Global Trade and Poor Nations: The Poverty Impacts and Policy Implications of Liberalization

This thoughtful volume assesses the likely impact of reformed trade policies on the poorest of the poor —those on the bottom economic rungs in developing nations. The focus on a spectrum of poor nations across different regions provides some helpful and hopeful guidelines regarding the likely impacts of a global trade reform, agreed upon under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, as well as the impact of such reforms on economic development.In order to facilitate lesson-drawing across different regions, each country study utilizes a similar methodology. They combine information on trade policy at the product level with income and consumption data at the household level, thus capturing effects both on the macro level and in individual households where development policies ideally should improve day-to-day life. This uniformity of research approach across the country studies allows for a deeper and more robust comparison of results.

Bernard M. Hoekman is research manager, International Trade, in the World Bank's Development Research Group. He is also a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. Among his previous books is Arab Economic Integration (Brookings, 2003), coedited with Ahmed Galal. Marcelo Olarreaga is a senior economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. He is also a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Ernesto Zedillo is director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, where he is a leading voice on the impacts of globalization on the relations between developed and developing nations. Zedillo is a professor in the field of international economics and politics at Yale University and is also an adjunct professor of forestry and environmental studies. He was president of Mexico from 1994 until 2000.