The authors analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms. They compare GATS commitments with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial...

This paper assesses existing multilateral rules on government procurement from a developing country perspective. It summarizes the economics of discriminatory procurement and investigates to what extent data on procurement reported by members of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)...

This paper surveys the literature on trade in services, focusing on the policies that are used to restrict such trade, the gains from liberalization, and the institutional mechanisms that have been adopted in the pursuit of liberalization. The paper argues that technological progress and...

A new round of World Trade Organization negotiations on agriculture, services, and perhaps other issues is expected in late 1999. To what extent should those negotiations include"new trade agenda"items aimed at ensuring thatdomestic regulatory policies do not discriminate against foreign...

The authors discuss options that could be considered in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to provide more favorable treatment-so-called special and differential treatment (SDT)-to small and low-income countries. They argue that there is a need both for differentiation across WTO members and for...