Before November 1999, few Americans knew what "WTO" meant, much less understood its workings. The World Trade Organization evolved from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and was officially created in 1995. Membership has now reached 135 nations and another 32 have applied for accession, including China and the former Soviet Republics. Current members span the spectrum of the wor...

Developing countries, by definition, are countries that are less advanced or matured in major areas such as technology and defence, and also have a low Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, income and the quality of education. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which came into effect in January 1948 and transformed into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Ja...

There have been very substantial reductions in the trade policy and other barriers inhibiting developing country participation in world trade. Associated with this has been a dramatic shift in the pattern of developing country trade, with a shift away from dependence on commodity exports to much greater reliance on manufactures and services, and greatly increased importance of exports to other ...

Trade facilitation is the simplification, harmonisation, standardisation and modernisation of trade procedures. It seeks to reduce trade transaction costs at the interface between business and government and is an agenda item within many customs related activities. These include WTO trade round negotiations, supply chain security initiatives, development and capacity building programs, as well ...

As part of its food security policy, South Korea has been pursuing food selfsufficiency using high tariffs and high administrative prices in key agricultural and food markets. Using a dual approach to trade and trade restrictiveness indices, we analyze the impact of these market distortions on welfare and trade volume. Then, we compute optimum distortions, which minimize the welfare costs of ob...