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With the growing importance of services and foreign direct investment in services, it is important to have a framework to analyze the impact of the liberalization of barriers to foreign direct investment in services. This paper summarizes several recent papers and builds policy-based computable general equilibrium models showing the dynamics of services, foreign direct investment and the endogenous productivity effect from services. The modeling framework shows that the liberalization of barriers against foreign direct investment in services yields welfare gains several times larger than the usual estimates from traditional computable general equilibrium models, which focus on goods trade, not foreign direct investment in services. The larger estimates are consistent with econometric evidence on the gains from services liberalization. The paper begins with a small stylized model to help understand the fundamental economics. Then it describes models developed at the request of the Russian government to assess the potential impact of Russia's accession to the WTO. Reviews of the work indicated that the modeling helped the Russian government gain public support for the WTO entry. The paper also describes a new technique that allows modelers to include tens of thousands of households in the model.

Debt Markets --- E-Business --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Endogenous productivity effects --- Foreign direct investment --- International Economics & Trade --- Markets and Market Access --- Services liberalization --- Trade and poverty --- Trade policy modeling --- WTO accession

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This paper studies the growth of Chinese imports into the United States from autarky during 1950-1970 to about 15 percent of overall imports in 2008, taking advantage of the rich heterogeneity in trade policy and trade growth across products during this period. Central to the analysis is an accounting for the dynamics of trade, trade policy, and trade-policy expectations. The analysis isolates the lagged effects of past reforms and the current effects of uncertainty about future reforms. It builds a multi-industry, heterogeneous-firm model with a dynamic export participation decision to estimate a path of trade-policy expectations. The findings show that being granted Normal Trade Relations (NTR) status in 1980 was largely a surprise and that, in the early stages, this reform had a high probability of being reversed. The likelihood of reversal dropped considerably during the mid-1980s, and, despite China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, changed little throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. Thus, although uncertainty depressed trade substantially following the 1980 liberalization, much of the trade growth that followed China's WTO accession was a delayed response to previous reforms rather than a response to declining uncertainty.

International Economics and Trade --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Preferential Trade Agreements --- Trade and Services --- Trade Dynamics --- Trade Elasticity --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policy --- Trade Policy Uncertainty --- World Trade Organization --- WTO Accession

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This paper summarizes the principal reform commitments that Russia has undertaken as part of its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession negotiations, providing detailed assessments in banking, insurance, and agriculture. The paper assesses the gains to the Russian economy from these commitments, based on a summary of several modeling efforts undertaken by the author and his colleagues. The author compares Russian commitments with those of other countries that have recently acceded to the WTO to assess the claim that the demands on Russia are excessive due to political considerations. He explains why Russian WTO accession will result in the elimination of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment against Russia. Finally, he discusses the remaining issues in the negotiations and the time frame for Russian accession as of the fall of 2007.

Accession Negotiations --- Debt Markets --- Economic Development --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Foreign Investors --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Member Countries --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development --- World Trade --- World Trade Organization --- WTO --- WTO Accession --- WTO Members

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In this paper, the authors explore the complex, long, and unique process of accession to the World Trade Organization, with its intertwined economic, legal, and political dimensions. Referring to country case studies and sector-specific issues, the paper organizes some of the current reflections on the topic around three main themes. First, it explores the rationale of accession to the World Trade Organization: Why would new members join the WTO? And why would incumbent members let new members in? Second, it analyzes the World Trade Organization accession process in detail: What are the main characteristics and challenges of the accession process? Has it evolved over time, and how? Third, the paper looks at the implementation of World Trade Organization accession deals: Is accession the end or the beginning of the story? What are the implications for the participating countries and the multilateral trading system?

Accession negotiations --- Accession process --- Accession protocol --- Accession to the World Trade Organization --- Economic Theory and Research --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial system --- Global Trade --- International commerce --- International Economics & Trade --- International Trade --- Law and Development --- Market access --- Market economy --- Market economy status --- Poverty Reduction --- Trade and Services --- Trade Law --- Trade negotiations --- Trading system --- World Trade --- World Trade Organization --- WTO --- WTO Accession --- WTO Agreement --- WTO commitments --- WTO membership