Market Access, Export Subsidies, Domestic Support and the WTO Negociations: a Review and Synthesis

The aim of this review is to provide a preliminary assessment of the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) in order to highlight the directions that might take the next stage of reform. A particular focus is made on the Quads countries. Our findings are that, in spite of the URAA arrangements, tariffs on agricultural products are still three times higher on average than on manufactured products. The tariffication process has often led to prohibitive duties and to an increase in tariff dispersion. Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) have not always been filled and market access has shown only limited improvement. Export subsidies still exist and domestic farm policies have often experienced only minor changes to match the Agreement requirements. These points, which have been identified as live issues for the next Round of Negotiations, are then debated in the rest of the document. We discuss in particular the modalities of ameliorating market access, with the definition of a more effective tariff cut and the improvement of TRQs' administration and efficiency. As far as exports are concerned, we tackle the issue of effectiveness of a new reduction of export subsidies, the status of export credit and of export restrictions. The more general question of state involvement in agricultural trade is also discussed. Finally, we pose the question of a deepening of the reduction of support to agriculture, with an elimination of the "blue box" and a new definition of the "green box" content.support to agriculture., export subsidies, market access, agriculture, trade negotiations, WTO

El singular «Eros» durmiente de Estepa (Sevilla)

Sin resume

Trade and Foreign Exchange Liberalization,Investment Climate, and FDI in the MENA Countries

Despite some progress in economic policy – in macroeconomic stability in the 1980s, and in structural reforms in the 1990s – the MENA countries have failed to attract foreign direct investments (FDI). This may be due to several factors. In this paper we empirically verify from a panel of 72 countries – among which are 8 MENA economies – that, during the 1990s, the low level of trade and foreign exchange liberalization compared to East Asia and Latin America played a determinant role in the low level of total FDI in the MENA economies, particularly in manufacturing. The paper also highlights the role of other factors, such as physical infrastructure, political environment and macroeconomic conditions, in explaining total FDI flows to the different regions. These results stress the importance of accelerating the pace of reform in the MENA economies.

Further results on dissimilarity spaces for hyperspectral images RF-CBIR

Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems are powerful search tools in image databases that have been little applied to hyperspectral images. Relevance feedback (RF) is an iterative process that uses machine learning techniques and user's feedback to improve the CBIR systems performance. We pursued to expand previous research in hyperspectral CBIR systems built on dissimilarity functions defined either on spectral and spatial features extracted by spectral unmixing techniques, or on dictionaries extracted by dictionary-based compressors. These dissimilarity functions were not suitable for direct application in common machine learning techniques. We propose to use a RF general approach based on dissimilarity spaces which is more appropriate for the application of machine learning algorithms to the hyperspectral RF-CBIR. We validate the proposed RF method for hyperspectral CBIR systems over a real hyperspectral dataset.Comment: In Pattern Recognition Letters (2013

Exchange Rate Regime and Competitiveness of Manufactured Exports: The case of MENA Countries

In this paper, we show that MENA countries have been characterized by a significant overvaluation of their currency during the 70s and 80s. For this purpose, we have developed an indicator of misalignment based on the estimation of an equilibrium exchange rate ─ following Edwards (1989) ─ on a panel of 53 countries, among which 10 are MENA economies. Overvaluation has however decreased in the 90s, probably due to the flexibilisation of the exchange rate regime in some MENA countries and to a better macroeconomic management in others. Misalignment remains nevertheless higher than in other regions, which may be explained by the delay of the MENA region in adopting more flexible exchange rates, as well as in reforming their economy. Our study illustrates that overvaluation had a cost for the region in term of competitiveness. This has been done through the estimation of an export equation, which shows that manufactured exports have been affected by the overvaluation of the exchange rate. This finding partly explains the lower diversification of some economies at some period of time and highlights the need for improved management of the exchange rate regime. In fact, countries that had already a more diversified economy, have benefited, specially in the 90s, from the reduction of the overvaluation of their currency.

Total Factor Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Indian Manufacturing: The Role of Infrastructure and Information & Communication Technology

Drawing on a recent dataset of the Indian manufacturing industry for 1994 to 2008, this paper shows for eight sectors that core infrastructure and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) matter for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and Technical Efficiency (TE).In the analysis, we use a range of advanced estimation techniques to overcome problems of non-stationary, omitted variables, endogeneity and reverse causality (such as System-GMM, panel cointegration and FMOLS). Estimation results suggest that the impact of core infrastructure is rather strong on TFP and TE (elasticity of 0.32 and 0.17 respectively), while the effect of ICT appears slightly smaller (0.12 and 0.08, respectively). This finding is of particular importance in the Indian context of infrastructure bottlenecks. It strongly supports the idea that a lack of infrastructure can hamper growth in developing countries. Our results also reveal that the impact of infrastructure and ICT varies among the industries. Interestingly, Transport Equipments, Metal & Metal Products and Textile, which are sectors relatively more exposed to foreign competition, are also found to be more sensitive to infrastructure endowment. This result can be extended to the Chemical industry for TE. This finding implies that improving core and ICT infrastructure would proportionally benefit more to these sectors, which could play a leading role in the competitiveness and the industrial growth of the Indian economy.infrastructure;Manufacturing Industry;India;Information and Communication Technology;total factor productivity;Technical efficiency

Firm Productivity and Investment Climate in Developing Countries: How Does Middle East and North Africa Manufacturing Perform?

Firm productive performances in five Middle East and North African (MENA) economies and eight manufacturing industries are compared to those in 17 other developing countries. Although the broad picture hides some heterogeneity, enterprises in MENA often performed inadequately compared to MENA status of middle-income economies, with the exception of Morocco and, to some extent, Saudi Arabia. Firm competitiveness is a more constant constraint, with a unit labor cost higher than in most competitor countries, as well as investment climate (IC) deficiencies. The empirical analysis also points out how IC matters for firm productivity through the quality of infrastructure, the experience and education of the labor force, the cost and access to financing, and different dimensions of the government-business relationship. These findings bear important policy implications by showing which dimensions of the IC, in which industry, could help manufacturing in MENA to be more competitive in the globalization context.Manufacturing firms, productivity, investment climate, developing countries, Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Modelo Econométrico del Turismo en España

Este trabajo trata de realizar modelos econometricos para observar cuales son las variables que más explican la demanda turistica a través del número de viajeros y variables explicativas que afectan a la misma.Departamento de Economía AplicadaGrado en Marketing e Investigación de Mercado

Assessing the Responsiveness of Private Investment to Economic Reforms: The Case of MENA Countries

During the 1980s and the 1990s, private investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has on average shown a decreasing or stagnant trend. This contrasts with the situation of the Asian economies, where private investment has always been more dynamic. In this paper, it is empirically shown for a panel of 39 developing economies--among which four MENA countries-- that in addition to the traditional determinants of investment--such as the growth anticipations and the real interest rate--government policies explain MENA's low investment rate. Insufficient structural reforms--which have most of the time led to poor financial development and deficient trade openness¬¬--have been a crucial factor for the deficit in private capital formation. The economic uncertainties of the region have represented another factor of the firm's decisions not to invest. These uncertainties have consisted of the external debt burden and various measures of volatility.cerdi