A Development‐friendly Prioritisation of Doha Round Proposals

Abstract

Agriculture looms large on the WTO's agenda. It was the first substantive item listed in the work programme of the Ministerial Declaration launching the Doha Round, and it was arguably at the centre of the failure at Cancun. Developing countries made it clear both before and during the Cancun meeting that progress on agriculture was their primary objective. Negotiations in other areas have received less attention and progressed more slowly. This paper considers that prioritisation, and suggests that the interests of developing countries in the current round of trade negotiations are much broader than is suggested by the narrow range of agricultural issues that have dominated negotiations. A true development round would require a significant reprioritisation of many areas of the WTO's current agenda.

Does poverty cause conflict? Isolating the causal origins of the conflict trap

“…The first is the manner in which trade rules enable developed countries to continue to use tariff and non-tariff barriers to prevent developing countries from entering new markets (Bardhan, 2006;Pogge, 2008;Wade, 2003). The second is the manner in which agricultural trade rules allow developed countries to use agricultural subsidies to lower world prices, preventing developing country producers from being able to compete (see Charlton and Stiglitz, 2005;Khor, 2005). The third is the way in which rich countries have forced many developing countries into rapid and comprehensive trade liberalization.…”

On the European Responsibility in the Agricultural Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Modelling the Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy

“…However, if political decisions are to be influenced by available economic evaluations, our empirical analysis allows us to conclude that the current focus in the Doha Round on EU agricultural market access is misplaced. This statement has already been expressed in general terms by Charlton and Stiglitz (2005), for instance. Our contribution in this paper is to demonstrate empirically this point by using and improving a widely used economic tool.…”

Concepts of Fairness in the Global Trading System

“…In discussing their first principle, Stiglitz and Charlton (2004) and Charlton and Stiglitz (2005) cite the widespread use of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models that are designed to provide estimates of the potential welfare effects of alternative negotiating options. While they consider CGE modelling results as suggestive, they note that most of these models are comparative static in construction and typically do not take into account adjustment costs and the potential dynamic effects of liberalization on productivity, flows of FDI and changes in capital formation, all of which may be growth enhancing.…”

“…He interpreted comprehensiveness to cover a wide variety of issues of potential benefit to developing countries, including what later have become referred to as the 'Singapore issues'. More recently,Charlton and Stiglitz (2005) have set forth a narrower scope of the priorities that they recommend for the Doha negotiations, with an emphasis on achieving greater market access for developing country exports.…”