Pursuing a Pro-poor Trade Liberalisation Agenda: Regionalism, Multilateralism and Poverty in Uganda, IPRA Working Paper 78

This paper compares the gains from multilateral and regional trade liberalization in context of poverty reduction—whether multilateral liberalisation can be more successful in reducing poverty in Uganda than regionalism. Using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework and benchmark data from Uganda national household survey, the results show that poverty falls in all cases (under multilateral liberalisation and different regional integration arrangements), and but poverty falls much more under multilateral trade liberalisation.This paper compares the gains from multilateral and regional trade liberalization in context of poverty reduction—whether multilateral liberalisation can be more successful in reducing poverty in Uganda than regionalism. Using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework and benchmark data from Uganda national household survey, the results show that poverty falls in all cases (under multilateral liberalisation and different regional integration arrangements), and but poverty falls much more under multilateral trade liberalisation.