Trade Policy at the Crossroads: The Recent Experience of Developing Countries

Analysing the experience of developing countries in recent years and the deadlock in trade negotiation in WTO, the author argues that the theories and practices of trade and industrial policies are surrounded by a number of fallacies: that universal and across-the-board trade liberalisation is to the benefit of all developing countries, irrespective of their level of development; that the Invisible Hand of free market alone is conducive to industrialisation, that the infant industry argument is against export expansion; that developed countries industrialised without government intervention; that WTO rules are conducive to development.