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Even if trade liberalization results in aggregate welfare gains over all households, it is possible that the poorest households could lose. We illustrate two approaches to designing trade liberalization in Turkey which ensure that the poor will not lose. The first approach uses direct compensation to losers. The second approach uses limited policy reform, where exceptions to the across-the-board reform are chosen to meet the equity goal. In each case, we map out some of the efficiency costs of attaining these equity goals so as to inform policy makers about the least costly way of attaining them. (InWent/DÜI)

Evidence indicates that trade costs are a much more substantial barrier to trade than tariffs are, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper decomposes trade costs into: (i) trade facilitation, (ii) non-tariff barriers, and (iii) the costs of business services. The paper assesses the poverty and shared prosperity impacts of deep integration to reduce these three types of trade costs in: (i) the East African Customs Union–Common Market of East and Southern Africa–South African Development Community "Tripartite" Free Trade Area; (ii) within the East African Customs Union; and (iii) unilaterally by the East African Customs Union. The analysis employs an innovative, multi-region computable general equilibrium model to estimate the changes in the macroeconomic variables that impact poverty and shared prosperity. The model estimates are used in the Global Income Distribution Dynamics microsimulation model to obtain assessments of the changes in the poverty headcount and shared prosperity for each of the simulations for the six African regions or countries. The paper finds that these reforms are pro-poor. There are significant reductions in the poverty headcount and the percentage of the population living in poverty for all six of the African regions from deep integration in the Tripartite Free Trade Area or comparable unilateral reforms by the East African Customs Union. Further, the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the populations noticeably increase in all countries or regions that are engaged in the trade reforms. The reason for the poor share in prosperity is the fact that the reforms increase unskilled wages faster than the rewards of other factors of production, as the reforms tend to favor agriculture. Despite the uniform increases in income for the poorest 40 percent, there are some cases where the share of income captured by the poorest 40 percent of the population decreases. The estimated gains vary considerably across countries and reforms. Thus, countries would have an interest in negotiating for different reforms in different agreements.

Fawzy, Samiha: Introduction. - S. 1-10 Harrison, Glenn; Rutherford, Thomas; Tarr, David: Future trade between Egypt and the European Union: potential trade gains and policy issues. - S. 13-65 Fahmy, Hazem: Future trade between Egypt and the EU: potential trade gains and policy issues. - S. 67-86 Khattab, Mokhtar A.: Prospects of FDI inflow into Egypt in context of the Partnership Agreement with the EU. - S. 89-115 Kreissig, Volkmar: The transformation of industry: the East German experience in the textile and automobile industries. - S. 119-146 Mohieldin, Mahmoud: On competition policy: an Egyptian perspective. - S. 149-175 Nemitz, Paul: State aid control and competition policy of the European Union. - S. 177-195 Stohr, Eugen: Intellectual property protection, direct investment and technology transfer: the case of Egypt and the EU. - S. 199-212 Sherif, Soheir Saad El-: Human resources development in Egypt. - S. 215-240 Fawzy, Samiha: Policy implication. - S. 243-246