The World Trading System: In Dire Need of Reform. CEPS Policy Brief No. 24, 2002

Ostry, Sylvia. (2002) The World Trading System: In Dire Need of Reform. CEPS Policy Brief No. 24, 2002. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

[From introduction] Over the decade of the 1990s, the deepening integration of the global economy accelerated as trade, financial flows, and foreign direct investment were liberalised. This deepening integration is, in part, a “natural” phenomenon, fed and now led by technological changes in information, communication and transport and is driving in the direction of a single global market. But, of course, governments have played an important role and international economic policy has facilitated – or perhaps even catalysed – the momentum. And the “natural” and “policy” forces are interrelated in a complex fashion that reflects the nature of the policy process. This process differs in different policy domains – for example trade versus financial or development policy. Yet it’s important to underline that trade policy has indeed played a major catalytic role in fostering global integration. The catalyst was the Uruguay Round, inter alia, created the first post cold-war institution, the World Trade Organisation. The subject of my talk today is about the aftermath of the Uruguay Round and the dire need for reform of the multilateral rules-based system.

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