WTO的贸易政策灵活性机制分析——从全球性经济冲击的背景出发

The Analysis of WTO's Trade Policy Flexibility Mechanism--from the Background of a Global Economic Shock

逆全球化浪潮在2008年金融危机后不断蔓延,贸易保护主义抬头,以WTO为代表的全球多边贸易体制需要确保其政策灵活性机制发挥正常作用才能实现长期稳定的发展。文章以关税水分这一WTO协定提供的贸易政策灵活性机制为研究对象,使用2007—2010年30个重要经济体在HS6位产品层面的贸易政策数据,考察了关税水分与关税保护之间的关系以及2008年的全球性经济冲击对于这一关系的激化作用。研究表明:WTO提供的贸易政策灵活性机制是充分发挥了其作用的。作为关税水分较大的经济体—产品组,其关税增幅更大,且各经济体是在互补性地使用关税政策与非关税贸易壁垒;2008年的全球性经济冲击显著提高了各经济体利用关税水分这一灵活性机制进行贸易保护的积极性;进一步的差异化分析表明,全球性经济冲击的激化作用在欠发达经济体和对价格波动比较敏感的同质产品和劳动力密集型产品上相对更强。以上结论拓展了我们对于WTO贸易政策灵活性机制的认识和理解,为新冠疫情后中国捍卫全球多边体制、推进贸易高质量发展提供了一定的参考依据。

The tide of anti-globalization is spreading and trade protectionism is on the rise after the 2008 financial crisis.The global multilateral trading system,represented by WTO,needs to ensure that its policy flexibility mechanism functions well in order to achieve a stable development.Based on research of tariff water which is a typical trade policy flexibility mechanism provided by the WTO agreement,this paper studies the relationship between tariff water and tariff protection,as well as the intensification of this relationship by the financial shock in 2008,with the trade policy data of 30 major economies from 2007 to 2010 for products at HS6 digit level.The research shows that the trade policy flexibility mechanism provided by WTO has fully played its role--the economy-product pairs with higher tariff water have adopted higher tariff increases,and the economies use tariff policies and non-tariff trade barriers in complementary ways.The 2008 financial shock significantly increased the incentive for economies to use tariff water for trade protection as the flexible mechanism should do.Further differentiation analysis shows that the intensification of financial shocks is stronger in less developed economies and in homogeneous and labor-intensive products which are more sensitive to price fluctuations.The conclusions above enhance our understanding of the WTO trade policy flexibility mechanism and provide some reference for China to defend the global multilateral system and promote the high-quality development of international trade after the COVID-19 crisis.