SMU SOE Online Job Talk Practice (Dec 3, 2021, 4.00pm-5.30pm): The Balance of Concessions in the World Trade Organization

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ABSTRACT Reciprocity is a key principle governing the negotiations under the GATT/WTO agreement, which calls for a balance of concessions among the WTO members. In recent years, however, various politicians across the world have voiced concerns about their country's excessive obligations under the WTO and a lack of reciprocation by their trading partners. Our objective in this paper is to evaluate the degree to which the pattern of applied tariffs across WTO members deviates from a balanced-concession condition. To this end, we employ a quantitative trade model and use alternative definitions of reciprocity (based on market access or welfare) to measure the concessions received and given by each country during 1995-2011 for a large set of 64 economies and 20 sectors, relative to the counterfactual of unilateral optimal tariffs. We characterize how the balance of bilateral and multilateral concessions have shifted over time due to changes in applied tariffs and in market sizes, and how they systematically differ across developed WTO members, old developing members, and new developing members. Click here to view the speaker's CV.		This job talk practice will be held virtually via Zoom. Click here to join Zoom meeting Meeting ID: 919 1030 4303 Passcode: 031221
		PRESENTER Shenxi Song Singapore Management University
		RESEARCH FIELDS International Trade Global Value Chain
		DATE: 3 December 2021 (Friday)
		TIME: 4.00pm - 5.30pm