IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wtowps/ersd201312.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Least-developed countries' trade during the "super-cycle" and the great trade collapse: Patterns and stylized facts

Author

Listed:
  • Escaith, Hubert
  • Tamenu, Bekele

Abstract

Notwithstanding some progress in market and product diversification - including services - LDCs remain particularly vulnerable to external shocks. With the exception of 2006-2008, the LDCs as a group have systematically recorded a trade deficit. The 2008-2009 global crisis and the bumpy recovery which followed illustrate the volatility of the recent trends. In such a perspective, renewed efforts towards extensive product diversification are called for. Fostering diversification has been supported for many years by preferential market access to developed countries; more recently, emerging countries have also been granting such preferences to LDCs products. Preferential market access remains relevant, but is not sufficient to improve the supply-side capabilities. The new business model related to global value chains (GVC) offers new opportunities to LDCs for export diversification. But GVC participation cannot materialize without a proper trade environment. Some of the main obstacles for joining GVCs are the high transaction costs in importing the necessary inputs and exporting the processed goods. Active trade facilitation programmes, such as those identified during the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade in July 2013 offer new options to LDCs for joining GVCs. For those LDCs that have already been able to join these global production network, up-grading towards higher value-added activities requires more encompassing horizontal policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Escaith, Hubert & Tamenu, Bekele, 2013. "Least-developed countries' trade during the "super-cycle" and the great trade collapse: Patterns and stylized facts," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2013-12, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201312
    DOI: 10.30875/78dfa1a3-en
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/90710/1/773875980.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.30875/78dfa1a3-en?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne-Célia Disdier & Lionel Fontagné & Mondher Mimouni, 2015. "Tariff Liberalization and Trade Integration of Emerging Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 946-971, November.
    2. Low, Patrick & Piermartini, Roberta & Richtering, Jurgen, 2005. "Multilateral solutions to the erosion of non-reciprocal preferences in NAMA," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2005-05, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    3. Simeon Djankov & Caroline Freund & Cong S. Pham, 2010. "Trading on Time," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 166-173, February.
    4. Cindy AUDIGUIER, 2012. "The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Least Developed Countries," Working Papers P50, FERDI.
    5. Diakantoni, Antonia & Escaith, Hubert, 2009. "Mapping the tariff waters," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2009-13, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    6. Gootiiz, Batshur & Mattoo, Aaditya, 2009. "Services in Doha : what's on the table ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4903, The World Bank.
    7. Joël CARIOLLE, 2011. "The Economic Vulnerability Index - 2010 Update," Working Papers I09, FERDI.
    8. Hoekman, Bernard & Ozden, Caglar, 2005. "Trade preferences and differential treatment of developing countries : a selective survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3566, The World Bank.
    9. Ocampo, José Antonio & Parra, María Angela, 2003. "The terms of trade for commodities in the twentieth century," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    10. Low, Patrick & Piermartini, Roberta & Richtering, Jurgen, 2006. "Non-reciprocal preference erosion arising from MFN liberalitzation in agriculture: What are the risks?," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2006-02, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    11. Keck, Alexander & Lendle, Andreas, 2012. "New evidence on preference utilization," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2012-12, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    12. Bureau, Jean-Christophe & Chakir, Raja & Gallezot, Jacques, 2006. "The Utilisation of EU and US Trade Preferences for Developing Countries in the Agri-Food Sector," Working Papers 18867, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    13. Honeck, Dale, 2012. "LDC export diversification, employment generation and the "green economy": What roles for tourism linkages?," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2012-24, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    14. Gemechu Ayana Aga & Christian Eigen-Zucchi & Sonia Plaza & Ani Rudra Silwal, 2013. "Migration and Development Brief, No. 20," World Bank Publications - Reports 17020, The World Bank Group.
    15. Piet Buys & Uwe Deichmann & David Wheeler, 2010. "Road Network Upgrading and Overland Trade Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa-super- †," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 19(3), pages 399-432, June.
    16. Alejandro Jara & Hubert Escaith, 2012. "Global Value Chains, International Trade Statistics and Policymaking in a Flattening World," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 13(4), pages 5-18, October.
    17. Sanket Mohapatra & Dilip Ratha & Ani Silwa, 2010. "Outlook for Remittance Flows 2011-12 : Recovery After the Crisis, But Risks Lie Ahead," World Bank Publications - Reports 10907, The World Bank Group.
    18. Cindy AUDIGUIER, 2012. "The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Least Developed Countries," Working Papers P50, FERDI.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Yoshimi, Taiyo, 2016. "Gravity with multiple tariff schemes," IDE Discussion Papers 614, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    2. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman, 2010. "Services Trade and Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 642-692, September.
    3. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Fukunari Kimura & Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul, 2018. "Measuring the usage of preferential tariffs in the world," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(4), pages 705-723, November.
    4. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul, 2017. "Impacts of common rules of origin on FTA utilization," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 75-90, January.
    5. Anupa Sharma & Jason Grant & Kathryn Boys, 2021. "Truly Preferential Treatment? Reconsidering the Generalised System of (Trade) Preferences with Competing Suppliers," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 500-524, June.
    6. Gnutzmann-Mkrtchyan, Arevik & Henn, Christian, 2018. "Peeling away the layers: Impacts of durable tariff elimination," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 259-276.
    7. Sam LAIRD, 2007. "Aid for Trade: Cool Aid or Kool-Aid?," G-24 Discussion Papers 48, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    8. William W. Olney, 2022. "Intra-African trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(1), pages 25-51, February.
    9. Dambar Uprety and Kevin Sylwester, 2017. "The Effect of Remittances upon Skilled Emigration: An Empirical Study," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 1-15, June.
    10. Atamanov, Aziz & Van den Berg, Marrit, 2012. "Determinants of the rural nonfarm economy in Tajikistan," MERIT Working Papers 2012-080, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Laetitia Duval & François-Charles Wolff, 2013. "The consumption-enhancing effect of remittances: Evidence from Kosovo," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 107, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    12. Jaime DE MELO & Ben SHEPHERD, 2018. "The Economics of Non-Tariff Measures: A Primer," Working Papers P212, FERDI.
    13. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Kim, HanSung & Yoshimi, Taiyo, 2015. "FTA in international finance : impacts of exchange rates on FTA utilization," IDE Discussion Papers 494, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    14. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm & Iyer, Harish, 2021. "Effect of Aid for Trade and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows on the Utilization of Unilateral Trade Preferences offered by the QUAD countries," EconStor Preprints 238211, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Kim, Han-Sung & Yoshimi, Taiyo, 2017. "Exchange rate and utilization of free trade agreements: Focus on rules of origin," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 93-108.
    16. Kuo‐I Chang & Kazunobu Hayakawa & Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul & Dionisius Narjoko & Ju Hyun Pyun & Francis Quimba, 2022. "Determinants of regional trade agreement utilisation: Evidence from multiple import countries in Asia," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(6), pages 1713-1736, June.
    17. Demaria, Federica & Drogue, Sophie & Rau, Marie Luise, 2015. "EU preferences for agri-food products from developing countries- winning and losing due to the EU GSP reform 2013," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211568, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Jean-Louis COMBES & Rasmané OUEDRAOGO, 2014. "Does Pro-cyclical Aid Lead to Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? An Empirical Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201424, CERDI.
    19. Phouphet Kyophilavong & Kazunobu Hayakawa, 2024. "Impacts of Trade Liberalization in the Least Developed Countries: Evidence From Lao PDR," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 62(1), pages 45-67, March.
    20. Anupam Das & Murshed Chowdhury, 2019. "Macroeconomic impacts of remittances in Bangladesh: The role of reverse flows," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 48(3), November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Least developed countries; trade and development; 2008-2009 global crisis; preferential market access; global value chains; trade facilitation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O24 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Trade Policy; Factor Movement; Foreign Exchange Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wtoerch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.