GATT/WTO membership–poverty nexus: An unconditional quantile regression approach

Abstract

This paper uses unconditional quantile regression methods to evaluate the incidence of GATT/WTO membership on poverty in countries with different poverty rates. My results suggest that GATT/WTO membership increases significantly poverty across the entire unconditional distribution of poverty. Countries with the highest poverty rates incur larger poverty increases after joining GATT/WTO than countries with lower poverty rates. However, the results point out heterogeneity among countries depending on the reforms carried upon GATT/WTO membership. The results indicate that countries that conducted extensive policy reforms and were not subject to Article XXVI 5(c) are associated with poverty reduction. Also, by splitting the sample into groups of countries that have and do not have a comparative advantage in agriculture, I find that countries with lower poverty rates that are net exporters of agricultural products experience poverty reduction, whereas poverty increases in net importing countries across poverty quantiles. These results are robust across different unconditional quantile regression methods and to the selection bias.

The nonlinear relationship between poverty and financial globalisation: A panel quantile regression approach

“…To determine the relationship between financial globalisation and poverty, we estimate the following model:where refers to measures of poverty; refers to overall, de facto and de jure measures of financial globalisation; and a set of control variables that are extensively used in the poverty‐globalisation‐finance literature (Agénor, 2004; Bergh et al, 2016; Bergh & Nilsson, 2014; de Haan et al, 2021; Gnangnon, 2019; Kouwoaye, 2021). These control variables are financial development, per capita income, inflation, education, and institutional quality.…”

“…Nilsson de Haan et al, 2021;Gnangnon, 2019;Kouwoaye, 2021). These control variables are financial development, per capita income, inflation, education, and institutional quality.…”

“…We also control for various structural features of economies that can potentially confound the financial globalisation–poverty relation in our empirical setting. Based on the survey of extant literature, we identify the following control variables: the level of financial development, per capita income, inflation, the education level of the population, and the quality of institution (Agénor, 2004; Bergh et al, 2016; Bergh & Nilsson, 2014; de Haan et al, 2021; Gnangnon, 2019; Kouwoaye, 2021).…”

Effect of the duration of membership in the GATT/WTO on human development in developed and developing countries

“…In an attempt to explore the welfare effect of the membership in the GATT/WTO, few other recent works have considered the effect of this membership on economic growth (e.g., Brotto et al, 2021;Tang and Wei, 2009), global welfare (e.g., Fan et al, 2021) and poverty (Kouwoaye, 2021). Tang and Wei (2009) have obtained that the accession to the GATT/WTO has been associated with an improvement in the economic growth rate, especially in countries that were subject to rigorous accession procedures, i.e., those that undertook extensive policy reform commitments upon accession to the GATT/WTO.…”

“…Fan et al (2021) have obtained that both China and the rest of the world have benefited significantly from the import tariff reduction after China's entry into the WTO, with the estimated welfare gains falling in a range of [1.4697%, 3.8743%] and [0.0743%, 0.1015%], respectively for China and the rest of the world. Kouwoaye (2021) has uncovered, inter alia, that member states that undertook extensive policy reforms commitments upon entry into the GATT/WTO, experienced lower poverty rates.…”