DP4032 Trade Liberalization and Developing Countries Under the Doha Round

Author(s): Joseph Francois , Hans van Meijl , Frank van Tongeren

Publication Date: August 2003

Keyword(s): wto , doha round , trade liberalization , services trade , trade facilitation , cge modeling

JEL(s): F12 , F13 , F40

Programme Areas: International Trade and Regional Economics

Link to this Page: www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP4032.asp

We explore the impact of multilateral liberalization, with emphasis on distributional effects across countries. We first develop a realistic ‘baseline’ that takes into account events such as the entry of China into the WTO and the enlargement of the EU, allowing us to focus on those effects that are specifically attributable to further trade liberalization in the Doha Round. We then employ a global applied general equilibrium model, featuring capital accumulation and imperfect competition. Our Doha scenarios include agriculture, manufactures, and services liberalization, and trade facilitation. With agglomeration, OECD agricultural liberalization is not uniformly positive for developing countries.