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Did the North American Free Trade Agreement make Mexican firms more productive? If so, through which channels? This paper addresses these questions by deploying an innovative microeconometric approach that disentangles the various channels through which integration with the global markets (via international trade) can affect firm-level productivity. The results show that the North American Free Trade Agreement stimulated the productivity of Mexican plants via: (1) an increase in import competition and (2) a positive effect on access to imported intermediate inputs. However, the impact of trade reforms was not identical for all integrated firms, with fully integrated firms (i.e. firms simultaneously exporting and importing) benefiting more than other integrated firms. Contrary to previous results, once self-selection problems are solved, the analysis finds a rather weak relationship between exports and productivity growth.

Economic Theory & Research --- Firm-Level Productivity --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- Knowledge for Development --- Labor Policies --- Microfinance --- Trade Reforms --- Mexico

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The Doha Round must be concluded not because it will produce dramatic liberalization but because it will create greater security of market access. Its conclusion would strengthen, symbolically and substantively, the WTO's valuable role in restraining protectionism in the current downturn. What is on the table would constrain the scope for tariff protection in all goods, ban agricultural export subsidies in the industrial countries and sharply reduce the scope for distorting domestic support - by 70 per cent in the EU and 60 per cent in the US. Average farm tariffs that exporters face would fall to 12 per cent (from 14.5 per cent) and the tariffs on exports of manufactures to less than 2.5 per cent (from about 3 per cent). There are also environmental benefits to be captured, in particular disciplining the use of subsidies that encourage over-fishing and lowering tariffs on technologies that can help mitigate global warming. An agreement to facilitate trade by cutting red tape will further expand trade opportunities. Greater market access for the least-developed countries will result from the "duty free and quota free" proposal and their ability to take advantage of new opportunities will be enhanced by the Doha-related "aid for trade" initiative. Finally, concluding Doha would create space for multilateral cooperation on critical policy matters that lie outside the Doha Agenda, most urgently the trade policy implications of climate change mitigation.

Aggregate demand --- Agriculture --- Economic Theory and Research --- Elasticity --- Emerging Markets --- Exports --- Financial crises --- Free Trade --- GDP --- Income --- International Economics & Trade --- International Trade --- Inventories --- Law and Development --- LDCs --- Multilateral trade --- Natural resources --- Private Sector Development --- Protectionism --- Public Sector Development --- Real income --- Trade barriers --- Trade Law --- Trade negotiations --- Trade policies --- Trade policy --- Trade reforms --- WTO

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The allocation of production across firms is a potentially important explanation of the productivity gap between rich and poor economies. Reforms to trade policy and the domestic financial sector are often both key elements of policy packages aimed at reducing productive distortions. However, the impact of each reform in reallocating production within an economy is usually analyzed independently. This paper asks how do such general equilibrium effects of trade and domestic financial sector reforms interact in terms of their effects on productivity, wages and utility. Motivated by recent firm-level studies, I add two-way linkages between firms' production and exporting decisions and their financial constraints to a general equilibrium heterogeneous firm trade model. The interaction effects between reforms appear qualitatively important. Trade and domestic financial sector reforms have complementary effects on the average productivity and size of domestic producers. However, if much reallocative work has already been done through a well-functioning financial sector, the marginal benefits of trade liberalisation for wages and household utility are reduced. Improvements in the ability to use exports as pledgeable collateral enhance both the wage and productivity effects of trade reforms. The model also highlights the potential for financial sector reforms in one economy to be exported via the trade channel, affecting decisions to produce or export in the foreign economy and putting downward pressure on foreign real wages.

Access to Finance --- Agency problems --- Average productivity --- Debt Markets --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Equilibrium --- Exports --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Sector --- Industrial economies --- International trade --- Labor Policies --- Liquidity --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Marginal benefits --- Marginal products --- Political economy --- Positive effects --- Private Sector Development --- Productivity --- Social Protections and Labor --- Total factor productivity --- Trade liberalization --- Trade policy --- Trade reforms --- Transition economies --- Value added --- Wages

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Trade, financial, and exchange rate reforms are shown to have exerted a positive impact on the growth of total factor productivity in Rwanda during the period 1995-2003. Based on a constant returns-to-scale Cobb-Douglas production function, this paper regresses total factor productivity on indices of trade, financial, and exchange rate reforms. The analysis determines that trade reforms and financial reforms each contributed positively to improvements in total factor productivity. The data also suggest that the allocation of official development assistance to human capital made a significant contribution to productivity. In contrast, the appreciation of the real exchange rate of the late 1980's hindered productivity or the growth of TFP. Taken together, the findings for Rwanda presented in this paper show that the strong growth of the past decade has not just been due to a "bounce back" effect following the genocide. The results support the notion that policies favorable to trade development, a deepening of the financial sector, and formation of human capital have been effective for increasing aggregate productivity of the economy and stimulating growth in Rwanda. For sustained growth, the Rwandan authorities should continue to build on these policies, while also taking care to maintain an appropriate exchange rate.

Competitiveness --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Development assistance --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial sector --- GDP --- Human capital --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Private Sector Development --- Production function --- Productivity --- Productivity Growth --- Total factor productivity --- Trade reforms

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The Doha Round must be concluded not because it will produce dramatic liberalization but because it will create greater security of market access. Its conclusion would strengthen, symbolically and substantively, the WTO's valuable role in restraining protectionism in the current downturn. What is on the table would constrain the scope for tariff protection in all goods, ban agricultural export subsidies in the industrial countries and sharply reduce the scope for distorting domestic support - by 70 per cent in the EU and 60 per cent in the US. Average farm tariffs that exporters face would fall to 12 per cent (from 14.5 per cent) and the tariffs on exports of manufactures to less than 2.5 per cent (from about 3 per cent). There are also environmental benefits to be captured, in particular disciplining the use of subsidies that encourage over-fishing and lowering tariffs on technologies that can help mitigate global warming. An agreement to facilitate trade by cutting red tape will further expand trade opportunities. Greater market access for the least-developed countries will result from the "duty free and quota free" proposal and their ability to take advantage of new opportunities will be enhanced by the Doha-related "aid for trade" initiative. Finally, concluding Doha would create space for multilateral cooperation on critical policy matters that lie outside the Doha Agenda, most urgently the trade policy implications of climate change mitigation.

Aggregate demand --- Agriculture --- Economic Theory and Research --- Elasticity --- Emerging Markets --- Exports --- Financial crises --- Free Trade --- GDP --- Income --- International Economics & Trade --- International Trade --- Inventories --- Law and Development --- LDCs --- Multilateral trade --- Natural resources --- Private Sector Development --- Protectionism --- Public Sector Development --- Real income --- Trade barriers --- Trade Law --- Trade negotiations --- Trade policies --- Trade policy --- Trade reforms --- WTO