Back

Global Trade and Inequality: Policy Implications

September 8, 2025
Related topics: 
Economy
Macroeconomics and regulation
Trade

In this episode, we explore how today’s trade regime shapes inequality through a Southern lens. The conversation sheds light on blind spots in mainstream debates, the resurgence of industrial policy in the North, and the tools Southern countries need to reclaim policy space within global rules. We also examine which trade-related measures can effectively reduce inequality while keeping economies integrated, and what it would take to craft a North–South trade agenda grounded in mutual responsibility .

Speakers
Hamza Saoudi
Senior Economist
Hamza Saoudi is a Senior Economist at the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS).At the PCNS, Hamza Saoudi conducts research on labor market dynamics, social protection systems, and inclusive growth, with a particular focus on Morocco and Africa. He is also interested in macroeconomic stabilization policies, international trade, and long-term economic development.He has contributed to PCNS projects and publications addressing informality, social protection, and inequality in developing economies.He also served as the project coordinator of the Oxford Handbook of the Moroccan Economy, published by Oxford University Press in 2026.Before joining the PCNS in 2017, Hamza Saoudi contributed to the development of quantitative models for bank credit risk management.Hamza Saoudi holds ...
Luciana servo
President, Institute for Applied Economic Research
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • The Global Food Price Shock
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    May 18, 2022
    The world food price index collected for the last 60 years by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hit its highest record in March, declining gently in April. Pandemic, war and death in Ukraine, and droughts in the last 2 years… Such a combination looks apocalyptical. Now it is adding global hunger risks, because of the food price crisis. The rise in global food prices started in mid-2020 because supply chain disruptions triggered food stockpiling. Mobility r ...
  • Otaviano Canuto on Trade Globalization
    March 9, 2021
    In the 1990s and 2000s, the world manufacturing production partially moved from advanced countries to some developing countries, especially in Asia. This was the result of the combination of an increase of the labor supply in the global market economy, trade opening, and technological i...
  • The Vaccine, the Economy, and Governance
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    December 30, 2020
    According to this month’s OECD economic outlook, global GDP --- which took a huge hit from the pandemic and is still 3% below its level of a year ago – will not recover its pre-pandemic level until the end of 2021. In a downside scenario, the return could take almost a year longer. The OECD predictions, which imply high and protracted unemployment, are in line with the view of many other official and private organizations. The arrival of effective vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech wa ...
  • Download PDF
    Les implications du mode d’insertion du Maroc dans l’économie mondiale sur sa croissance et sur son développement : passé et avenir
    Authors
    Attioui Abdelali
    Billaudot Bernard
    Chafiq Adnane
    December 30, 2020
    Le présent rapport a pour objet d’analyser les implications sur la croissance et le développement du Maroc de son insertion dans l’économie mondiale. Cette analyse est menée en comparant la dynamique économique observée après 1998 à celle qui l’a été avant. En effet, la période 1998-2018 est celle au cours de laquelle se sont manifestés les effets du choix acté et assumé politiquement de l’ouverture (ou du libre-échange, si on préfère). Pour avant, nous nous en tenons à la période 1 ...
  • Download PDF
    Rapport annuel sur l’économie de l’Afrique 2020
    Authors
    Sous la direction de
    Larabi Jaïdi
    December 29, 2020
    Dès les premiers cas du Coronavirus relevés en Afrique, les prédictions les plus sombres ont été faites sur la catastrophe sanitaire à venir sur le continent, en raison d’un certain nombre de caractéristiques supposées favoriser la propagation de l’épidémie. Ces prévisions ont été démenties par la rapidité des ripostes des Etats et par divers autres facteurs. La progression de la Covid-19 en Afrique n’est pas le fait d’une dynamique unique mais plutôt de multiples profils de risques ...
  • Why a Weaker Dollar Might Be Good for Emerging Markets?
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    December 22, 2020
    After reaching a peak against other currencies in March this year, the dollar fell by almost 15% until the beginning of December. According to Bloomberg, asset portfolio managers have been assuming "short" positions against the dollar, that is, betting on its fall ahead. The dollar is expected to devalue against the euro, the yen, and the Chinese RMB in 2021. The peak last March, during the coronavirus financial shock, reflected the search for a safe haven in short-t ...
  • The Pandemic Will Reshape Globalization
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    December 7, 2020
    The pandemic is accelerating history, in the sense that it is leading to the speeding up of some recent trends. In the case of globalization, the pandemic will not reverse it, but it will reshape it. Here we take a bird’s eye view of global trade during the pandemic, relate it to previous trends, and guess how global value chain managers and government trade policymakers are likely to react. A Bird’s Eye View of Global Trade during the Pandemic World trade took a deep dive during ...
  • Download PDF
    Brazil, South Korea: Two Tales of Climbing an Income Ladder
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    September 3, 2020
    The “middle income trap” may well characterize the experience of Brazil and most of Latin America since the 1980s. Conversely, South Korea maintained its pace of evolution, reaching a high-income status. Such divergence of economic growth can be related to their distinctive performances of domestic accumulation of technological and organizational capabilities. Their different approaches to global value chains and trade globalization reinforced such discrepancy in domestic accumulati ...
  • Global Protectionism is Hurting Emerging Economies the Most
    Authors
    Datu Sadja Matthew Pajares Yngson
    June 30, 2020
    Unless trade wars end around the globe, the world is headed for the biggest recession in living memory. The crisis arising from the coronavirus will hit fragile economies in Africa, the Pacific, and the Caribbean the hardest. At such a time, the world should be dropping barriers but, instead, new barriers are being built. In the past month, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened retaliation against India unless it released supplies of hydroxychloroquine. Worse still, he got his way ...
  • Download PDF
    A Cautious Look at Economic Prospects Beyond the Covid-19 Disaster
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    May 27, 2020
    COVID-19 has delivered a powerful double punch to the chin of the global economy, combining a terrifying pandemic with a collapse in production because of the withdrawal into their homes of half the world’s workers. The uncertainty generated by the medical and economic shock is paralyzing consumers and investors, and the dispersion of short-term economic forecasts is far wider than at any time in modern history, about six times greater than during the Great Financial Crisis. The GD ...