Reinventing Bretton Woods CommitteeBangkok Economic Festival
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A New Deal for Global Trade:

A Dialogue on a Progressive Agenda

Date
Thursday 15 October
Time
18:00 to 21:00
Venue
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

Session partners

Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University

Overview

This lecture and discussion launches “Toward a New Deal for Global Trade: A Progressive Agenda”, the new paper by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martín Guzmán, which argues that neoliberal trade delivered neither the inclusive growth nor the growth it promised, in rich and poor countries alike. Martín Guzmán presents the paper’s argument and its proposals on governance, intellectual property, digitalization, and coalition-building among the Global South and progressive actors in advanced economies. There will be a dialogue with a high-ranking interlocutor from the WTO and a moderated question and answer session.

Guiding Questions

  • What does a trade regime designed for endogenous learning and structural transformation look like, and how does it differ fundamentally from the neoliberal framework?
  • How can developing countries reclaim policy space for industrial strategy, technology acquisition, and competitive real exchange rate management within a reformed multilateral system?
  • What intellectual property reforms would enable knowledge diffusion from advanced to developing economies rather than perpetuating technological gaps?
  • How should the WTO governance structure change to reflect the interests and priorities of the developing majority rather than corporate interests in advanced economies?
  • What coalition-building strategies among developing countries and progressive actors in advanced economies are necessary to advance a new trade agenda?

Session Programme

  1. Registration and cocktail reception

  2. Welcome remarks by Nopphol Witvorapong (Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University) and Henning Effner (FES-Thailand)

  3. "World Trade Report 2026 " by Robert Staiger (WTO Chief Economist, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division and Loren M. Berry Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College )

  4. Presentation of the main arguments of the Stiglitz/Guzmán report by Martín Guzmán (co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University Business School and former Minister of Economy of the Republic of Argentina)

  5. Fireside conversation titled: "A New Deal for Global Trade: A Dialogue on a Progressive Agenda" by Martín Guzmán and Robert Staiger, moderated by Nat Tharnpanich (Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University)

  6. Q&A

On the Programme

Nopphol WitvorapongFaculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University
Henning EffnerFES-Thailand
Robert StaigerWTO Chief Economist, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division
Martín GuzmánCo-President, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University
Nat TharnpanichFaculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University (moderator)

In the Room

Photographs courtesy of Chulalongkorn University.

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Day’s Video

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