Trade and Development: Lessons from Vietnam's Past Trade Agreements

Philip Abbott; Jeanet Bentzen; Finn Tarp

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.04.005

Trade and Development: Lessons from Vietnam's Past Trade Agreements

Philip Abbott, Jeanet Bentzen, Finn Tarp

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

History, not predictions of CGE models or cross-country growth studies, shows a strong relationship between trade and development. Vietnam's experience with bilateral trade agreements, comparing actual outcomes with predictions from existing models, demonstrates this and the limitations of research methodologies. Forecasts for Vietnam greatly underestimated the impact of past agreements because tariff reform was not the main factor driving adjustments. Addressing market imperfections through institutional reform was central to bringing output and trade expansion. Key questions for future research are whether policy reform will result in new institutional changes, and how resulting incentives determine the evolution of investment by sector.

Original language	English
Journal	World Development
Volume	37
Issue number	2
Pages (from-to)	341-353
Number of pages	13
ISSN	0305-750X
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.04.005
Publication status	Published - 2009

Keywords

Faculty of Social Sciences
trade liberalization
bilateral trade agreements
WTO accession
Vietnam

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10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.04.005

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abstract = "History, not predictions of CGE models or cross-country growth studies, shows a strong relationship between trade and development. Vietnam's experience with bilateral trade agreements, comparing actual outcomes with predictions from existing models, demonstrates this and the limitations of research methodologies. Forecasts for Vietnam greatly underestimated the impact of past agreements because tariff reform was not the main factor driving adjustments. Addressing market imperfections through institutional reform was central to bringing output and trade expansion. Key questions for future research are whether policy reform will result in new institutional changes, and how resulting incentives determine the evolution of investment by sector.",

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AB - History, not predictions of CGE models or cross-country growth studies, shows a strong relationship between trade and development. Vietnam's experience with bilateral trade agreements, comparing actual outcomes with predictions from existing models, demonstrates this and the limitations of research methodologies. Forecasts for Vietnam greatly underestimated the impact of past agreements because tariff reform was not the main factor driving adjustments. Addressing market imperfections through institutional reform was central to bringing output and trade expansion. Key questions for future research are whether policy reform will result in new institutional changes, and how resulting incentives determine the evolution of investment by sector.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - trade liberalization

KW - bilateral trade agreements

KW - WTO accession

KW - Vietnam

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.04.005

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.04.005

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Trade and Development: Lessons from Vietnam's Past Trade Agreements

Abstract

Keywords

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