Bernard Hoekman - Böcker

As governments are major buyers of goods and services, foreign companies are keen to be able to participate in procurement opportunities on an equal footing with national firms. This has given rise to the inclusion of procurement disciplines in trade agreements and to internationally-agreed good regulatory practices in this important policy area. The contributions to this book examine how the dynamic mix of bilateral, regional, plurilateral and international norms on government procurement is reflected in purchasing practices at the national level and whether these are leading to convergence in policies and approaches. The countries studied span both advanced, high-income economies and emerging economies. Some are members of the WTO procurement agreement, others are not. Most WTO members have decided not to commit to binding international disciplines on procurement in trade agreements. This book explores whether there has been nonetheless internationalization of good procurement practices, and what current public purchasing processes suggest as regards the value added of signing on to binding rules of the game in this area. The approach taken in the volume is interdisciplinary. Contributors include economists, political scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners with a solid understanding of both the extant international disciplines and national government procurement policies. Each chapter assesses the current state of play as regards legislation and procurement practices; the degree to which industrial policy considerations feature in the relevant regulatory frameworks; the existence and use of domestic dispute resolution and review procedures that allow firms to contest the behavior of procuring entities; and the availability of data on procurement processes and outcomes.

As governments are major buyers of goods and services, foreign companies are keen to be able to participate in procurement opportunities on an equal footing with national firms. This has given rise to the inclusion of procurement disciplines in trade agreements and to internationally-agreed good regulatory practices in this important policy area. The contributions to this book examine how the dynamic mix of bilateral, regional, plurilateral and international norms on government procurement is reflected in purchasing practices at the national level and whether these are leading to convergence in policies and approaches. The countries studied span both advanced, high-income economies and emerging economies. Some are members of the WTO procurement agreement, others are not. Most WTO members have decided not to commit to binding international disciplines on procurement in trade agreements. This book explores whether there has been nonetheless internationalization of good procurement practices, and what current public purchasing processes suggest as regards the value added of signing on to binding rules of the game in this area. The approach taken in the volume is interdisciplinary. Contributors include economists, political scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners with a solid understanding of both the extant international disciplines and national government procurement policies. Each chapter assesses the current state of play as regards legislation and procurement practices; the degree to which industrial policy considerations feature in the relevant regulatory frameworks; the existence and use of domestic dispute resolution and review procedures that allow firms to contest the behavior of procuring entities; and the availability of data on procurement processes and outcomes.

This volume brings together a selection of papers that were prepared as background analyses for a collaborative research capacity-building project, focusing on the WTO negotiating agenda. Contributors review the results of the Uruguay Round negotiations, discuss developing country concerns relating to the operation of the WTO and assess implementation of WTO agreements. Contributors quantify the potential benefits of further global liberalization of access to markets for industrial and agricultural products, and assess the relative merits of expanding multilateral disciplines into new areas such as investment, competition, and labor and environmental policies.

Improving the economic performance of Arab countries is now more critical than ever. The region faces high population growth rates, rising unemployment, and modest economic growth coupled with increasingly intense competition from emerging markets in eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Meeting these challenges requires finding ways to overcome political obstacles that impede socially beneficial economic reforms. Despite fifty years of repeated attempts at Arab economic integration, the results in terms of intraregional trade and investment flows have been very modest. This book explains why and discusses possible ways forward. The authors draw especially on the success of the European Union to assess the scope of Arab economic integration as an instrument for narrowing the persistent gap between the region¡¯s economic potential and its performance.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently celebrated twenty years of existence. The general wisdom is that its dispute settlement institutions work well and its negotiation machinery goes through a phase of prolonged crises. Assessing the World Trade Organization overcomes this myopic view and takes stock of the WTO's achievements whilst going beyond existing disciplinary narratives. With chapters written by scholars who have closely observed the development of the WTO in recent years, this book presents the state of the art in thinking about WTO performance. It also considers important issues such as the origins of the multilateral system, the accession process and the WTO's interaction with other international organisations. The contributions shed new light on untold stories, critically review and present existing scholarship, and sketch new research avenues for a future generation of trade scholars. This book will appeal to a wide audience that aims to better understand the drivers and obstacles of WTO performance.

One feature of globalization is that barriers to international competition have come to be associated with differences in regulatory policies that increase the costs of engaging in cross-border sales. Such non-tariff measures (NTMs) have attracted growing attention from policy makers and raise important questions for policy research. This book provides a valuable overview of key issues related to NTMs and domestic regulation. It covers the classification and definition of NTMs, new sources of data on NTMs, the impacts of (different types of) NTMs, the challenges that confront efforts to reduce the negative trade effects of NTMs and what can and should be done through international cooperation to promote good practices in the design and implementation of NTMs. The contributors comprise a mix of leading trade policy experts - both academics and practitioners - and younger researchers who have specialized in the analysis of NTMs.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently celebrated twenty years of existence. The general wisdom is that its dispute settlement institutions work well and its negotiation machinery goes through a phase of prolonged crises. Assessing the World Trade Organization overcomes this myopic view and takes stock of the WTO's achievements whilst going beyond existing disciplinary narratives. With chapters written by scholars who have closely observed the development of the WTO in recent years, this book presents the state of the art in thinking about WTO performance. It also considers important issues such as the origins of the multilateral system, the accession process and the WTO's interaction with other international organisations. The contributions shed new light on untold stories, critically review and present existing scholarship, and sketch new research avenues for a future generation of trade scholars. This book will appeal to a wide audience that aims to better understand the drivers and obstacles of WTO performance.

The past few decades have witnessed a growth in the importance of services in the economy, yet until the 1980s, scholarly literature on the expanding role of trade in services in the world economy remained scarce. This timely research review, edited by a leading analyst in the field, brings together seminal works on the WTO and trade in services published in the last twenty-five years. Areas covered in this important set include the determinants and patterns of trade in services, services in regional integration agreements and the GATS. This book will be of immense value to scholars and practitioners interested in this evolving and increasingly relevant field of study.

Special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries has always been a central, but controversial, element of the GATT/WTO multilateral trading system. A large literature on the subject of SDT has emerged in the last 50 years by both proponents and opponents. The contributions to this volume focus on the rationale, institutional features and economic effectiveness of SDT. The editors have carefully selected a number of key articles with a special emphasis on evaluations of the impact of SDT, especially preferential market access. The book also includes more recent contributions which discuss whether there is a continued need for such special treatment and how it might be designed both from a development objective and from the perspective of the trading system generally. This volume is an essential source of reference for those who follow economic and legal debates on the future of the multilateral trade regime and the role of the developing countries in it.The editors have written an authoritative new introduction which illuminates their choice and highlights the contribution of each article.

The development of the modern global trading system has been extremely rapid - and not without controversy. The WTO (and its precursor, the GATT) have provided not only a set of multilateral rules and disciplines but also a forum for negotiation and a legal mechanism to settle trade-related disputes. This important two-volume collection includes key papers that provide a pertinent historical perspective as well as addressing the current and future issues that confront the trading system. The first volume focuses on the need for and genesis of multilateral trade rules and disciplines, and also examines the core non-discrimination rules. The second volume looks at reciprocity rules; the notification and surveillance of trade policy; the modalities for negotiating market access; and the difficulty in converting non-tariff trade measures into tariffs.