A Doha Development Skeptic

Our word is our weapon is a development blog by Jim of North London.  Jim posts occasionally on the development dimension of the Doha Round.

Jim is skeptical that the Doha Round will benefit the world's poor: CGD Blog and thoughts on the Doha round :

The latest World Bank estimates of gains from a likely Doha round are not actually that huge, and seem to accrue mostly to high-income countries and a handful of non-LDC developing countries. Preference erosion for African countries is a real worry - Lesotho has already lost a lot of market share in textiles with the expiry of the Multifibre Agreement. The reciprocal nature of WTO negotiations means the 'Quad' are able to demand 'concessions' from everyone else in return for reducing their manifestly unjust trade barriers and export subsidies. And so I wonder whether the poorest will really benefit that much from Doha.

It would be nice if rich countries liberalized, even for the weak.  Citizens in rich countries would benefit from the reduction in subsidies and tariffs.  More to the point here:

... there's the prospect of a collapsed Doha round leading to yet more bilateral and regional trade deals in which the imbalances of power are even greater.

My emphasis.  Also see his post Trade talks: irrelevant as well as boring?.

He sees good reasons for believing that trade liberalization doesn't mean the same for poor countries as for richer ones: More baloney from The Business :

What strikes me is that nowhere is there any acknowledgement that the experience of trade liberalisation might be any different in poor countries to the experience in rich countries. But there are perfectly valid reasons why it might be, for example:
(a) Income from trade taxes often accounts for up to 30% of government revenues in very poor countries, revenues which almost never recover following liberalisation and which thus have to be replaced using taxes on labour or consumption, which are more likely to fall on poorer households;
(b) Poor countries tend to specialise more in a few key products - suddenly exposing these industries to competition could have a much greater proportional impact on employment than we see in the far more diversified rich countries;
(c) It's no fun losing your job in the UK or another rich country, but it is very rarely life-threatening because we have relatively lucrative safety nets, quality education and re-training facilities, and usually relatively tight labour markets. In many poor countries, none of these apply, so losing your job can be catastrophic;
(d) Finally, selective protection can allow firms to build up their competitiveness rather than simply being immediately flattened by globally dominant companies. Getting over this first hurdle can allow them to develop an advantage in higher value-added niches not accessible from the word go.

None of these are laws to be written in stone and followed in every case. But they illustrate how selective and reasonably applied trade protection can be pro-poor and pro-growth, as indeed it has been in the past for many of today's rich countries.

Here is a link to his archive of trade and development posts.

Comments

[New Economist]

Ben, thanks for the link. I don't always agree with Jim, but enjoy reading his views. Look forward to your take on the breakdown of the WTO talks.