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The authors analyze the interaction between a country's world market integration and its attitude towards gender roles. They discuss both theoretically and empirically how female empowerment is a source of comparative advantage that shapes a country's response to trade opening. Reciprocally, the authors show that as countries integrate into the world economy, the costs and benefits of gender discrimination shift. Their theory goes beyond a potential aggregate wealth effect associated with trade opening, and emphasizes the heterogeneity of impacts. On the one hand, countries in which women are empowered-measured by fertility rates, female labor force participation or female schooling-experience an expansion of industries that use female labor relatively more intensively. On the other hand, the gender gap is smaller in countries that export more in relatively female-labor intensive sectors. In an increasingly globalized economy, the road to gender equality is paradoxically very specific to each country's productive structure and exposure to world markets.

Comparative advantage --- Economic Theory & Research --- Factor endowments --- Female discrimination --- Gender and Development --- Gender gap --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Political Economy --- Trade integration --- Woman empowerment

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Increased levels and volatility of food prices has led to a surge of interest in large-scale agriculture and land acquisition. This creates challenges for policy makers aiming to establish a policy environment conducive to an agrarian structure to contribute to broad-based development in the long term. Based on a historical review of episodes of growth of large farms and their impact, this paper identifies factors underlying the dominance of owner-operated farm structures and ways in which these may change with development. The amount of land that could potentially be available for expansion and the level of productivity in exploiting available land resources are used to establish a country-level typology. The authors highlight that an assessment of the advantages of large operations, together with information on endowments, can provide input into strategy formulation at the country level. A review of recent cases of land acquisition reinforces the importance of the policy framework in determining outcomes. It suggests that transparency and contract enforcement, recognition of local land rights and ways in which they can be exercised, attention to employment effects and technical viability, and mechanisms to re-allocate land from unsuccessful ventures to more productive entrepreneurs are key areas warranting the attention of policy makers.

Agribusiness --- Agricultural Knowledge & Information Systems --- Agriculture --- Banks & Banking Reform --- Environmental Economics & Policies --- Factor Endowments --- Farm Size --- Labor Policies --- Land Tenure --- Rural Development Knowledge & Information Systems --- Africa

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Comparative advantage (International trade) --- Factor proportions --- Commerce --- Korea (South) --- 339.5 --- AA / International- internationaal --- 382.10 --- Buitenlandse handel. Internationale handel. Ruilvoet --- Theorieën van internationale en interregionale handel: algemeenheden. Comparatieve voordelen. --- 339.5 Buitenlandse handel. Internationale handel. Ruilvoet --- Factor endowments --- Natural resources --- Comparative advantage (Commerce) --- Comparative costs (International trade) --- International trade --- Heckscher-Ohlin principle --- International division of labor --- Trade --- Economics --- Business --- Transportation --- Theorieën van internationale en interregionale handel: algemeenheden. Comparatieve voordelen --- Commerce. --- Traffic (Commerce) --- Merchants --- Korea (South) - Commerce

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November 1999 - The static economic benefits of Vietnam's accession to the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) are likely to be relatively small. The gains from increased access to ASEAN markets would be small, and they would be offset by the costs of trade diversion on the import side. But binding commitments on protection rates under the AFTA plan could provide an important stepping stone to more beneficial broader liberalization. Vietnam's accession to the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) has been an important step in its integration into the world economy. Fukase and Martin use a multiregion, multisector computable general equilibrium model to evaluate how different trade liberalization policies of Vietnam and its main trading partners affect Vietnam's welfare, taking into account the simultaneous impacts on trade, output, and industrial structure. They conclude that: The static economywide effects of the AFTA liberalization to which Vietnam is currently committed are small. On the import side, the exclusion of a series of products from the AFTA commitments appears to limit the scope of trade creation, and the discriminatory nature of AFTA liberalization would divert Vietnam's trade from non-ASEAN members; Vietnam's small initial exports to ASEAN make the gains from improved access to partner markets relatively modest. Since Singapore dominates Vietnam's ASEAN exports and initial protection in Singapore is close to zero, there are few gains from preferred status in this market; When Vietnam extends its AFTA commitments to all of its trading partners on a most favored nation basis, its welfare increases substantially - partly because of the greater extent of liberalization, partly because the broader liberalization undoes the costly trade diversion created by the initial discriminatory liberalization, and finally because of the more efficient allocation of resources among Vietnam's industries; AFTA, APEC, and unilateral liberalizations affect Vietnam's industries in different ways. AFTA appears to benefit Vietnam's agriculture by improving its access to the ASEAN market; Broad unilateral liberalization beyond AFTA is likely to shift labor away from agriculture and certain import-competing activities toward relatively labor-intensive manufacturing. Reduced costs for intermediate inputs will benefit domestic production. These sectors conform to Vietnam's current comparative advantage, and undertaking broad unilateral liberalization now seems a promising way to facilitate the subsequent development of competitive firms in more capital- and skill-intensive sectors. By contrast, more intense import competition may lead some import substitution industries (now dependent on protection) to contract; The higher level of welfare resulting from more comprehensive liberalization implies that the sectoral protection currently given to capital-intensive and strategic industries is imposing substantial implicit taxes on the rest of the economy; All the above suggests that AFTA should be treated as an important initial step toward broader liberalization. Binding international commitments in AFTA and, in due course, at the World Trade Organization can provide a credible signal of Vietnam's commitment to open trade policies that will help stimulate the upgrading of existing firms and investment in efficient and dynamic firms. This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - was prepared as part of the AFTA Expansion Project in collaboration with the East Asia and Pacific Region. The authors may be contacted at efukase@worldbank.org or wmartin1@worldbank.org.

Access --- Capital Goods --- Comparative Advantage --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Domestic Industries --- Domestic Production --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Exports --- Factor Endowments --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Free Trade --- Free Trade Area --- Import Competition --- Intermediate Inputs --- International Economics & Trade --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- Openness --- Private Sector Development --- Public Sector Development --- Tariff --- Trade Creation --- Trade Diversion --- Trade Law --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Patterns --- Trade Policies --- Trade Policy --- Trade Regime --- Unilateral Liberalization

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International economic relations --- Factor proportions. --- Globalization. --- Heckscher-Ohlin principle. --- Input-output analysis. --- International trade. --- Geografie --- Economische geografie --- Ontwikkeling. --- globalisation --- production --- mobilite --- facteurs de production --- politique economique --- cooperation economique --- region --- modeles economiques --- international --- International trade --- Globalization --- Input-output analysis --- Factor proportions --- Heckscher-Ohlin principle --- 382 --- Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model --- Comparative advantage (International trade) --- Factor endowments --- Natural resources --- Interindustry economics --- Economics, Mathematical --- National income --- Input-output tables --- Global cities --- Globalisation --- Internationalization --- International relations --- Anti-globalization movement --- External trade --- Foreign commerce --- Foreign trade --- Global commerce --- Global trade --- Trade, International --- World trade --- Commerce --- Non-traded goods --- globalisering --- productie --- mobiliteit --- productiefactoren --- economisch beleid --- economische samenwerking --- gewest --- economische modellen --- internationaal --- Accounting