This comprehensive Research Handbook analyzes the impact of the rapid growth of digital trade on businesses, consumers, and regulators. Leading experts provide theoretical and practical insight into how to manage the legal and policy challenges of the global digital economy.
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.
This publication assesses the impact of COVID-19 on e-commerce and digital trade. While the pandemic caused a sharp deceleration in economic activity, it also led to a rapid acceleration of e-commerce. With restrictions on movement and other public health interventions in place, digital solutions have become essential to continued delivery of economic and social activities. And, as the digital economy and e-commerce play an increased role in Sustainable Development, stakeholders at all levels have a responsibility to ensure that these technologies play a positive and powerful role in national and international recovery efforts. Indeed, those that can harness the potential of e-commerce will be better placed to benefit from global markets for their goods and services, while those that fail to do so risk falling behind. Thus, the critical global policy challenge that emerges from this study is that greater efforts are needed to help reduce inequalities in e-trade readiness that currently prevail amongst countries.
The world economy is experiencing a very strong but uneven recovery, with many emerging market and developing economies facing obstacles to vaccination. The global outlook remains uncertain, with major risks around the path of the pandemic and the possibility of financial stress amid large debt loads. Policy makers face a difficult balancing act as they seek to nurture the recovery while safeguarding price stability and fiscal sustainability. A comprehensive set of policies will be required to promote a strong recovery that mitigates inequality and enhances environmental sustainability, ultimately putting economies on a path of green, resilient, and inclusive development. Prominent among the necessary policies are efforts to lower trade costs so that trade can once again become a robust engine of growth. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Economic Prospects. The Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.
This edition focuses on trade connectivity, which is critical for inclusiveness and sustainable development. Physical connectivity enables the movement of goods and services to local, regional and global markets.
This report is about a huge contribution to our deepening understanding of what the global economy really means and how it is changing. The report helpfully distinguishes elements of an economy that are tradable and the large set that are non-tradable. Clearly the tradables set is expanding with the support of enabling technology. The report argues that connectivity in the networks that define the evolving architecture of GVCs is important. This Global Value Chain Development Report is the result of intensive and detailed work in assembling and analyzing data on the structure of economies and on how they are linked. It creates a much clearer picture of evolving patterns of independence. It also presents a much clearer picture of comparative advantage. --Publisher description.
A collection of papers by some of the world's leading specialists on global value chains (GVCs). It examines how GVCs have evolved and the challenges they face in a rapidly changing world. The approach is multi-disciplinary, with contributions from economists, political scientists, supply chain management specialists, practitioners and policy-makers. Co-published with the Fung Global Institute and the Temasek
This edited volume explains the importance of regional public goods (RPGs) for sustainable development and shows why they are particularly important in the context of 21st-century international relations. By presenting a new and original data set and by presenting original essays by renowned scholars, this book lays the foundation for what will become an increasingly important focus for both economic development and international relations as well as for their intersection. The volume contains four parts. The first introduces the core issues and concepts that are explored throughout the book as well as a new and original data set on RPGs. The second part further develops specific concepts important for understanding 21st-century RPGs: regional leadership, alliances, networks, and outcomes. The third examines how cooperation takes place worldwide for a range of important RPGs. Finally, the fourth part discusses how public goods are produced in specific regions, stressing that each region has a distinct context and that these contexts overlap in a decentered "multiplex" manner. Global economic cooperation will be different in the 21st century, and this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of global governance, economic development, international political economy, sustainable development, and comparative regionalism.