Table of Contents for Aid for: Trade: An Investment-Benefit Road Map from South Asia

Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2013. ISBN 978-92-9254-254-2 (print) ISBN 978-92-9254-255-9 (PDF)

7 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2013

See all articles by Hans-Peter Brunner

Hans-Peter Brunner

Action International for Evolutionary Development

Date Written: September 30, 2013

Abstract

Aid for Trade (AfT) came to prominence just over a decade ago at the launch of the World Trade Organization's Doha Round. With its focus on helping least developed countries and economies escape the poverty trap, it aims to strengthen their capabilities to meet market demand and to reduce supply-side constraints such as a lack of trade infrastructure.

In accordance with that objective, this report lays out an applied framework for prioritizing potential trade-related interventions and investments according to the expected strength of their combined economic impacts. Along the way, and for the first time, the economic geography of northeastern South Asia has been comprehensively mapped. Computer-driven modeling provides a dynamic portrayal of the economic geography that is a resource for decision makers (and investors).

By bringing to light new avenues yielding very high economic benefits for investment and reforms, the framework can give guidance for undertaking trade improvements under Aid for Trade on pilot projects within a national setting, between neighbors or spread to partners further afield. In all cases, the endeavor is the same: expressed in the metaphor of hard investment, it is to build bridges to export markets so that people in the economic periphery have a better opportunity to take poverty off their own maps.

The PDF file does not include the full text of the paper.

Keywords: Economic development, economic growth, trade policy, trade facilitation, infrastructure investment, economic geography, agent-based model, spatial distributions of regional economic activity, global value chains, poverty distribution, South Asia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal

JEL Classification: C15, F13, F15, L61,L69, O10, O18, O47, Q17, R11, R12, R15, R40, R58

Suggested Citation

Brunner, Hans-Peter W., Table of Contents for Aid for: Trade: An Investment-Benefit Road Map from South Asia (September 30, 2013). Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2013. ISBN 978-92-9254-254-2 (print) ISBN 978-92-9254-255-9 (PDF), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2333407 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2333407

Hans-Peter W. Brunner (Contact Author)

Action International for Evolutionary Development ( email )

17 ADB Avenue, Level 29, Pasig
1600 Metro Manila
Philippines
+63 920 9707531 (Phone)

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