Implications of the Doha Market Access Proposals for Developing Countries
This paper uses detailed data on bound and applied tariffs to assess the consequences of the World Trade Organization s December 2008 Modalities for tariffs levied and faced by developing countries, and the welfare implications of these reforms. Th...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20110606144538 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3440 |
| Summary: | This paper uses detailed data on bound
and applied tariffs to assess the consequences of the World
Trade Organization s December 2008 Modalities for tariffs
levied and faced by developing countries, and the welfare
implications of these reforms. The authors find that the
tiered formula for agriculture would halve tariffs in
industrial countries and lower them more modestly in
developing countries. In non-agriculture, the formulas would
reduce the tariff peaks facing developing countries and cut
average industrial country tariffs by more than a third. The
authors use a political-economy framework to assess the
implications of flexibilities for the size of the tariff
cuts and find they are likely to substantially reduce the
outcome. However, despite the flexibilities, there are
likely to be worthwhile gains, with applied tariffs facing
developing countries cut by about 20 percent in agriculture
and 27 percent in non-agriculture, and sizeable cuts in
tariffs facing industrial countries. The welfare impacts of
reform are evaluated using a new approach to aggregation
that improves on the traditional, flawed approach of
weighted-average tariffs. This substantially increases the
estimated benefits of an agreement along the lines of these
modalities, with estimated global income gains of up to $160
billion per year from market access reform. |
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