Using International Institutions to Improve Public Procurement

The World Trade Organization's voluntary rules on governmentprocurement are a useful mechanism for ensuring that publicprocurement procedures are efficient. They also provide an opportunityto reduce the uncertainty of participants by increasing transparencyand accountability. Yet most developing countries have chosennot to subject their procurement policies to international disciiplinesand multilateral surveillance. Their reasons may include anunfamiliarity with the government procurement agreement (GPA);a perception that the potential payoffs are small; a desireto discriminate in favor of domestic firms; or the successfulopposition of groups that benefit from the current regimes.Although the economic rationales for abstaining from the GPAare not compelling, a quid pro quo for accession may be neededto overcome opposition by special interests. Developing countryprocurement markets are large enough that governments may beable to make accession to the GPA conditional on temporary exceptionsto multilateral disczplines or on better access to export markets.      

Protection and Trade in Services: A Survey

This paper surveys the literature on trade in services, focusing on the policies that are used to restrict such trade, the gains from liberalization, and the institutional mechanisms that have been adopted in the pursuit of liberalization. The paper argues that technological progress and international trade negotiations are likely to keep liberalization of trade in services a high profile policy issue. It also suggests that the research agenda should focus on developing better estimates of the welfare costs of protectionism in the service sector.     

Services Policy Reform and Economic Growth in Transition Economies

Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment, and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services policy reforms. We find that reforms in policies toward financial and infrastructure services, including telecommunications, power, and transport, are highly correlated with inward FDI. Controlling for regressors commonly used in the growth literature, we find that measures of services policy reform are statistically significant explanatory variables for the post-1990 economic performance of transition economies. These findings suggest services policies should be considered more generally in empirical analyses of economic growth. JEL no. F14, F43, O14, O40     

Rethinking international subsidy rules

Geo-economic tensions, notably associated with the rise of China, and global collective action problems—climate change and the COVID-19pandemic—call for international cooperation to revise and develop rules to guide both the use of domestic subsidies and responses by governments to cross-border competition spillover effects. Current WTO rules dividing all subsidies into prohibited or actionable categories are no longer fit for purpose. Piecemeal efforts in preferential trade agreements and bi- or trilateral configurations offer a basis on which to build but are too narrow in scope. Addressing spillover effects of subsidies could start with G20 countries launching a work programme to mobilise an epistemic community concerned with subsidy policies, tasked with building a more solid evidence base on the magnitude, purpose and effects of subsidy policies. The need for such cooperation has become even more pressing by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated increase in the use of subsidy programmes in major economies.     

Policies Facilitating Firm Adjustment to Globalization

This paper focuses on policies facilitating firm adjustmentto globalization. We briefly review the effects of trade andinvestment liberalization on firms, focusing on within-industryeffects. We postulate that governments' role in supporting theprocess is to: (i) ensure that firms face the 'right' incentivesto adjust, and (ii) intervene in areas where market failuresare present. The main message of the paper is that, while manypolicies could be adopted, they need to be carefully designedand implemented in a stable macroeconomic environment. An institutionalinfrastructure that supports the functioning of modern marketsis most important. Pro-active support policies of whatever stripeshould be subject to cost–benefit analysis, based on theexistence of an identified market failure and monitored forperformance and cost effectiveness. Transparency and accountabilityare critical in ensuring that interventions accomplish theirintended objectives rather than being vehicles for rent seeking.     

Foreign Investment and Productivity Growth in Czech Enterprises

This article uses firm-level data for the Czech Republic toshow that during 1992–96 foreign investment had the predictedpositive impact on total factor productivity growth of recipientfirms. This result is robust to corrections for the sample biasthat arises because foreign companies tend to invest in firmswhose initial productivity is above average. Together, jointventures and foreign direct investment appear to have a negativespillover effect on firms that do not have foreign partnerships.However, with foreign direct investment alone, the magnitudeof the spillover becomes much smaller and loses significance.This result, in conjunction with the fact that joint venturesand foreign direct investment account for a significant shareof total output in many industries, suggests that further researchis required to determine the extent of knowledge diffusion fromfirms that have foreign links to those that do not.     

Market discipline and corporate efficiency: evidence from Bulgaria

In this paper we investigate the impact of an increase in market discipline on total factor productivity (TFP) growth at the level of the firm in Bulgaria during 1991–95, focusing in particular on the effect of trade liberalization, corporatization and rationalization of conglomerates, and hard budget constraints. The data support the predicted relationship between increases in market discipline and subsequent productivity growth. Our results demonstrate the need to distinguish between exporting and non-exporting enterprises in assessing the impact of trade liberalization and the importance of taking into account other relevant policy changes. JEL Classification: F14, D24