Many trade negotiations involve large cuts in high tariffs, with flexibilities allowing much smaller cuts for an agreed number of politically-sensitive products. The effects of these flexibilities on market access opportunities are difficult to predict, creating particular problems for...

Many trade negotiations involve large cuts in high tariffs, with flexibilities allowing much smaller cuts for an agreed number of politically-sensitive products. The effects of these flexibilities on market access opportunities are difficult to predict, creating particular problems for...

The formula approach used in many trade negotiations involves large formula cuts in high tariffs, with flexibilities that allow smaller cuts for selected products. Difficulties in evaluating the effects of these exceptions can create major problems. We use a political-economy welfare function...

Trade negotiations deal with possible cuts in bound duties, which differ substantially from applied preferential duties, and even from MFN applied duties. Based on WTO's Consolidated Tariff Schedules (CTS) database and on national sources, this paper proposes a systematic assessment of ad...