Counter visits from more than 160  countries and 1400 universities (details)

The political economy of development
This academic site promotes excellence in teaching and researching economics and development, and the advancing of describing, understanding, explaining and theorizing.
About us- Castellano- Français - Dedication
Home- Themes- Reports- Statistics/Search- Lecture notes/News- People's Century- Puro Chile- Mapuche


World indicators on the environmentWorld Energy Statistics - Time SeriesEconomic inequality
 
On Planning for Development: Trade and Development Reports (TADR):
Trade and Development Report 2002
Developing countries in world trade


The standard advice to developing countries experiencing difficulties in promoting primary sector exports is to move to labour-intensive manufacturing. Such a strategy is advocated on a number of grounds. First, since labour is in more plentiful supply in most developing countries than natural resources, there is more scope for expanding production based on labour than on natural resources. This proposition, which draws on the traditional theory of comparative advantage, is probably valid for most developing countries outside Africa; in that region comparative advantage lies more in natural resources (TDR 1998, Part Two, chap. IV). Second, it is easier to upgrade to technology- and capital-intensive activities and to supply-dynamic products from low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing than from primary production. Again, this is generally correct. However, the evidence surveyed in chapter III shows that many of the developing countries involved in the labour-intensive segments of international production networks have not been able to make much progress in graduating to more sophisticated manufactures. The third reason posited in favour of labour-intensive manufacturing activities is that demand for these products is more stable than the demand for primary products. Again, the evidence reviewed in the previous chapter, on the volatility of export values of products around their longerterm trends and on the behaviour of export and import prices of the United States, confirms the validity of this proposition. However, it is also true that in recent years a number of manufactures, notably in computers and electronics, have shown extreme volatility, causing serious disruptions in the export earnings and external payments of a number of developing economies in East Asia.

full text here


Table of contents

Foreword
Overview
:
Overview [PDF, 12pp., 56KB]
Part One
Global Trends and Prospects
Chapter I
The World Economy: Performance and prospects
A. Introduction
B. Developed economies
C. International trade, financial flows and developing countries
D. Economic prospects
spacer
Chapter II
The Multilateral Trading System After Doha
A. Introduction
B. Background to Doha: developing countries in the GATT/WTO system
C. Doha and the new WTO work programme
D. Conclusions: beyond Doha
spacer
Part Two
Developing Countries in World Trade
Chapter III
Export Dynamism and Industrialization in Developing Countries
A. Introduction
B. Dynamic products in trade expansion in different products
C. Factors contributing to trade expansion in different products
D. Export dynamism and the potential for productivity growth
E. Variations among developing countries
F. Exports, industrialization and growth
G. Conclusions
Chapter III [PDF, 37pp., 1,067KB]
Chapter III Annexes [PDF, 25pp., 282KB]
spacer
Chapter IV
Competition and the fallacy of composition
A. The issues at stake
B. The terms of trade of developing country exports: a review of the evidence
C. Competition in world markets for labour-intensive manufactures
D. Skill profile of world trade and shifts in competitiveness
E. Tariff barriers to exports of labour-intensive manufactures
F. Policy responses
Chapter IV [PDF, 29pp., 449KB]
spacer
Chapter V
China´s accession to WTO: Managing integration and industrialization
A. Introduction
B. Accession: changes in Chins´a import regime
C. Industrial structure, trade and employment
D. Trade prospects
E. Conclusions: managing integration
Chapter V [PDF, 29pp., 135KB]
spacer
Part II of the report (one file) [PDF, 126pp. 3.2MB]




Back to Trade and Development Reports (various years)

UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics: 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006/07

World Investment Reports (WIR)
World Investment Reports (selected statistics)
Digital library of UNCTAD, CD-Roms and on-line data sources
UNCTAD X: documents and papers
UNCTAD investment brief, No. 1, 2007, Foreign direct investment surged again in 2006 (UNCTAD/ITE/IIA/MISC/2007/2)
01/02/07, 2 Pages, 58 Kb
Transport Newsletter, No. 34, Fourth Quarter 2006 (UNCTAD/SDTE/TLB/2006/5)
31/01/07, 21 Pages, 466 Kb
World economic situation and prospects 2007 (WESP/2007)
Sales no.: E.07.II.C.2
01/01/07, 177 Pages, 1913 Kb
UNCTAD investment brief BRIEF, No. 5, 2006, Top TNCs present in 40 host countries on average (UNCTAD/WEB/ITE/IIA/2006/10)
01/12/06, 2 Pages, 55 Kb