ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a series of empirical tests evaluating the impact of World Trade Organization (WTO) surveillance. In terms of evaluation of geopolitical influence, the evidence suggests that concerns about the affecting the content of WTO surveillance are largely overstated. The chapter discusses the design of the peer review process to assess whether or not the country's own submission and the WTO's evaluation said the same things or different things, and found that the probability that the reports said different things increased with the size of the country's economy. It provides an extensive evaluation of the link between trade policy reviews and trade disputes in order to learn if there were unintended consequences from the trade policy reviews. US media mentions have declined over time, and while no such trend exists with foreign media, the release of these trade policy reports is not newsworthy. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the media reaction to Chinese trade policy reviews.
