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This paper examines the role of the public sector in providing additional information to exporters in developing countries as they seek to monitor and keep open their access to foreign markets by using the rules of the WTO system. It highlights new information generation and dissemination initiatives undertaken by the WTO Secretariat, Global Trade Alert, and the World Bank in response to the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. Given trends in the imposition of new crisis-era trade barriers that these initiatives have identified, the paper describes ways in which the new sources of rich and detailed data may be used to further assist developing country exporters that may lack the capacity to sufficiently monitor their trading interests by relying solely on private resources.

Antidumping --- Antidumping Database --- Dispute settlement --- Dispute settlement process --- Economic Crisis --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Exporters --- Foreign market --- Foreign markets --- Free Trade --- Global Trade --- International Economics and Trade --- International market --- International trade --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Market access --- Multilateral negotiations --- Positive externalities --- Private Sector Development --- Trade barriers --- Trade flows --- Trade Law --- Trade policies --- Trade Policy --- Trade restrictions --- World trade

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This paper examines the role of the public sector in providing additional information to exporters in developing countries as they seek to monitor and keep open their access to foreign markets by using the rules of the WTO system. It highlights new information generation and dissemination initiatives undertaken by the WTO Secretariat, Global Trade Alert, and the World Bank in response to the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. Given trends in the imposition of new crisis-era trade barriers that these initiatives have identified, the paper describes ways in which the new sources of rich and detailed data may be used to further assist developing country exporters that may lack the capacity to sufficiently monitor their trading interests by relying solely on private resources.

Antidumping --- Antidumping Database --- Dispute settlement --- Dispute settlement process --- Economic Crisis --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Exporters --- Foreign market --- Foreign markets --- Free Trade --- Global Trade --- International Economics and Trade --- International market --- International trade --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Market access --- Multilateral negotiations --- Positive externalities --- Private Sector Development --- Trade barriers --- Trade flows --- Trade Law --- Trade policies --- Trade Policy --- Trade restrictions --- World trade

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Sub-Saharan Africa's dismal development outcomes - growth collapse and declining real income - are often used to highlight its sharp development contrast with other regions of the developing world. Drawing on a large cross-section analysis, this paper shows that Africa's underlying dismal records can also be largely accounted for by the skewed distribution of growth in the post-independence era. In particular, structurally low investment rates in a context of high political risk and uncertainty undermined growth prospects in the region. However, counterfactual simulations based on a variation of neoclassical growth models and under the hypothetical equalization of political risk profile alternative result in large economic returns, reflected in the significantly higher level of aggregate output and income in the subset of conflict-affected countries. Income gets even higher when the hypothetical reduction of political risks alternative is accompanied by sustained increases in capital accumulation.

Achieving Shared Growth --- Adverse effects --- Capital flight --- Comparative analysis --- Conflict and Development --- Debt Markets --- Disequilibrium --- Dividends --- Economic growth --- Economic outcomes --- Economic outlook --- Economic performance --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Expectation gap --- Expected returns --- Exports --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- GDP --- GDP per capita --- Growth models --- Living standards --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Per capita income --- Positive externalities --- Post Conflict Reconstruction --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development --- Productivity --- Real income

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June 1999 - Is there a strong case for developing countries to support the creation of a multilateral agreement on investment? Probably not. Existing agreements offer ample scope for liberalizing foreign direct investment in the area that matters most to developing countries: services. Hoekman and Saggi evaluate the potential benefits of international disciplines on policies toward foreign direct investment for developing countries. They conclude that the case for initiating negotiations on investment policies is weak, at present. Negotiating efforts that center on further liberalizing market access on a nondiscriminatory basis-especially for services-are likely to be more fruitful in terms of economic welfare and growth. Existing multilateral instruments, although imperfect, are far from fully exploited and provide significant opportunities for governments opening further access to markets. Hoekman and Saggi conclude that priority should be given to expanding coverage of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) before seeking to negotiate general disciplines on investment policies. This paper-a product of Trade, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to prepare for the next round of WTO negotiations. The authors may be contacted at bhoekman@worldbank.org or ksaggi @mail.smu.edu.

Costs --- Debt Markets --- Economic Theory and Research --- Economics --- Economy --- Emerging Markets --- Expectations --- Exports --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Foreign Direct Investment --- Free Trade --- Goods --- Incentives --- International Economics & Trade --- Investment --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets --- Multilateral Trade --- Non Bank Financial Institutions --- Payments --- Positive Externalities --- Private Sector Development --- Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures --- Risk Averse --- Social Protections and Labor --- Subsidy --- Trade and Regional Integration --- Trade Negotiations --- Transactions Costs --- Value --- Value Added --- Welfare --- WTO

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Infrastructure has particular challenges in public procurement, because it is highly complex and customized and often requires economic, political and social considerations from a long time horizon. To deliver public infrastructure services to citizens or taxpayers, there are a series of decisions that governments have to make. The paper provides a minimum package of important economic theories that could guide governments to wise decision-making at each stage. Theory suggests that in general it would be a good option to contract out infrastructure to the private sector under high-powered incentive mechanisms, such as fixed-price contracts. However, this holds under certain conditions. Theory also shows that ownership should be aligned with the ultimate responsibility for or objective of infrastructure provision. Public and private ownership have different advantages and can deal with different problems. It is also shown that it would be a better option to integrate more than one public task (for example, investment and operation) into the same ownership, whether public or private, if they exhibit positive externalities.

Banks and Banking Reform --- Contract Law --- Debt Markets --- Electricity --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Government Procurement --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Labor Policies --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Positive externalities --- Private partnerships --- Private sector --- Private sector participation --- Property rights --- Provision of infrastructure --- Provisions --- Public --- Public contracts --- Public economics --- Public goods --- Public infrastructure --- Public ownership --- Public private partnerships --- Public procurement --- Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures --- Public Sector Economics and Finance --- Public works --- Savings --- Social Protections and Labor --- Social welfare --- Transport --- Transport Economics, Policy and Planning --- Utilities