NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

‘Trade and poverty’ has absorbed huge amounts of research over the last two decades but it has failed to provide a definitive general answer to the question ‘does increased trade reduce poverty?’

This seminar provides an overview of what we know about the relationship between increases in trade and poverty, highlighting policy implications towards ‘inclusive trade’. The seminar is third in the IDS seminar series on inclusive trade.

Research on international trade and development has advocated for the positive impact of trade on poverty reduction and inequality through productivity increase, growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and employment generation. While there are proven aggregate benefits from international trade on average, considering the full extent of micro-level effects is challenging. This seminar provides an overview of what we know about the relationship between increases in trade and poverty, highlighting policy implications to help maximise the gains from trade, to share them more evenly and to help to avoid clusters of bad consequences even as averages are improving.

Speaker

L. Alan Winters, Professor of Economics, a Fellow and Founding Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) at the University of Sussex, and (from April 2022) Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy

Discussants

Robert Koopman, Chief Economist, World Trade Organisation

Mohammad Razzaque, Director, IEC-UK (International Economics Consulting, UK)

Chair

Amrita Saha, Research Fellow, IDS