Protectionist Creeps
Project Syndicate Prospects for growth in global trade in 2016 and 2017 have been downgraded again. The World Trade Organization (WTO) now expects that trade this year will increase…
China’s Spill-Overs on Latin America and the Caribbean
11 August 2016 - Otaviano Canuto The Chinese economy is rebalancing while softening its growth pace. China’s spillovers on the global economy have operated through trade, commodity prices, and…
What Happened to World Trade?
Capital Finance International, spring 2016 World trade suffered another disappointing year in 2015, experiencing a contraction in merchandise trade volumes during the first half and only a low recovery…
TTIP & TPP – A Threat to Latin America?
For centuries, Latin America’s economies have revolved around exporting commodities – be it digging up minerals and hydrocarbons, planting soya or coffee, or taking advantage of what animals leave behind,…
Has the Global Trade-Development Link Peaked?
Trade has been a key driver of global growth, income convergence, and poverty reduction. Both developing countries and emerging market economies have benefited from opportunities to transfer technology from…
Trade Facilitation: Diplomacy May Be Catching Up
In September 2003, one of us was among the delegations of trade representatives from around the world that gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for one of the first Doha rounds…
Trade Opening Could Be a Source of Growth for Brazil
Capital Finance International, Autumn 2015 International trade has undergone a radical transformation in the past decades as production processes have fragmented along cross-border value chains. The Brazilian economy has remained…
Container Ship Bow
The Curious Case of Brazil’s Closedness to Trade
World Bank - Policy Research Working Paper 7228 As of 2012, Brazil was the country most closed to trade, by measure of trade penetration (combined share of exports and imports…
Are Mega-Trade Agreements a Threat to Brazil?
The landscape of international trade negotiations has been undergoing an upheaval. On the multilateral level, after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts to close the Doha Development Round at the…
Financial Times – The cost of Brazil’s closed economy
Brazil’s is an unusually closed economy as measured by trade penetration, with exports plus imports equal to just 27.6 per cent of GDP in 2013. As the potential productivity gains from participation in global production networks increase, so does the opportunity cost of Brazil’s failure to open its economy.
The curious case of Brazil’s closedness to trade
The curious case of Brazil’s closedness to trade - VoxEU While Brazil has become one of the largest economies in the world, it remains among the most closed economies as…
Why Brazil should embrace global value chains
International trade has undergone a radical transformation in the past decades as production processes have fragmented along cross-border value chains. The Brazilian economy has remained on the fringes of this production revolution, maintaining a very high density of local supply chains. This article calls attention to the rising opportunity costs incurred by such option taken by the country.
For Brazil, “the motto must be pragmatism.”
The Brazilian Economy For Brazil, “the motto must be pragmatism.” - Otaviano Canuto has observed the boom in Latin American exports of commodities from a variety of positions at the…
The High Density of Brazilian Production Chains
International trade has undergone a radical transformation in the past decades as production processes have fragmented along cross-border value chains. The Brazilian economy has remained on the fringes of…
South-South Trade through Value-Added Glasses
Using gross figures of exports and imports to approach the contribution of trade to economic growth and a country’s resource allocation may be misleading. Products often cross borders more…