The effects of industrial countries' policies on developing countries

Slower growth in the 1980s - of world trade as well as of developing countries' trade - is due mostly to slower income growth, and prospects are that the OECD countries' growth of gross domestic product will slow significantly from the rates recorded before 1980. Thus, at a time when the openness of the international trading system is increasingly threatened by new trade barriers and domestic assistance to industry, it is particularly important to developing countries that openness be maintained. In keeping with this concern, this paper examines two questions: 1) what is the impact of industrial countries' industrial policies on developing country trade in manufactures? and 2) what policy changes to benefit developing countries might be taken up at the ongoing Uruguay Round of multilatereral trade negotiations? Finally, the report examines a subject that previous World Bank reports have thoroughly explored : the cross country effects of industrial countries' policies on developing country trade and output.