This paper shows that Pakistan, a developing WTO country member, has small trading profile in relation to global trade. Its exports to international markets are limited both in variety and volume, ...yet these exports are playing pivotal role in the economic and overall development goals of the country. This, in turn, signifies the using of WTO dispute resolution mechanism for Pakistan in challenging foreign trade barriers effectively. However, since its WTO membership in 1 January 1995, in over 22 years, Pakistan has participated limitedly in the WTO dispute system. To date, the country has filed just five WTO complaints. This number needs to be increased by Pakistan in the future, in order to benefit fully from the system.
Nolte demonstrates some of the reasons why the US and China have ignored the World Trade Organization (WTO) and waged this war as well as how their decisions have ushered in an era of uncertainty and ...an inconspicuous beginning to the slow death of the current "multilateral, predictable, justiciable, and enforceable" world order. The US and China are members of the World Trade Organization. The US has been deeply involved in international trade organizations since the creation of the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, and before that with the signing of the Atlantic charter in 1941.
Many researchers use unit fixed effects regression models as their default methods for causal inference with longitudinal data. We show that the ability of these models to adjust for unobserved ...time-invariant confounders comes at the expense of dynamic causal relationships, which are permitted under an alternative selection-on-observables approach. Using the nonparametric directed acyclic graph, we highlight two key causal identification assumptions of unit fixed effects models: Past treatments do not directly influence current outcome, and past outcomes do not affect current treatment. Furthermore, we introduce a new nonparametric matching framework that elucidates how various unit fixed effects models implicitly compare treated and control observations to draw causal inference. By establishing the equivalence between matching and weighted unit fixed effects estimators, this framework enables a diverse set of identification strategies to adjust for unobservables in the absence of dynamic causal relationships between treatment and outcome variables. We illustrate the proposed methodology through its application to the estimation of GATT membership effects on dyadic trade volume.
Analysis of efficacy, safety, and risk factors for failure of superior versus inferior 180-degree segmental gonioscopy-assisted transluminal trabeculectomy showed no significant difference between ...approaches, with novel risk factors for failure identified.
Compare the efficacy, safety, and risk factors for failure of superior versus inferior 180-degree segmental suture gonioscopy-assisted transluminal trabeculotomy (GATT).
Multicenter, retrospective interventional cohort study of 297 eyes of 243 glaucomatous patients, which underwent superior or inferior 180-degree suture hemi-GATT surgery combined with phacoemulsification at one of 3 Canadian ophthalmological surgical centres in Calgary, Alberta or Toronto, Ontario.
The primary outcome measure was the hazard ratio (HR) of failure for the "primary success" criteria. "Primary success" was defined as an intraocular pressure (IOP) <18 mm Hg and either 1) IOP reduced by ≥20% from baseline on the same number of IOP-lowering medications or 2) IOP ≤ baseline on fewer medications. Secondary outcome measures included HRs of failure for alternative criteria ("complete success", "qualified success" and "20% IOP reduction"), cross-sectional analysis, and Cox proportional hazard analysis for risk factors associated with increased failure for the complete cohort.
Baseline characteristics were similar between groups. The crude and adjusted HR of failure for the "primary success" criteria for superior surgeries relative to inferior surgeries were 1.27 (95% CI = 0.86-1.88) and 1.50 (95% CI = 0.91-2.46), with no statistically significant difference between approaches. Of the secondary criteria, there was statistical significance in favor of inferior surgeries only for crude analysis of the "20% reduction" criteria (1.40/1.27 (95% CI = 1.01-1.92). Increased risk of failure by the "primary success" measure for either intervention was seen with primary open angle glaucoma, advanced disease, and age below 70 years. There were no significant differences in the frequency of postoperative complications between cohorts, which were present in 72 superior (44.4%) and 67 inferior (49.6%; P value = 0.41) eyes; mostly early postoperative hyphema, iritis, and corneal edema.
This retrospective study showed no difference in inferior versus superior 180 degrees of hemi-GATT/phacoemulsification cataract surgeries through the majority of analyses. Nonmodifiable factors including glaucoma type, advanced disease, and younger age were associated with a significantly higher risk of failure in this cohort. Further study is warranted.
The rise of offshoring of intermediate inputs raises important questions for commercial policy. Do the distinguishing features of offshoring introduce novel reasons for trade policy intervention? ...Does offshoring create new problems of global policy cooperation whose solutions require international agreements with novel features? In this paper we provide answers to these questions, and thereby initiate the study of trade agreements in the presence of offshoring. We argue that the rise of offshoring will make it increasingly difficult for governments to rely on traditional GATT/WTO concepts and rules—such as market access, reciprocity and non-discrimination—to solve their trade-related problems.
The purpose of this study was to provide 24-month follow-up on surgical success and safety of an ab interno circumferential 360-degree trabeculotomy.
Chart review of patients who underwent a ...gonioscopy-assisted transluminal trabeculotomy (GATT) procedure was performed by 4 of the authors (D.S.G., O.S., R.L.F., and D.G.G.). The surgery was performed in adults with various types of open-angle glaucoma with preoperative intraocular pressures (IOPs) of ≥18 mm Hg.
In total, 198 patients aged 24 to 89 years underwent the GATT procedure with at least 18 months follow-up. Patients with primary open-angle glaucoma had an average IOP decrease of 9.2 mm Hg at 24 months with an average decrease of 1.43 glaucoma medications. The mean percentage of IOP decrease in these primary open-angle glaucoma groups at 24 months was 37.3%. In secondary open-angle glaucoma, at 24 months there was an average decrease in IOP of 14.1 mm Hg on an average of 2.0 fewer medications. The mean percentage of IOP decrease in the secondary open-angle glaucoma groups at 24 months was 49.8%. The cumulative proportion of failure at 24 months ranged from 0.18 to 0.48, depending on the group. In all 6 study groups, at all 5 postoperative time points (3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 mo) the mean IOP and reduction in glaucoma medications was significantly reduced from baseline (P<0.001) with the exception of one time point.
The 24-month results demonstrate that GATT is relatively safe and effective in treating various forms of open-angle glaucoma. The long-term results for GATT are relatively equivalent to those previously reported for GATT and ab externo trabeculotomy studies.
Rise of China as a challenge to the multilateral trade regime - role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in dispute settlement - reinterpreting legal concepts to fit the Chinese context - ...diminishing centrality of WTO law for global trade governance - WTO dispute settlement mechanism - state as a corporate holding entity.
We develop a model of international tariff negotiations to study the design of the institutional rules of the GATT/WTO. A key principle of the GATT/WTO is its mostfavored-nation (MFN) requirement of ...nondiscrimination, a principle that has long been criticized for inviting free-riding behavior. We embed a multisector model of international trade into a model of interconnected bilateral negotiations over tariffs and assess the value of the MFN principle. Using 1990 trade flows and tariff outcomes from the Uruguay Round of GATT/WTO negotiations, we estimate the model and use it to simulate what would happen if the MFN requirement were abandoned and countries negotiated over discriminatory tariffs. We find that if tariff bargaining in the Uruguay Round had proceeded without the MFN requirement, it would have wiped out the world real income gains that MFN tariff bargaining in the Uruguay Round produced and would have instead led to a small reduction in world real income relative to the 1990 status quo.
This paper furnishes robust evidence that the WTO has had a strong positive impact on trade, amounting to about 120% of additional world trade (or US$ 8 trillion in 2000 alone). The impact has, ...however, been uneven. This, in many ways, is consistent with theoretical models of the GATT/WTO. The theory suggests that the impact of a country's membership in the GATT/WTO depends on
what the country does with its membership, with
whom it negotiates, and
which products the negotiation covers. Using a properly specified gravity model, we find evidence broadly consistent with these predictions. First, industrial countries that participated more actively than developing countries in reciprocal trade negotiations witnessed a large increase in trade. Second, bilateral trade was greater when both partners undertook liberalization than when only one partner did. Third, sectors that did not witness liberalization did not see an increase in trade.
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