WTO真的促进了贸易吗？

[摘要]世界贸易组织是一种纠纷解决机制。但罗斯先生在他的一篇论文中质疑，WTO是否推动了贸易。斯坦福大学的三位政治科学家也撰写了一篇工作论文来讨论关贸总协定的影响，本文正是讨论了WTO对促进贸易的作用。

　　（海外论坛·北京）这个月，一向口吻柔和的世界贸易组织总干事素帕猜低调的辞职了。不久前，他还希望今年12月份在香港举行的大型部长会议上宣布多哈回合谈判取得一次突破，即他们同意大幅度削减关税和补贴。但是，素帕猜的希望不是以皆大欢喜而告终，而是以围绕着香蕉和滚珠轴承的混乱而结束。
　　
　　8月1日，WTO拒绝了欧洲联盟提出的改革其香蕉政策的方案，这个方案将会照顾欧洲以前的殖民地，拉美更廉价的种植园则享受不到好处。同一天，一向在贸易战中充当和平主义者的日本则说，它将对美国滥用WTO反倾销规则的行为作出报复。日本将对15种美国产品加征15%的关税，其中包括叉式升降车和滚珠轴承。由于争执和报复的阴影已经让人们忘记了谈判，因而，对多哈回合投入的努力，越来越像是徒劳的。
　　
　　人们知道，世界贸易组织是一种纠纷解决机制。但罗斯先生在他的一篇论文中质疑，WTO是否推动了贸易。斯坦福大学的三位政治科学家也撰写了一篇工作论文来讨论关贸总协定的影响。也请参见Subramanian 和Wei的论文。
　　
　　是不是从一开始就不应当抱有这样的希望？按照伯克利加州大学的安德鲁·罗斯的看法，也许的确如此。这篇文章成形于2002年，并于去年发表在《美国经济学评论》上，它引起了广泛争议，在这篇文章中，罗斯没有发现任何令人信服的证据可以证明，WTO或者它的前身关税与贸易总协定推进了贸易。是的，自1948年关贸总协定建立以来，贸易很繁荣。但该体系的成员国和非成员国都同样繁荣。根据这一估计，围绕着WTO的成败得失和吸收新成员的种种“喧闹”和“广告宣传”，不过就是喧闹和广告宣传而已。
　　
　　不用说，罗斯的研究结果引起了广泛的质疑和讨论，本栏目也进行过讨论（“Weighing up the WTO”， November 23rd 2002）。那么，谁更经得起仔细的审查？是罗斯先生的研究结论还是WTO的记录？
　　
　　一个最有趣的问题，也是最基本的问题是：算谁不算谁？由斯坦福大学的三位政治科学家撰写的一篇工作论文指出，在战后的关贸总协定中，可能有78个国家只能算是名义上的成员国。
　　
　　把这些国家算作成员国，自然就会使罗斯先生对于那一制度得出令人沮丧的结论。相反，由IMF的Arvind Subramanian and Shang-Jin Wei提出的另一项批评指出，很多国家只在名义上是WTO的成员国。扣除了它们，罗斯先生的结论就站不住脚了。
　　
　　斯坦福大学的三位作者指出，很多殖民地承担了关贸总协定成员国的权利和义务，尽管它们的名字并没有出现在该组织的名单中。举例来说，法国的所有海外领地，除了摩洛哥之外，都由他们的“宗主国”代表接受了该协定。赢得独立之后，在一段时间内，很多殖民地在事实上仍然保留着成员国身份，在这段时间内他们将决定，是否由本国签署该协定。在他们之外，还有另一批国家，比如，瑞士和以色列，在成为完整的成员国身份之前，有多年是“临时性会员国”。假如把所有这些殖民地、临时成员国都算作成员国，三位作者发现，关贸总协定成员国之间的贸易要比非成员国之间的贸易多出72%。
　　
　　Subramanian先生和Wei先生采取了另一种方法。他们论证说，较穷的国家，即使是关贸总协定的创始国，比如印度，在该体系内并没有扮演真正的角色。这些国家享有“特殊和不同待遇”，这使他们豁免了贸易自由化的重要义务。比如，到80年代后期，发展中国家都同意对其不少于三分之一的关税设定最高税率。但这些国家所设定的最高税率通常都不高于现有的关税，因而，那个上限就没有任何意义。
　　
　　由于豁免了这样的义务，因而，发展中国家对关贸总协定的其他成员国就没有作出多少贡献。他们在谈判时拥有一席之地，但除了谈判，他们什么也不做。结果，他们享有比较优势的很多行业，比如农业，纺织服装业，在多轮贸易谈判中都被忽略了。
　　
　　Subramanian先生和Wei先生希望，这种局面能有所改变。他们证明，发展中国家，比如中国，在最近加入WTO时被要求作出更多开放努力，才能获得入门券。他们认为，假如不算发展中国家，WTO和关贸总协定看起来要成功得多。国际货币基金组织的这两位经济专家估计，这两个组织推动富裕国家的进口增加了175%。WTO和它的前身在“推动贸易方面成绩斐然”。
　　
　　在这些计算结果与罗斯先生的计算结果之间，还有另外一些更为微妙、更具有方法论意义的差异。他们只讨论了一个国家的进口，而没有涉及到出口。他们也拒绝罗斯先生对区域性贸易组织，比如北美自由贸易区的看法。假如两个国家都是这样一个协定的成员国，则WTO的成员国身份就对于他们彼此之间的贸易没有多大作用。国际货币基金的两位经济专家认为，不可能出现别的结果。
　　
　　不过，归根到底，他们之间的差异与其说是实质性的，不如说是表面上的。尽管他们都是WTO的支持者，不过Subramanian先生和Wei先生承认，WTO对其贫穷的成员国要求得太少了，通常被区域贸易协定所取代，而且，在历史上忽略了农业、纺织服装业。 除此之外，这两位经济学家还是喜欢这出戏剧的。就像罗斯先生以挖苦的口吻所说，“假如你不管它失败的一面，那关贸总协定和WTO就还是蛮成功的。”
　　
　　
　　原文：
　　Does the World Trade Organisation promote trade?
　　
　　Get article background
　　
　　SUPACHAI PANITCHPAKDI, the softly spoken director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), steps down this month with precious little to shout about. Not so long ago, he was hoping to announce a breakthrough in the Doha round of trade talks, which must agree on a template for cutting tariffs and subsidies at a big ministerial meeting in Hong Kong this December. But instead of ending on a high, Mr Panitchpakdi's watch closed with kerfuffles over bananas and ball-bearings.
　　
　　On August 1st, the WTO rejected the European Union's (EU) proposed reform of its banana policy, which favours growers in its former colonies over cheaper plantations in Latin America. On the same day, Japan, traditionally a pacifist in trade wars, said it would retaliate against America's abuse of the WTO's anti-dumping rules. Japan will put an extra 15% duty on 15 American products, including forklift trucks and ball-bearings. With litigation and retaliation overshadowing negotiation, the high hopes invested in the Doha round look increasingly vain.
　　
　　The World Trade Organisation has information about dispute settlements. In his paper, Mr Rose questions whether the WTO promotes trade. Three political scientists at Stanford University have written a working paper on the impact of GATT. See also the paper by Mr Subramanian and Mr Wei.
　　
　　Were those hopes misplaced from the start? Perhaps so, according to Andrew Rose, of the University of California, Berkeley. In a much-debated paper*, first circulated in 2002 and published last year in the American Economic Review, Mr Rose failed to find any compelling evidence that the WTO or its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), promoted trade. Yes, trade has bloomed since the GATT was founded in 1948. But it has flowered for the system's members and non-members alike. By this reckoning, the “hoopla” and “hype” that surrounds the WTO's successes, failures and admissions of new members are just that: hoopla and hype.
　　
　　Needless to say, Mr Rose's results have generated much puzzlement and discussion, in this column (“Weighing up the WTO”, November 23rd 2002) and elsewhere. So which stands up better to scrutiny? Mr Rose's results, or the WTO's record?
　　
　　One of the more interesting questions is also the most basic: who is in and who is out? A recent working paper? by three political scientists at Stanford University points out that perhaps as many as 78 countries were members of the post-war GATT in all but name. Counting these countries as members overturns Mr Rose's damning verdict on the system, they claim. By contrast, another critique??, by Arvind Subramanian and Shang-Jin Wei of the IMF, argues that many countries are members of the WTO in name only. Discounting them also changes Mr Rose's results.
　　
　　The Stanford authors show that many colonies took on the rights and responsibilities of GATT membership, even if their names did not appear on the organisation's roster. For example, all of France's territories, except Morocco, had the agreement accepted on their behalf by the “mother country”. When they won their independence, many colonies remained de facto members for a twilight period, while they decided whether to sign up in their own right. They were joined by another group of countries, such as Switzerland and Israel, that became “provisional” GATT members for years before they were accepted as fully fledged insiders. If all of these dependants, wannabes and hangers-on are counted as members, the authors find that trade between GATT insiders is 72% higher than trade between outsiders.
　　
　　A poor showing
　　
　　Messrs Subramanian and Wei take a different tack. They argue that poorer countries, even founding members of the GATT such as India, have not been true protagonists in the system. These countries enjoy “special and differential treatment”, which exempts them from any great obligation to liberalise. By the late 1980s, for example, developing countries had agreed to set ceilings on less than a third of their tariffs. And because the few ceilings they had established were typically higher than existing tariffs, they were not meaningful.
　　
　　Exempted from so much, developing countries have had little to offer fellow members. They have a seat at the negotiations, but nothing much on the table. As a result, many of the sectors in which they enjoy a comparative advantage, such as agriculture, textiles and clothing, were neglected by successive trade rounds.
　　
　　Messrs Subramanian and Wei hope that this is changing. They show that developing countries, such as China, which joined the WTO more recently have been asked to open up much more as the price of entry. Nonetheless, the WTO and the GATT appear much more successful if developing countries are left out of the picture. Membership boosts the imports of rich countries by 175%, the Fund economists reckon. The WTO and its predecessor have done a “splendid job of promoting trade”.
　　
　　Some of the other differences between their calculations and Mr Rose's are more subtle and methodological. They look only at a country's imports, not its exports. They also quarrel with Mr Rose's treatment of regional trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. If two countries are members of such a pact, WTO membership adds little, if anything, to their trade with each other. Mr Rose holds this against the WTO. The two Fund economists think it is wrong to expect otherwise.
　　
　　But in the end, their disagreement is more apparent than real. Though they are fans of the WTO, Messrs Subramanian and Wei concede that it demands too little of its poorer members, is often superseded by regional trade agreements (where they exist), and has historically neglected agriculture, textiles and clothing. Aside from that, the two economists liked the play. Or, as Mr Rose wryly puts it, “if you ignore its many failures, the GATT/WTO has been successful.”
　　

（经济学家）