Directions in Development - Trade – serie

Trusting Trade and the Private Sector for Food Security in Southeast Asia challenges policy makers who oversee the rice sector in Southeast Asia and reexamines deep-rooted precepts about their responsibilities. The authors argue that fixating on national self-sufficiency has been costly and counterproductive, and cooperation can both improve rice production at home and expand regional trade. Trusting Trade specifically examines private sector participation in the rice and (yellow) maize markets in five countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The study identifies both the private sector’s potential role in providing greater regional food security and feasible ways to strengthen public and private sector cooperation in managing regional food supply chains. Trusting Trade also examines actionable ways to deepen and strengthen regional markets that support trade in food staples.The study’s recommendations are meant to be implemented primarily through new forms of partnerships between the public and private sectors. Trusting Trade will be of interest to policy makers in the ASEAN member states and its development partners as well as others interested in food security, supply chains, and trade in Southeast Asia.

Mobile Money is a booming industry in an increasing number of countries worldwide. The project results from increased demand for guidance and technical assistance from governments after the 2008 publication of an exploratory paper, Integrity in Mobile Phone Financial Services, which discussed mobile money and the application of international anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) standards. For most, how to craft a regulatory regime that expands access to financial services to the poor through the development of mobile phone financial services, but compliant with AML/CFT standards remains elusive. Specific AML/CFT regulations related to mobile money have not been issued in many jurisdictions, mainly due to the lack of awareness of the risks these services can pose if the right controls are not in place.Because the international standards for AML/CFT, the Financial Action Task Force’s 40 + 9 Recommendations were designed and issued well before mobile money technology and business models became prevalent, even developed countries have begun to face challenges with their regulation.The project team aims to provide practical guidance to jurisdictions and the Industry on how to draft regulations and internal guidelines that allow them to comply with AML/CFT standards with enough flexibility for mobile money to thrive. Specifically, the paper (1) takes stock of new AML/CFT regulations and practices relevant to Mobile money, (2) design guidelines for drafting AML/CFT regulations that cover mobile money and (3) propose examples of best practices for the Industry to include AML/CFT in their own business model.

This report quantifies labor mobility costs in developing countries and simulates the implied adjustment paths of employment and wages following a change in trade policy. High mobility costs are shown to reduce the potential gains to trade reform.

Since the end of 2010, world food prices have risen sharply reaching a record high in February 2011 and are now once again peaking at historically high levels, with high price volatility, which poses fundamental food security risks for consumers and governments, while discouraging investment in agriculture by farmers and traders.

While economic growth in developing countries over the last ten years has lifted more people out of poverty than in any previous time, more than one billion people still live in countries affected by violent conflict. Conflict weakens governance, undermines economic development and threatens both national and regional stability. Trade shocks, in particular, can have widely varying impacts on conflict. This book sets out to empirically test these linkages between trade shocks and conflict via cross-country and intra-country analysis.

Zimbabwe's poor export performance derives from unpredictable macroeconomics, anti-export bias, and industrial policies undermining investor confidence. To inverse this trend, the government needs to introduce economy-wide incentives that align trade policies with national objectives, to increase competitiveness and promote sustained growth.

The report examines recent trends in Croatia in trade, productivity, innovation performance and policy governance framework, to help identify priorities for the development of the country's Smart Specialization Strategy, which is an ex-ante conditionality for access to the EU's Structural and Investment Funds over the 2014-20 programming period.

Using new firm-level export data collected in eight MENA countries - Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen - this study provides a finer and deeper diagnostic for the regions lack of export growth and diversification. Several main findings emerge from the analysis. First, MENA under trades but the region-wide aggregates hide considerable heterogeneity. Second, firm-level evidence confirms exchange-rate policy as a priority area for policy action. Third, MENA has failed to nurture a group of exporter superstars (i.e. the top 1 per cent exporters) capable of lifting its export performance. Fourth, export promotion in MENA countries has some effects on small exporters but aggregate effects are limited. Finally, MENA's prevalent cronyism and corruption under pre-Arab Spring regimes confirms that business-government ties led to distortionary allocation of favors and rent dissipation by beneficiary firms, with little evidence that those firms developed into national champions or helped lift the region's export performance. This in itself should call for caution when advocating any form of government intervention. More broadly, those results suggest that increasing significantly export of MENA countries would require a better environment for existing large firms to grow and for expanding the number of large firms. Interventions that affect foreign demand or variable costs are likely to achieve more than interventions that affect the entry costs that new exporters face.

For Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic-Central America-free trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) has been more than a trade agreement. Costa Rica has used trade liberalization and promotion of international trade as a core development strategy for decades. CAFTA-DR consolidated benefits that had previously been unilaterally extended under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) into a multilateral FTA, providing a much more stable environment for trade relationships. Beyond just being a trade agreement, CAFTA-DR brought about the opening of state monopolies in telecommunications and insurance, which polarized the country. No other trade agreement has generated as much controversy as this one about the potential impacts on the economy. Following a referendum with a small margin in favour of the agreement, Costa Rica was the last member country to ratify CAFTA-DR in 2009. Given the controversy at the time, the current study takes stock of the early impacts of CAFTA-DR during the five years since its ratification, addresses the following questions: What actual changes did the agreement bring about and what was their context? What was the impact of those changes on trade and FDI flows? How have the high tech, insurance, telecommunications, and pharmaceutical sectors been impacted?

This report is the first comprehensive framework on how to facilitate SMEs and LIDCs access to and upgrading within global value chains. It identifies policy interventions at the global level needed to support domestic reforms.

The report identifies a four-pillar strategy for Bangladesh to sustain and accelerate export growth: breaking into new markets, breaking into new products, improving worker and consumer welfare, and building a supportive environment.

The report identifies a four-pillar strategy for Bangladesh to sustain and accelerate export growth: breaking into new markets, breaking into new products, improving worker and consumer welfare, and building a supportive environment.

This volume supports Vietnam's path to economic prosperity by identifying policies and targeted interventions that will drive development through leveraging GVC participation that take major shifts in trade policy and rapid technological advances in ICT into account.