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A diplomat's economics: reciprocity in the Uruguay Round negotiations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2005

J. MICHAEL FINGER
J. MICHAEL FINGER
Affiliation:
Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, Texas, USA 78212-7200. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected].
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Abstract

A diplomat's jurisprudence, as Bob Hudec characterized the early GATT legal system, was a compromise between jurisprudence as understood by lawyers and the reality of the limited influence trade negotiators had over national trade policy decisions. A diplomat's economics was a parallel compromise between economics as understood by economists and the reality of the many objectives that governments hoped the GATT would serve. As the GATT evolved into the WTO and took on more complicated areas of economic policy, its jurisprudence evolved with it, but its economics remained the same. When the bargain was tariff concessions versus tariff concessions, the difference between mercantilist economics and real economics did not matter, but in the new areas the WTO took on at the Uruguay Round it does matter. There is such a thing as comparative advantage among institutions, and in the new areas the WTO is at a comparative disadvantage relative to the international development banks.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
© 2005 J. Michael Finger

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