Writing in Foreign Policy (subscription required, I think), Moisés Naím says:
China, India, the former Soviet Union, and many other countries launched major reforms that deepened their integration into the world’s economy. In developing countries alone, import tariffs dropped from an average of around 30 percent in the 1980s to less than 10 percent today. Indeed, one of the surprises of the past 20 or so years is how much governments have lowered obstacles to trade—unilaterally. Between 1983 and 2003, 66 percent of tariff reductions in the world took place because governments decided it was in their own interests to lower their import duties, 25 percent as a result of agreements reached in multilateral trade negotiations, and 10 percent through regional trade agreements with neighboring countries.
Is it really the case that such a large percentage of tariff reduction was unilateral in nature? 66 percent sounds like an awfully high figure. I wonder what portion of the unilateral part was due to countries like China and Russia changing their laws as part of the WTO accession process.
