2017年-世界发展银行全球_The_Global_Costs_of_Protectionism_36页_827kb

The Global Costs of Protectionism Summary

Core Content

This working paper analyzes the economic consequences of increased global trade protectionism, focusing on two specific scenarios that reflect potential policy shifts. The study uses a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to estimate the impact of trade barriers on real income, trade volumes, and welfare across different regions and sectors.

Main Scenarios and Findings

Scenario 1: Loss of Preferences

• Description: A coordinated global withdrawal of tariff commitments from all existing bilateral/regional trade agreements and unilateral preferential schemes, coupled with a 3% increase in the cost of traded services.
• Results:
  • Welfare Loss: Annual global real income losses of 0.3% or US$211 billion by 2020.
  • Trade Decline: Global trade volume would decline by 2.1% or more than US$606 billion.
  • Regional Impact: A significant portion of the losses (nearly one-third) would be concentrated in East Asia and Pacific (EAP) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

Scenario 2: Increase to Bound Rates

• Description: A worldwide increase in tariffs to legally allowed bound rates, in addition to a 3% increase in the cost of traded services.
• Results:
  • Welfare Loss: Annual global real income losses of 0.8% or US$634 billion by 2020.
  • Trade Decline: Global trade would decline by 9% or more than US$2.6 trillion.
  • Regional Impact: South Asia (SAR), EAP, and LAC would be among the most affected, together accounting for nearly half of global welfare losses.

Key Impacts of Protectionism

• Consumers: Protectionist measures increase the prices of imported goods, reducing purchasing power and limiting availability. Low-income households are disproportionately affected due to their higher reliance on traded goods.
• Producers: Higher import costs force firms to source from more expensive domestic markets, potentially leading to cost pass-through to consumers, changes in hiring decisions, and wage adjustments.
• Trade Flows: Protectionism leads to cascading trade costs, especially in international value chains where intermediate goods cross borders multiple times.
• Investment and Growth: Increased costs of capital goods reduce investment, particularly in low-income countries (LICs) that rely heavily on machinery and capital imports.
• Global Economy: Protectionism distorts the multilateral rules-based trading system, potentially eroding decades of trade liberalization efforts.

Methodology

• The study uses the GDyn model, a multi-region and multi-sector recursive dynamic CGE model, to simulate the impacts of trade policy changes.
• The model incorporates:
  • International capital mobility and endogenous capital accumulation.
  • Adaptive expectations theory of investment.
  • General equilibrium linkages between consumers, producers, and governments.
• It is calibrated using the GTAP 9.2 database, which includes 140 countries/regions and 57 sectors, aggregated into 11 sectors and 10 regions for clarity.

Literature Review

• The paper builds on previous studies that have analyzed the costs of protectionism, including:
  • Bouet and Laborde (2010): Showed that increasing tariffs to WTO bound rates could reduce world trade by 9.9% and global welfare by US$353 billion.
  • Evenett and Fritz (2015): Found that protectionist measures between 2009 and 2013 significantly slowed LDCs’ exports, costing them about one-third of their total exports.
  • Noland et al. (2016): Estimated that a full trade war between the US and China/Mexico would lead to a US recession by 2019 with a 9.5% drop in investment and an 8.4% rise in unemployment.
• The paper highlights the importance of unilateral, bilateral, and regional preferences in reducing trade costs and improving welfare.

Limitations and Interpretation

• The results are lower-bound estimates due to:
  • Exclusion of the impact of investment, competition, and intellectual property commitments.
  • Omission of potential increases in non-tariff barriers (NTBs).
  • The model does not explicitly account for financial and monetary markets, exchange rate movements, FDI flows, innovation, or global value chains.
• The simulations focus on the economic effects of trade policy changes, with an emphasis on consumer welfare and distributional impacts.

Conclusion

• Protectionism has significant negative impacts on global trade and welfare, with substantial effects on consumers, producers, and economies.
• The paper underscores the importance of free trade and the value of existing trade preferences in mitigating these costs.
• It highlights the risks of beggar-thy-neighbour policies and the potential for a global trade spiral if protectionist measures continue to rise.

Key Takeaways

• Protectionism is costly and leads to severe market distortions.
• Consumer welfare is most directly impacted by trade barriers.
• Regional disparities are evident, with EAP, LAC, and SAR being the most affected.
• CGE models are essential for capturing the complex interactions in the global economy.
• The results should be interpreted cautiously as they represent lower-bound estimates of potential losses.