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This volume introduces the gender dimension in the empirical analyses on the links between trade and poverty. Gender disparities, an important component of overall inequality, may limit the gains from trade and the potential benefits to poor people. This view is supported by the robust finding that while growth (as well as the gains from trade) is the major vehicle of lifting people out of poverty, it is more likely to be pro-poor when initial inequality is low. High inequality directly lowers the rate of poverty reduction by hindering growth.Ample evidence shows that, in spite of recent impro

Quien se ponga en el papel de un alto negociador comercial para el Mecanismo Regional de Negociación del Caribe tendrá que abordar, de forma casi simultánea, la aplicación del Acuerdo de Cotonú con la UE, la iniciativa Todo Salvo Armas, el Area de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA) y diversas negociaciones comerciales en su región, amén de formular propuestas en firme para los acuerdos comerciales multilaterales de la Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC). Este artículo, además de presentar una clara categorización de distintas opciones políticas, profundiza en un análisis de la robustez de dicha categorización. Se intenta en particular identificar las "opciones de modelización" disponibles, a fin de tomar en cuenta la evolución de los escenarios regionales y globales. Se examinan dife

Front Cover -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- About the Editors and Authors -- Main Messages -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 Rethinking Informality in South Asia: An Overview of the Findings -- Introduction -- Conceptual Framework -- South Asia's Informal Firms: Outsiders, Evaders, or Avoiders? -- Likely Effect of Reforms on the Informal Sector: Productivity Impacts -- Can Digital Platforms Address Demand Constraints on Informality? -- Barriers to Skills and Capital Accumulation in the Informal Sector -- Building Resilience: Offering Social Insurance in the Informal Sector -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 2 Formal Sector Distortions, Entry Barriers, and the Informal Economy: A Quantitative Exploration -- Introduction -- Model -- Stylized Facts -- Conclusion -- Annex 2: Calibration Strategy, Concrete Examples of Idiosyncratic Distortions and Entry Barriers, and Formal Characterization of the Equilibrium -- Annex 2A: Calibration of Parameter Values in the Model -- Annex 2B: Further Examples of Idiosyncratic Distortions and Entry Barriers -- Annex 2C: Formal Definition of Firm-Level Outcomes and Equilibrium Conditions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3 The Value Added Tax, Cascading Sales Tax, and Informality -- Introduction -- Stylized Facts on Informality -- Theory and Model -- Calibration and Estimation -- Counterfactual Analysis -- Conclusion -- Annex 3A: The Downstream Index -- Annex 3B: Calculating the Share of Formal Inputs and Output -- Annex 3C: Background on Indian Tax Reform -- Annex 3D: Model Solution -- Annex 3E: A Granular Look at the Informal Sector -- Annex 3F: The Simulated Method of Moments Estimator -- Annex 3G: Moments and Cutoff Productivity -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 4 Responses of Firms to Taxation and the Link to Informality: Evidence from India's GST -- Introduction.

AbstractThe halving of oil prices, during a short period between 2014 and 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. This terms of trade shock has economy‐wide effects and significant distributive impacts. This paper, using a macro‐micro simulation model, describes and quantifies the channels of transmission from the drop of oil prices, to changes in welfare distribution at the household level for the case of the Russian Federation. The oil price reduction generates a reverse Dutch disease impacting sectoral employment, factor returns and consumption prices. It causes a contraction of employment and wages in more skill‐intensive (non‐tradable) sectors, and a reduction in consumption prices that is more pronounced for non‐food than for food goods. When these shifts are mapped to changes in incomes at the micro level, all households are affected. Poverty rates increase by 1 to 4 percentage points, depending on the poverty line used. At the US$ 10 a day threshold, 4.1 million additional people fall into poverty. Along the consumption distribution, richer people are affected more than those in the bottom 40%. However, this minor progressive impact may be reversed due to increases in unemployment and cuts in social programmes.

The halving of oil prices, which happened in a short period between late 2014 and the first months of 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. Even if the oil producing sector normally employs a small group of workers and oil export revenues tend to be concentrated in a few firms and in government accounts, these relative price changes have economy-wide effects and significant distributive impacts. This paper describes and quantifies the channels of transmission from the drop in oil prices, to changes in welfare distribution at the household level. Using a macro-micro simulation model, the paper assesses how this shock affects poverty, inequality, and shared prosperity for the case of the Russian Federation. The oil price reduction generates a reverse Dutch disease that impacts sectoral employment, factor returns, and consumption prices. It causes a contraction of employment and wages in more skill-intensive (non-tradable) sectors, and a reduction in consumption prices that is more pronounced for nonfood than for food goods. When these shifts are mapped to changes in incomes at the micro level, all households are affected. Poverty rates could increase by 1 to 4 percentage points, depending on the poverty line used. At the US$10 a day threshold, for example, 4.1 million additional people fall into poverty. Along the consumption distribution, richer people are affected more than those in the bottom 40 percent. However, this minor progressive impact may be reversed due to increases in unemployment and cuts in social programs (transfers).

In the last decade Morocco undertook substantial, if gradual, trade liberalization by reducing tariffs, reforming trade regulations and signing free and preferential trade agreements with several regions and countries, including the United States, Turkey, the European Union and Arab countries. This paper analyzes the impact of input tariff reduction on Moroccan exporting firms through the channel of intermediate goods. Gaining access to more varied and cheaper inputs can make exporting firms more competitive, and as a result they export more. To evaluate how this policy may impact firms export performance, the paper analyzes the impact of input tariff reduction on different margins of trade with emphasis on export markets and product diversification. The identification of the effect of input tariffs on exports relies on a difference-in-difference estimator using heterogeneous access to import tariff exemption as a measure of different levels of exposure to input tariff reduction at the firm level. Overall, the analysis finds that firms that are relatively more exposed to input tariff perform better in those sectors with the largest input tariff reduction, with better access to markets, higher probability to survive when exporting new products in those sectors and higher export value growth.

Assessing the final impact of globalisation on poverty is a difficult task: i) globalisation affects poverty through numerous channels; ii) some linkages are positive and some are negative and therefore cannot be analysed qualitatively but require quantitative assessments, i.e. formal numerical models; and iii) trade expansion and growth (key aspects of globalisation) are essentially macro phenomena, whereas poverty is fundamentally a micro phenomenon. In this paper we use a new method that combines a micro-simulation model and a standard CGE model. These two models are used in a sequential fashion (as in a recent paper by Robilliard et al., 2002). The CGE model and the micro-simulation model are calibrated using a recent SAM and household survey for Colombia and together they capture the structural features of the economy and its detailed income generation mechanisms. We use this framework to analyse the important income distribution and poverty changes occurred with the great trade liberalisation of the 1990s. A major policy conclusion is that trade liberalisation can substantially contribute to improve the poverty situation. Abstracting from simultaneous additional shocks and labour supply growth, the beginning of the 1990s tariff abatement seems to have accounted for a very large share of the total reduction in poverty recorded from 1988 to 1995. This holds in particular for rural areas. Furthermore distributional impacts differ fundamentally between rural and urban areas, and our methodology highlights that aggregate net results, such as the change in the poverty ratio (headcount), conceal important flows in and out of poverty. This framework allows us to capture important channels through which macro shocks affect household incomes and possibly to help in designing corrective pro-poor policies.

Introduction / Maurizio Bussolo and Jeffery Round -- The impact of structural reforms on poverty : a simple methodology with extensions / Neil McCulloch -- Trade liberalisation and poverty dynamics in Vietnam / Yoko Niimi, Puja Vasudeva-Dutta, and L. Alan Winters -- Globalisation and poverty : implications of South Asian experience for the wider debate / Jeffery Round and John Whalley -- Globalisation in developing countries : the role of transaction costs in explaining economic performance in India / Maurizio Bussolo and John Whalley -- Globalisation-poverty interactions in Bangladesh / Mustafa Mujeri and Bazlul Khondker -- Poverty and policy in a globalising economy : the case of Ghana / Maurizio Bussolo and Jeffery Round -- Trade liberalisation and poverty in Nepal : computable general equilibrium micro simulation analysis / John Cockburn -- Globalisation and poverty changes in Colombia / Maurizio Bussolo and Jann Lay.