The Doha Round must be concluded not because it will produce dramatic liberalization but because it will create greater security of market access. Its conclusion would strengthen, symbolically and substantively, the WTO’s valuable role in restraining protectionism in the current downturn. What...

The competitiveness of firms in open economies is increasingly determined by access to low-cost and high-quality producer services - telecommunications, transport and distribution services, financial intermediation, etc. This paper discusses the role of services in economic growth, focusing in...

This paper discusses what could be done to expand services trade and investment through a multilateral agreement in the World Trade Organization. A distinction is made between market access liberalization and the regulatory preconditions for benefiting from market opening. The authors argue that...

Trade and investment in services are inhibited by a range of policy restrictions, but the best offers so far in the Doha negotiations are on average twice as restrictive as actual policy. They will generate no additional market opening. Regulatory concerns help explain the limited progress. This...

The Pan-Arab Free Trade Area, negotiated under auspices of the Arab League, came into force in 1997. Under the agreement all tariffs on goods of Arab origin were to be removed by January 1, 2005. This paper summarizes the results of a firm-level survey in nine countries regarding the...

This paper discusses options to facilitate movement of workers between high-income and developing countries within the framework of trade agreements, focusing on the European Union’s partnership agreements with neighboring countries. Existing frameworks for cooperation offer the possibility of...