Paying the price for joining the WTO : a comparative assessment of services sector commitments by WTO members and acceding countries
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Paying the price for joining the WTO : a comparative assessment of services sector commitments by WTO members and acceding countries
(Commonwealth economic papers, no. 54)
Commonwealth Secretariat, c2002
- : pbk
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-44)
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This paper focuses on the accession process for new WTO membership. The basic premise is that the commitments demanded are too onerous for new members. It argues that the whole process is fundamentally flawed and, in fact, forces applicant countries to accept demands that are not required under WTO agreements. Section 2 is a brief discussion of the process of accession and highlights the inherent flaws. Section 3 focuses on one of the crucial international trade agreements, the General Agreement in Trade and Services (GATS) and provides sector-specific commitments by countries. Section 4 uses a series of statistical tests to verify whether acceding countries have made a significantly higher number of specific commitments than existing WTO members. Section 5 makes some concluding observations. The paper uses a strong body of econometric evidence to support its claim that acceding countries undertake greater commitments than those made by WTO members of a similar development status.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. The Process of Accession to the WTO 3. GATS and Sector Specific Services Commitments 3.1 GATS and Types of Services 3.2 Specific Commitments 4. Comparison of Specific Commitments 4.1 Mean Commitments of Original WTO Members and Acceded Members 4.2 Commitments by Income Status of Countries 4.3 Commitments, Per Capita Income and Acceding Countries 4.4 Commitments, Per Capita Income and Exports 4.5 Costs of Accession: Actual versus Predicted Commitments 5. Concluding Observations References Appendices
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