World Perspectives

Polarized WTO; Nonautomatic Market Economy; Free Trade Diversion

Polarized WTO It is not just politics in the U.S. and Europe that are polarized – so is the global trading system. India plans to host developing country members of the WTO at a meeting next week in New Delhi to discuss how to boost their advantage in the organization. India and others correctly note that the rich countries are allowed greater subsidies for their agriculture sectors. However, this was the Uruguay Round outcome because developing countries lacked the cash for subsidies and so instead tend to have much higher tariff and nontariff border protections than rich countries in order to artificially spike domestic farm prices. Now that India and her ilk are richer, they want more subsidies while maintaining their ability to k...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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