 25 14,126 482 443 3,288 6, 858 –6,496 242 1, 453 7,723 4,099 2,610 1, 857 362 8 ,56 0 –931 Profits 83,3 75 143,174 323,969 141, 158 276 ,54 3 NA 184,671 111 ,54 3 4 95, 023 150 ,064 1, 051 , 450 61, 455 50 ,314 77 ,57 2... 78,887 157 ,55 1 35, 857 839 ,55 1 88,313 627,816 92,976 82,070 36,613 84,968 36, 259 Assets 35, 102 73,161 19,707 74,367 7,786 NA 34,728 56 ,160 54 ,824 55 ,268 81,247 7,761 6,904 33, 958 30,212 44 ,56 4 3,000 28,193 23,614 19, 155 21,364 21,686 4,907 19,620 1,991 Stock-holders’ equity 1,383,000 97,900 3 65, 000 110, 150 352 ,748 15, 388 372,470 91,000 310,000 246,702 268,000 43,000 36,116 67 ,56 9 122,0 25 213,000 36 ,52 9... 16.1 2.0 0.3 6.8 7.6 0.6 0.7 26.2 3.8 2.2 0 .5 4.9 14.4 2.8 1 4.7 3 3 24.6 9 .5 8.7 22.7 4 7.1 4 9.0 15. 6 3.6 1.1 2 6.3 8 .5 1.7 1.1 4 30.3 4 5. 0 3.8 4 1.0 4 5. 7 18.1 3 .5 2 7.9 24.8 4 8.9 7.4 4 18 .5 2 .5 6.2 8.9 5 4 0.9 33.3 3.9 4 4.4 0.4 4 5. 5 4 20.1 3.3 2 9.3 2 .5 1.2 6.1 8.7 3.6 1.0 57 .3 3.4 2.9 1.0 4.1 18.1 3.9 11.7 1 1980 data 21990 data 31994 data 41992 data 5Western Germany only 6Excludes unemployed... Mundell, International Trade and Factor Mobility,” American Economic Review 47, no 3, June 1 957 , pp 321– 35 4 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report (New York: UN, 1992), p 54 5 George Borjas, “The Economics of Immigration,” Journal of Economic Literature 32, no 4, December 1994, pp 1667–717 6 UN Development Program, op cit., p 58 7 UN Development Program, op cit., p 57 8 United... 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Source: Fortune, July 22, 2002, p F–1 Company Rank US US US Britain US US Germany Neth/Brit US Japan US Japan Japan US France Japan Japan Germany US Neth Germany Germany Japan US Japan Country Table 9.2 The top 25 global corporations (in US$ million) 219,812.00 191 ,58 1.00 177,260.00 174,218.00 162,412.00 138,718.00 136,897.30 1 35, 211.00 1 25, 913.00... Perspectives 9, no 2, Spring 19 95, pp 23–44 222 International economics 2 Klaus Zimmerman, “Tackling the European Migration Problem,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 9, no 2, Spring 19 95, pp 45 62 3 For a collection of recent research papers on US immigration, see Borjas and Freeman, op cit., and the symposium of articles in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 19 95 An early discussion of the... Institute for International Economics, 1994) 13 See E Graham, Fighting the Wrong Enemy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2000) 14 See Guy de Jonquières, “WTO Puts Skids under Banana Regime,” The Financial Times, March 20, 1997, p 7, and “Trade Goes Bananas,” The Financial Times, January 26, 1999, p 15, as well as WTO, “Overview of the State-of-Play of WTO Disputes,” (May 5, 1999),... prevalent in the 1 950 s and 1960s, recovery from World War II in Europe and Japan led to the expansion of MNCs headquartered in many countries UN figures show that the US share of all foreign direct investment fell from 50 percent in 9 – Mobility of labour and capital 213 1967 to 25 percent in 19 95 In fact, a feature of the 1990s was that MNCs from developing countries began to emerge and in 19 95 accounted... Economic Review 89, no 1, March 1999, pp 2 15 48, for a defense of the focus on reciprocity as a means of offsetting the incentive a country has to restrict trade in order to improve its terms of trade 4 WTO, “Overview of Developments in the International Trading Environment,” (November 15, 2002), WT/TPR/OV/8 p 10 5 GATT, GATT in Action (Geneva, January 1 952 ), pp 20–1 6 Douglas Irwin, “Changes in US... September 1998, pp 10 15 26 7 John Howard Jackson, The World Trading System: Law and Policy of International Economic Relations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), pp 131–41 8 J.M Finger, H Keith Hall, and D Nelson, “The Political Economy of Administered Protection,” American Economic Review 72, 1982, pp 452 –66 9 The actual formula used was proposed by the Swiss It is: 204 International economics Tariff reduction . 98.7 26 .5 3.8 26 .5 3.9 United States (2001) 100.0 8.1 4.0 8.1 4.4 South Africa (2001) 95. 7 46.8 18.1 11.3 10.9 Brazil (2000) 100.0 35. 9 29.6 12.9 13.8 Bangladesh (1999) 0.9 1 95. 2 50 .0 25. 1 21.9 India. 24.6 Austria 4.0 4 7.1 4 8.9 9 .5 Belgium 9.0 4 9.0 7.4 8.7 Canada 9 16.1 15. 6 4 18 .5 Denmark 2.0 3.6 2 .5 2 .5 Finland 0.3 1.1 1.2 France 9 6.8 2 6.3 6.2 6.1 Germany 7.6 8 .5 5 8.9 8.7 Italy 0.6 1.7 3.6 Japan 7 0.7. 26.2 4 30.3 33.3 57 .3 Netherlands 3.8 4 5. 0 3.9 3.4 Norway 2.2 3.8 4 4.4 2.9 Spain 0 .5 4 1.0 0.4 1.0 Sweden 4.9 4 5. 7 4 5. 5 4.1 Switzerland 14.4 18.1 4 20.1 18.1 United Kingdom 8 2.8 3 .5 3.3 3.9 United