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Regulating the digital economy: Are we moving towards a 'win-win' or a 'lose-lose'?

Author

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  • Gehl Sampath, Padmashree

    (UNCTAD)

Abstract

The digital economy has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years, mostly as a result of new digital technologies that are promoting a global transformation to industry 4.0. The resulting expansion of digital trade has sparked off a political and policy controversy on digital economy and e-commerce, where its boundaries stand and how best to regulate it. Policy discussions on the topic however do not take into account the true expanse of digital trade, which encompasses hardware, software, networks, platforms, applications and data as its core elements, and stretches the boundaries of e-commerce policy to trade in goods, services and intellectual property protection. This article focuses on the challenges in regulating the digital economy, with a particular focus on development, and offers a discussion of the interdependency between the economic, social, personal and developmental aspects of digital trade for developing countries. Section II opens with a detailed discussion on key digital technologies and their plausible impacts on employment globally and industrial catch-up of particular importance to developing countries, to highlight the divisive nature of digital technologies. Section III then analyses the unfulfilled promise of a pro-development perspective at the WTO looking at how multilateralism has currently failed e-commerce. In this section, the incoherence between digital realities and the policy debates at the WTO are presented to show how the institution might have become a means to legitimise national policies of industrialised countries on a universal level in this important area of policymaking. Norm-setting through FTAs is also analysed at length in section III of the article, which provides a comprehensive review of the plurilateral and bilateral policy developments in e-commerce. The ramifications for developing countries are discussed in the form of a couple of examples. Section IV presents some options for developing countries for the future at the national and international level.

Suggested Citation

  • Gehl Sampath, Padmashree, 2018. "Regulating the digital economy: Are we moving towards a 'win-win' or a 'lose-lose'?," MERIT Working Papers 2018-005, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
  • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2018005
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    digital economy; e-commerce; industry 4.0; digital trade; robotics and process automation; artificial intelligence; 3D printing; manufacturing; development; trade; free trade agreements; digital industrial policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

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