The option of a Euro-Medi ...

At a time when countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are joining the World Trade Organization, the lack of an economically sound analysis of trade policies in the region is especially notable. This volume remedies the situation by bringing together a distinguished group of applied trade economists to provide a broad view of the state of trade in and among the region's nations. The contributors provide original empirical analyses on key reform issues, and their work reflects deep knowledge of government concerns and policies. Part 1 sets the scene by comparing the performance of the MENA region with the rest of the world on a large number variables and indicators. Part 2 contains a number of CGE model-based analyses of trade policy reform options. Part 3 focuses on specific policy areas: standards as nontariff barriers and red tape, trade facilitation, an assessment of the impact of protecting intellectual property using partial equilibrium techniques, and a review of the existing Euro-Med agreements. Part 4 discusses how the region could benefit from WTO membership and from changing the existing regional integration schemes into arrangements that help promote a growth enhancing reform agenda. The volume will be essential reading for economists and policymakers working in and with the MENA nations, as well as officials at the multilateral and regional institutions. Contributors are A. Halis Akder, Benita Cox, Dean De Rosa, Hana'a Kheir El Din, Sherine El Ghoneim, Oleh Havrylyshyn, Bernard Hoekman, Denise Konan, Peter Kunzel, Will Martin, Keith Maskus, Mustapha Nabli, Thomas Rutherford, Elisabet Rutstrom, David Tarr, Subidey Togan, L. Alan Winters, Alexander Yeats, and Jamel Zarrouk. Bernard Hoekman is an Economist with the Development Research Group's Trade team of the World Bank. Jamel Zarrouk is an Economist with the Arab Monetary Fund.

In April 1997, Egyptian President Mubarak and U.S. Vice President Gore agreed to explore the possibility of creating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Egypt and the United States. The very idea of such an agreement has been met by controversy and skepticism from critics in both countries. The authors of this book, however, believe that the case for considering an FTA between the U.S. and Egypt rests on solid economic and political grounds. An agreement could help promote Egyptian economic reform and growth, while providing substantial economic benefits to the U.S. Politically, it could strengthen American ties with an ally who plays a crucial role in helping to achieve peace in the region and in maintaining a stable supply of oil in the Middle East. This book offers U.S. and Egyptian policymakers answers to such pertinent questions as: What form should an FTA agreement take? Should it concentrate on border barriers or cover other aspects such as investments and services? What are the likely implications for both countries? And how will such an agreement affect the rest of the region? Its conclusions will be relevant to policymakers elsewhere in their pursuit of similar regional trade agreements. Copublished with the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies

This paper addresses concerns that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the exception of the GCC economies, has lagged behind in trade liberalization. This delay has adversely affected production efficiency and consumer welfare and could reduce the region’s ability to attract foreign investment. Against this background, the paper examines the major challenges facing MENA if it is to benefit from the opportunities presented by the Uruguay Round and the European Union Mediterranean Initiative. It concludes with an overview of measures that MENA countries will need to implement to benefit from these trade-enhancing initiatives.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa region have unprecedented opportunities for transforming their economies through accelerated economic growth, but the countries themselves must ensure the necessary conditions. This study, by the Middle Eastern Department, focuses on four areas that are fundamental to growth-enhancing structural changes: improving the region's investment performance, fiscal reform, financial sector reform, and trade liberalization.

Represents the output of an innovative collaborative project focused on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). This book sets out to show that regional security and stability may be achieved through a cultural approach based on the concept of regional identity construction.

From the 1960s onwards the clothing industry in the Neth- erlands and elsewhere in the European Union, experienced a deep crisis. Numerous firms went bankrupt and workers lost their jobs. Imports from low wage countries started providing the bulk of retailers' collections. However, in the 1980s a surprising development took place. In Amsterdam a substantial number of new small clothing firms mostly run by Turkish immigrants were established focusing on short-cycle production. During the 1990s most of these disappeared again. At the same time the import pattern changed to the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. Stephan Raes shows that the large retailers have become the most powerful players in the sector, and he places the developments against the background of transformations in the political economy of the Netherlands and Turkey. Stephan Raes is an economic anthropologist who currently works at the department of foreign economic relations of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands.

This book brings together a collection of papers that Robert M Stern and his co-authors have written in recent years. The collection addresses a variety of issues pertinent to the global trading system. One group of papers deals with globalization in terms of what the public needs to know about this phenomenon and the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO), whether some countries may be hurt by globalization, how global market integration relates to national sovereignty, and how and whether considerations of fairness are and should be dealt with in the global trading system and WTO negotiations. A second group of papers consists of analytical and computational modeling studies of multilateral, regional, and bilateral trading arrangements and negotiations from a global and national perspective for the United States and other major trading countries. The remaining papers include an empirical analysis of barriers to international services transactions and the consequences of liberalization, and issues of international trade and labor standards. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview (97 KB). Contents: Globalization: What the Public Should Know about Globalization and the World Trade Organization (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Globalization''s Bystanders: Does Trade Liberalization Hurt Countries That Do Not Participate? (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Global Market Integration and National Sovereignty (A G Brown & R M Stern); Concepts of Fairness in the Global Trading System (A G Brown & R M Stern); Analysis of Multilateral, Regional, and Bilateral Trading Arrangements: Multilateral Trade Negotiations and Preferential Trading Arrangements (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); An Overview of the Modeling of the Choices and Consequences of US Trade Policies (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Issues of Manufactures Liberalization and Administered Protection in the Doha Round (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); An Assessment of the Economic Effects of the Menu of US Trade Policies (K Kiyota & R M Stern); Trade Diversion Under NAFTA (K Fukao et al.); Some Economic Effects of the Free Trade Agreement between Tunisia and the European Union (D K Brown et al.); A North American Free Trade Agreement: Analytical Issues and a Computational Assessment (D K Brown et al.); Computable General Equilibrium Estimates of the Gains from US-Canadian Trade Liberalization (D K Brown & R M Stern); The Effects of the Tokyo Round on the Structure of Protection (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Services Trade: Empirical Analysis of Barriers to International Services Transactions and the Consequences of Liberalization (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); International Trade and Labor Standards: Pros and Cons of Linking Trade and Labor Standards (D K Brown et al.); The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries (D K Brown et al.); US Trade and Other Policy Options and Programs to Deter Foreign Exploitation of Child Labor (D K Brown et al.); Labor Standards and International Trade (R M Stern). Readership: Upper-level undergraduates, post graduates, academics, researchers and policy-makers in international trade and finance.