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Traditional weighted-average measures of trade distortions are widely used in analyzing global and regional reforms, despite well-known deficiencies. This paper develops and applies optimal aggregators for the real-world case of multiple countries and commodities with much more detailed information on trade than on production and consumption. The approach reflects the fact that different aggregators are needed for expenditure on imported goods and for tariff revenues, and allows for incorporation of both intensive and extensive margins of adjustment to reform. Applications confirm that the technique is straightforward enough for widespread use, and point to close to a doubling of the welfare gains at the intensive margin when using the highest possible level of international commodity disaggregation, with larger gains in developing regions than in the industrial countries. The measured income gains increase along the entire path of liberalization, with slightly larger increases in the earlier stages, where the gaps between the responses of the expenditure and tariff revenue aggregators are largest. Sensitivity analysis suggests that, for global trade reform, the ease of substitution between tariff lines is much more important than that between varieties from different countries.

Aggregation --- Agriculture --- Debt Markets --- Distortions --- Economic Theory & Research --- Economic Welfare Measurement --- Free Trade --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Rural development --- Trade Policy --- Trade Reform --- Trade Restrictiveness

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April 2000 - Environmental improvements should be sought from different polluters (public or private, producer or consumer, rich or poor) at the same cost, regardless of the nature of the polluting activity. Under a plausible structure of monitoring costs, emissions standards play a central role. Eskeland brings together two of government's primary challenges: environmental protection and taxation to generate revenues. If negative externalities can be reduced not only by changes in consumption patterns but also by making each activity cleaner (abatement efforts), how shall inducements to various approaches be combined? If negative externalities are caused by agents as different as consumers, producers, and government, how does optimal policy combine inducements to reduce pollution? Intuitively it seems right to tax emissions neutrally, based on marginal damages - no matter which activity pollutes or whether the polluter is rich or poor, consumer or producer, private or public. Eskeland provides a theoretical basis for such simplicity. Three assumptions are critical to his analysis: Returns to scale do not influence the traditional problem of revenue generation; Consumers have equal access to pollution abatement opportunities (but he also relaxes this assumption); Planners can differentiate policy instruments (emission taxes or abatement standards) by polluting good, and by whether the polluter is a consumer, producer, or government, but they cannot differentiate such instruments (or commodity taxes) by personal characteristics or make them nonlinear in individual emissions. Among Eskeland's findings and conclusions: Abatement efforts and consumption adjustments at all stages are optimally stimulated by a uniform emission tax levied simply where emissions occur. It simplifies things that optimal abatement is independent of whether the car is used by government, firms, or households - for weddings or for work. It also simplifies implementation that the stimulus to abatement at one stage (say, the factory) is independent of whether it yields emission reductions from the factory or from others (say, from car owners who buy the factory's products). Finally, ministers of finance and of the environment should coordinate efforts, but they need not engage in each other's business. The minister of environment need not know which commodities are elastic in demand and thus would bear a low commodity tax. The finance minister need not know which commodities or agents pollute or who pays emission taxes. This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to establish principles for public intervention. The author may be contacted at geskeland@worldbank.org.

Commodity Taxes --- Economic Welfare --- Economics --- Efficiency --- Emission Standards --- Emission Tax --- Emissions --- Environment --- Environmental --- Environmental Economics and Policies --- Environmental Management --- Environmental Protection --- Externalities --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Marginal Costs --- Polluters --- Pollution --- Pollution Abatement --- Pollution Management and Control --- Production --- Revenue --- Taxation --- Taxation and Subsidies --- Taxes

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This paper uses a rural household survey dataset collected in 2006 and 2008 to investigate the impact of a market-based land resettlement project in southern Malawi. The program provided a conditional cash and land transfer to poor families to relocate to larger plots of farm land. The average treatment effect of the program is estimated using a difference-in-difference matching technique based on propensity score matching; qualitative information complement the analysis to ensure unobservable characteristics do not bias the findings. As expected, the results show a significant effect on landholdings and agricultural production, with land size increasing and maize production increasing by more than 100 kilograms relative to the control. However, the impacts on food security and asset holdings were mixed. Households that relocated great distances had systematically lower impacts than those households that stayed within their district of origin because they had to adapt to unfamiliar agro-ecological, cultural, and market environments. Impacts also varied across gender of the household head; female-headed beneficiary households increased their productive and consumption assets significantly, while male-headed households increased their asset holdings less so.

Agricultural production --- Arable land --- Capital formation --- Comparative analysis --- Cultivable land --- Debt Markets --- Economic growth --- Economic Theory and Research --- ECONOMIC WELFARE --- Economics --- Effective use --- Environmental --- Environmental Economics and Policies --- Environments --- Expenditures --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial resources --- Labor inputs --- Land productivity --- Market prices --- Policy makers --- Poverty Reduction --- Property Rights --- Resource management --- Rural Development --- Rural Development Knowledge and Information Systems --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Weather patterns

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Since the 1995 inception of the World Trade Organization (WTO), developing countries have become some of the most frequent users of the WTO-sanctioned antidumping trade policy instrument. This paper exploits newly available data to examine the pattern of actual industrial use of antidumping in nine of the major "new user" developing countries - Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Turkey and Venezuela. For these countries we are able to match data from two newly available sources: data on production in 28 different 3-digit ISIC industries from the Trade, Production and Protection Database to data on antidumping investigations, outcomes and imports at the 6-digit Harmonized System (HS) product level from the Global Antidumping Database. Our econometric analysis is to estimate a two-stage model of the industry-level decision to pursue an antidumping investigation and the national government's decision of whether and how much antidumping import protection to provide. First, we find evidence consistent with the theory of endogenous trade policy: larger industries that face substantial import competition are more likely to pursue an antidumping investigation, and larger and more concentrated industries receive greater antidumping protection from imports. Second, we find that industries that use antidumping are more likely to face the changing economic conditions specified by the technical evidentiary criteria of the WTO Antidumping Agreement: industries that face rapidly falling import prices are more likely to pursue an investigation, and industries that are more susceptible to cyclical dumping due to greater capital investment expenditures and that face rapidly increasing competition from imports receive greater antidumping protection.

Access --- Antidumping --- Antidumping Database --- Antidumping Measures --- Antidumping Policy --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Domestic Industries --- Economic Theory and Research --- Economic Welfare --- Exporters --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Free Trade --- Globalization and Financial Integration --- Import Competition --- Import Penetration --- Import Prices --- Import Protection --- Import Restrictions --- Industrial Management --- Industry --- International Economics & Trade --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Price Discrimination --- Public Sector Development --- Tariffs --- Trade Law --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policies --- Trade Policy --- Water and Industry --- Water Resources --- World Trade --- World Trade Organization

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The hub-periphery development pattern of the Guangdong economy, to some extent, is a miniature of that of the Chinese economy. The Pearl River Delta, drawing from its first-nature comparative advantages in factor endowments and proximity to Hong Kong SAR, China, and Macau SAR, China, and the second-nature advantages as first-movers in the reforms in attracting and retaining domestic and foreign resources, has developed into a regional economic center. This paper examines the pattern of inter- and intra-provincial migration and that of the concentration of production, to explore the challenges and opportunities for the success of "double transfer." The paper suggests a four-prong approach, to improve the business environment, support the realization of latent comparative advantages, increase the skill level of the labor force to support the upgrade of the production structure, and protect the vulnerable, to support the inclusive growth of the economy in Guangdong in a sustainable manner.

Capital --- Certain extent --- Cheap labour --- Citizens --- Comparative advantages --- Comparative analysis --- Competitiveness --- Credit --- Development --- Development plans --- Development policy --- Development strategy --- Discrimination --- Disposable income --- Economic development --- Economic growth --- Economic integration --- Economic opportunity --- Economic structure --- Economic theories --- Economic theory & research --- Economic welfare --- Economies of scale --- Economy --- Effective policies --- Empirical analysis --- Environment --- Environmental economics & policies --- Equal access --- Equity --- Exploitation --- Exports --- Financial crisis --- Foreign direct investment --- Forestry --- GDP --- GDP per capita --- Gini coefficient --- Government initiatives --- Growth rate --- Health care --- Health services --- Health, nutrition and population --- Immigration --- Incentives --- Income --- Income inequality --- Industrialization --- Intensive industries --- Internal migration --- International migration --- International migration review --- Investment --- Job creation --- Job training --- Labor force --- Labor market --- Labor policies --- Labor productivity --- Labor supply --- Land --- Large cities --- Life expectancy --- Living standards --- Local governments --- Macroeconomics and economic growth --- Market economy --- Migrant --- Migrant workers --- Migration --- Migration data --- Migration flows --- National development --- National level --- National policies --- National population --- Old-age --- Policy --- Policy discussions --- Policy research --- Policy research working paper --- Pollution --- Population --- Population and development --- Population association --- Population census --- Population migration --- Population policies --- Production --- Progress --- Property --- Public goods --- Public services --- Real GDP --- Real wages --- Regional policy --- Relocation of industries --- Resource allocation --- Resources --- Return migration --- Revenue --- Rural areas --- Rural residents --- Sanitation --- Savings deposits --- Skill level --- Skilled workers --- Social protections and labor --- Social science --- Social security --- Social services --- Spatial distribution --- Sustainable access --- Sustainable development --- Taxes --- Temporary migration --- Trade --- Training --- Training opportunities --- Transportation --- Urban areas --- Urban centers --- Urban migration --- Urban population --- Urbanization --- User fees --- Value --- Value added --- Vocational training --- Vulnerable populations --- Wage differentials --- Wages --- Welfare