Best practices, policy convergence and the WTO trade-related investment measures

International experience shows that cost-free replication and adoption of industrial best practices on a universal basis is a misconception. Rather, it is a matter of a progressive and reciprocal adaptation between external and local practices in which learning costs and times are an essential factor. The potential for convergence of policies, practices and institutions triggered by globalization appears to be greater at the macroeconomic than at the microeconomic level. This article first examines such issues in a general way and then focuses on the dilemmas facing the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other developing countries of Asia in their efforts to comply with the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) by the year 2000.