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This article reconsiders the first partial translations of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations into Swedish in light of the new translation studies. It particularly looks at one translator and explores his agenda and motivations for translating Smith and how this affects our understanding of these early translations. This article argues that, by concentrating on the translator's intentions, it is possible to shed light on the translation as a gambit in a domestic agenda and helps us re-evaluate their impact and meaning beyond the simple diffusion of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dual emphasis on the benefits of global supply chain integration and private governance to address its ethical gaps have given prominence to an inclusive vision of chains which, this paper argues, drawing on the case of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), has been greatly exaggerated. In the post-war era, SVG built a successful banana industry under a preferential agreement with the EU. When the agreement collapsed under free trade reforms, the burden of finding new forms of reintegration fell on the state and laboring classes. The paper argues that conventional supply chain approaches have adopted a static understanding of the relationship between inclusion and exclusion, overlooking the exclusionary nature of supply chains and placing too much emphasis on assessing the possibilities for private supply chain initiatives to address their negative social and environmental impacts. The effect has been to obscure the centrality of the state and laboring classes in continuing, out of necessity, to confront, manage, and address the many costs that corporations are not willing to pay. It is their centrality to managing the uneven and unpredictable nature of supply chain integration/reintegration, that is often the most hidden of all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the varying effects of trade liberalization on environmental pollution from the perspective of enterprise viability. We find that trade liberalization significantly reduces pollution emissions, and the environmental effect on low viability and high viability enterprises varies. Our results also indicate that the emissions trading policy enhances the abating effect of trade liberalization on environmental pollution in both high viability and low viability enterprises, whereas the voluntary environmental policy reduces this effect. This study not only extends the applicability of new structural economics but also presents empirical evidence for further market opening and actions to improve the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a small open economy DSGE-based New Keynesian model incorporating the demand for oil, to focus on whether the PBoC targets core inflation or headline inflation including oil price inflation, and investigating the macroeconomic effect of oil price shocks. Based on both counterfactual simulations and welfare evaluations, our results indicate that targeting both core inflation and non-core inflation are inferior to the one purely pegged to core inflation, suggesting the central bank should target core inflation instead of headline inflation. Our paper contributes to a growing literature on monetary policy in China and other emerging market economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most study on online portfolio selection algorithm focus on the theoretical derivation of optimal regret bound or empirically validates portfolio cumulative return and its variability. This study investigates the behavior of algorithm under financial crisis based on 2008 stock trading in Bursa Malaysia, a market in small open economy whereby trading actions could not exert impact to the spillover trends from US and Europe. The equity returns data generating process under this scenario is an AR process with positive lag as such algorithms arbitrate between relative growths like Anticorrelation, constant rebalancing are not performing. Whereas algorithms that search for optimal portfolio at each transaction such as Universal Portfolio, Convex Optimization approaches are able to reverse the downward trends of portfolio before market recovery, dampen downside variability and deliver lower extreme returns. We also explained the expendability and practicality of the Convex Optimization approach for future development of automated trading scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic policies on the development of Vietnam's electronics industry. We identified, reviewed, evaluated and interviewed various stakeholders in the industry about the policies implemented by the Vietnamese government during the period 1986–2017. We argue that while the policy aiming at learning through technological spillover from foreign direct investment led to the specific level of the technological development, problems during its implementation, coupled with institutional failures brought about unintended consequences. We conclude that trade liberalisation alone did not deliver the desired technological upgrading for domestic firms in Vietnam. Our paper provides policy implications for technological development in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article suggests that F. A. Hayek, one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century, may have regarded himself as classical liberal. Topics discussed include Hayek's political and economic philosophy, neoliberal attack on big government and the bureaucratic welfare state, and the establishment of the open economy.

This study aims to investigate South Korea's free trade agreement (FTA) initiative with priority given to the government's motives under the institutional structure. Two broad approaches have elaborated political leaders' motives for making a particular trade policy. The social concerns approach assumes that trade policy reflects political leaders' welfare concerns for the general public and its desire to achieve various national and international goals. In contrast, the self-interest approach presumes that political leaders tend to support a particular trade policy depending on whether the policy increases or decreases their real political incentives. By investigating structural changes of the FTA agency in South Korea, this study found that FTA motives work in different ways under different institutional structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role that trade liberalisation policies play in attracting FDI flows to African economies from 2000 to 2017. This study contributes to the extant literature on the relevance of trade liberalisation policies in developing economies and in particular, African Countries. By employing new measures for trade liberalisation policies, the study estimated a System Generalized Method of Moment model to examine the relationship between trade liberalisation policies and FDI inflows to Africa. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of policies to enhance trade liberalisation would be germane in attracting higher levels of FDI flows to African economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent free trade agreements (FTAs) have two outstanding features: they have been drawn among countries with different market size, and relatively small market-sized countries have offered implicit side payments (i.e. concessions pertaining to non-trade aspects). The present study examines FTA negotiations between two asymmetric market-sized countries (one large and the other small) in which the former is unaware of the latter's demand and is allowed to require the latter to transfer side payments. The analysis clarifies that the side payments required by the large country depend on its beliefs about the small country's demand. If the large country expects that the small country's demand is sufficiently high, the FTAs derived from the former's requirement for moderate side payments could be either building blocks or stumbling blocks to global free trade, depending not only on each country's relative market size but also on the required side payments. Otherwise, the large country's requirement for huge side payments leads to or prevents FTAs that serve as stumbling blocks to global free trade, depending on the small country's actual demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of fiscal and monetary policies on the real sector under globalization by using the dynamic panel System-Generalized Method of Moments estimator technique with a sample of 79 countries during the 1998–2018 period. The paper primarily aimed to evaluate the roles of fiscal and monetary policies on the real sector by considering aspects of globalization. The results demonstrate that globalization has significantly distorted the role of expansionary fiscal policy on the real sector. Further, the role of monetary policy on the real sector has remained reliable under globalization in developing countries but not in developed countries. Moreover, the effects of economic globalization through trade and financial liberalization on the reliability of fiscal and monetary policies were also investigated. In accordance with the effects of globalization, trade and financial liberalization were found to distort the role of fiscal policy on the real sector; however, under trade liberalization, monetary policy was more effective for the industrial and service sectors than fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forthcoming Customs Union (CU) upgrade negotiations have the potential to stabilize and deepen the ties between the European Union (EU) and Turkey and bring them to a stronger form of external differentiated integration. This article examines the viability of an EU–Turkey Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), similar to that between Ukraine and the EU, as an alternative to the CU. The paper contends that a DCFTA would benefit both the EU and Turkey while it would de facto shift the contractual relations from accession conditionality to market access conditionality with potential political repercussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between participation in localistic enclaves and labour market outcomes among internal migrants in Shenzhen, China. Using data from the 2005 mini-census, we examine native-place residential enclaves and industrial enclaves on the basis of migrants' counties of origin, residential neighbourhoods, and two-digit industrial sectors, and report four main findings. First, migrants who live in native-place residential enclaves tend to earn less than those who do not, but migrants who work in industrial enclaves tend to earn more than those working in the open economy. Second, the earnings disadvantage of new arrivals relative to established migrants is smaller in a residential enclave than that outside an ethnic enclave, and the advantage of working in industrial enclaves disappears for those new arrivals, compared to migrants who have left their place of origin more than five years. Third, the earnings return to years of schooling is smaller for migrants who live in or work in native-place enclaves than for those who do not. Finally, migrants in residential or industrial enclaves are more likely to be self-employed or to be employers. Our findings suggest that residential and economic enclaves may play different roles in labour market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only recently have researchers turned their attention to questions of financial development understood as a multidimensional concept: a combination of depth, access, efficiency, and diversity of financial providers. Using a broad-based index of financial development, we document how the different aspects of financial development affect the relationship between trade and productivity growth across countries. We find that for richer countries, financial depth and access strengthen the effects of trade openness on growth, while for poorer countries, only the degree of efficiency matters. Our results are robust to changes in sample, trade measures, and estimation strategies, and suggest the source of comparative advantage from financial development is different for countries with different levels of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile system in response to North Korea's nuclear test, leading to the Chinese government's opposition to THAAD, citing national security concerns. Chinese consumers held a large-scale "boycott for Korean products" campaign in 2014. In the same year, the China–South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) was signed. This study compares the double-difference (DID) and triple-difference (DDD) models using the impact of the THAAD political conflict on South Korean exports. In the DID model, THAAD reduced South Korean exports, while in the DDD model, the FTA effectively alleviated the impact of THAAD. The net difference of the FTA's impact on the commodities boycotted in response to the THAAD conflict exists because some boycotted commodities were promoted by the FTA while others were not. The effect of the THAAD event shock was significant only in the first two years, with minimal subsequent changes in growth. THAAD and FTA's dynamic effects provide evidence of how political conflict can eventually influence popular opinion and how the trade policy plays a significant role in the national conflict resolution. Finally, the study provides additional evidence on the effect of non-tariff barriers triggered by THAAD on the service industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional interpretation of Burke's political economy emphasised his defense of free trade, and his intellectual relationship with Smith has also been the centre of scholarly attention. This article attempts a systematic comparison between Burke and Smith and shows in detail how Burke's concern with political stability, a great source of his economic thinking, helped distinguish his political economy from that of Smith's. Burke was especially concerned with the link between the conservation of manners and social development. The differences between Burke and Smith suggest their economic thought could be read in distinct contexts of Enlightenment thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Import demand elasticities are regularly used to compute trade restrictiveness indices, to transform estimated effects of trade policies into ad-valorem equivalents, or to judge on the prohibitive level of various tariff and non-tariff policy instruments. The fast rising number of negotiations of free trade agreements and the fact that non-tariff measures are at the core of these strongly motivates for an update of the import demand elasticity estimates provided by Kee, Nicita, and Olarreaga in 2008 which are based on trade data for the period 1988–2001. Following their GDP function approach, we present import demand elasticities for more than 150 countries and over 5000 products over the period 1996–2014. Countries exhibiting the highest average elasticities belong to the economically biggest countries in their respective regions, while countries with the lowest import demand elasticities are typically small island states. Import-weighted results suggest that especially countries rich in natural resources are facing an inelastic import demand, with the agri-food sector being more price-responsive than the manufacturing sector. Finally, import demand for intermediate goods seems to be more elastic than demand for products destined for final consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While trade opening is generally welfare enhancing, it requires a reallocation of capital and labor across sectors and firms. The empirical evidence on how this reallocation works is still relatively thin. Our paper contributes to this literature by studying how the labor's share of income adjusted due to trade liberalization in India's formal manufacturing sector during the period 1998–99 to 2007–08. Our baseline model suggests that a fall in output tariffs led to an increase in the labor share while a fall in input tariffs brought about a decrease in labor share. However, once we control for factor and technology intensity of production, we find that this differential impact of tariff reduction on labor share aligns with these classifications. Tariff liberalization led to a decline in labor share in technology and capital-intensive sectors while in labor-intensive and low-tech sectors it brought about an increase. This suggests that following trade opening, demand for labor improved in labor-intensive and low-tech sectors but deteriorated in capital-intensive and high-tech sectors. India's manufacturing bias towards the latter explains the overall decline in labor share in the post-reform period. Furthermore, we find that labor adjustment occurred more efficiently in states with flexible labor laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing New Keynesian open economy literature tends to make the simplifying assumption that there is no trend inflation. In this paper, we reformulate the standard open economy model to account for positive trend inflation. We then employ the model to understand the effects of macroeconomic shocks in a small open economy when trend inflation is positive. Our main finding is that allowing for trend inflation significantly affects the dynamics of the model through real exchange rate dynamics rather than the slope of the New Keynesian Philips Curve. Specifically, higher trend inflation induces modestly more persistent real exchange rates' responses to the shocks. Further incorporation of trend inflation in an open economy enables us to discuss the Purchasing Power Parity and Delayed Overshooting Puzzles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the epidemic and a series of strict prevention and control measures taken to prevent the spread of the epidemic will have a significant impact on the entire chain and various fields of agricultural production and operation. Based on the realistic basis of China's current international cooperation in agricultural ecological environmental protection, this paper proposes an international coordination mechanism for agricultural product trade legal systems. There is a certain degree of conflict between ecological environment protection and trade facilitation and liberalisation, but they are not completely uncoordinated. Therefore, the establishment of a set of coordination mechanisms that can restrain and encourage countries to carry out international cooperation plays a key role in resolving the conflict between the two. In addition, this paper analyzes the legal regulation of agricultural trade in the post-epidemic era through intelligent model analysis and proposes corresponding countermeasures. Through analysis and research, it also provides a corresponding reference for legal regulations of agricultural trade in the post-epidemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the philosophy of internal relations, this study examines the dialectical relationship between internal and external factors, which shaped the emergence and transformation of transnational capital in Turkey. The study examines the expansion of global free trade through uneven and combined development, which derives its forms of existence and contradictions from historically specific social formations. This study uncovers how the expansion of global free trade with the so-called 'emerging powers' can be understood with specific reference to transnational capital in Turkey. It then argues that unevenness is always created at the global and regional level and shows how the state and transnational capital in Turkey have combined with global imperialism to produce the current phase of capitalism in Turkey. It suggests that global free trade deepened the time- and scale-based unevenness between the different fractions of capital in Turkey, which has given an uncontested hegemony to transnational capital over other capital fractions. In conclusion, it examines the impact of the global economic crisis, which started in 2018 and intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 on the operations of the state and transnational capital in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the trade creation and export diversion effects of different Australia's free trade agreements (FTAs) using the panel data from 1996 to 2017. The heteroscedasticity robust Regression Error Specification Test confirms the relevance of Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimator over Ordinary Least Square estimator. Results showed that the total trade creation effects of FTAs in wheat trade is higher than Intra block export diversion. The exhausted wheat exports potentiality from Australia to the countries like Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines has suggested seeking for additional potential markets based on demand in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International fragmentation phenomenon has dramatically changed the pattern of international trade. Instead of exchange of finished goods, the so-called global value chain (GVC) involves multi-stages production process across geographical borders, probing for its impact of gain from trade. Using recently developed multi-regional input–output (MRIO) tables, this paper examines and compares wage inequality effects of trading with Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), BRICS and ASEAN economies in Malaysia. A combination of MRIO model and inequality accounting framework has been exploited to quantify skills (i.e. low, medium, high) and ethnics wage inequality. The results show that Malaysia could have significantly experienced high wage inequality at different skill categories and across ethnic groups when trade with TPPA, suggesting the mega trade deal potentially risks existing efforts for equitable distribution. In particular, Chinese ethnics, who are commonly employed in high productive sectors, benefit the most compared to Malays and Indians. In contrast, exports to the BRICS and ASEAN countries have minimal effects on wage inequality, where regional trade could be more effective in reducing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the Computable General Equilibrium Model (CGE) of an open economy to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on an open economy and industry sub-sectors, using the 2017 China Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) table data. The results have shown that, overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed the economy extensively. The residential sector has been the most severely affected sector, particularly the hotels and catering services industries. Resident consumption demand is the most deeply affected part of all industries in all scenarios. Stabilizing employment and expanding demand is therefore an important mission for the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developed economies, macroeconomic indicators such as unemployment and price indices tend to predict new credit expansion. We explore whether business and consumer surveys complement traditional macroeconomic variables in predicting new household and corporate loans in the following 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. Using monthly data for Slovakia, starting in 2009 and ending in 2019, we use Bayesian model averaging to examine 102 potential credit drivers. Our results show that, with the exception of interest rates and unemployment, traditional macroeconomic variables do not seem to drive credit market development. Instead, survey-based perceptions, calendar effects and policy uncertainty show relevant predictive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Golden Age (1950–1973), Portugal stood out in the international scene, converging economically with the group of more industrialised economies. In this paper, we start by analysing the main factors that explain the extraordinary economic performance of Portugal during that crucial period of its history. Next, we construct and estimate a dynamic model to quantify the relationship between those factors and the Portuguese economic growth in the time horizon that stretches from the Golden Age to present days. The results obtained show that investment and international trade have been contributing positively to economic growth of Portugal in the last decades, 1950–2018. The conclusions of this paper, which are in line with the international literature, reinforce the importance for Portuguese decision-makers to adopt political measures to open the economy and to create favourable conditions for investment in order to obtain a faster economic growth that allows a robust convergence with the most industrialized nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relative effects of the different types of international financial flows on economic performance in Kenya both in the long- and short-runs using the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) bounds approach and data for the period 1970 to 2017. This is against the backdrop of the government of Kenya which has targeted attracting foreign capital inflows as one of the key measures to achieving the economic pillar of the Kenya Vision 2030. The aim is to achieve an economic growth rate of 10 per cent annually and sustaining the same until 2030. After a very rigorous and careful model selection exercise, the results robustly reveal a very strong long-run causality running solely from portfolio equity to economic growth with a positive and significant effect on economic growth. In the short-run, the effect of portfolio equity on economic growth is also very positively strong. In contrast, all the other capital flows have very weak long-run relationship with economic growth with causality running only from economic growth to the capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyses the role of RTAs in determining the export efficiency of India using a stochastic frontier version of the gravity model. We estimate the impact of select RTAs (bilateral, SAFTA, APTA, ASEAN, and MERCOSUR trade bloc) and the partner nation's regulatory quality on India's export efficiency throughout 2008–2018. The findings suggest that India has been substantially able to exploit exports efficiency to its trading partners under FTAs (ASEAN&SAFTA) and bilateral agreements compared to PTAs (MERCOSER&APTA); however, India's exports are yet quite far from the potential frontier. Excluding APTA, all other agreements are statistically significant, implying that joining trade agreements augments India's export efficiency. The study finds that the regulatory quality of importing nations bears a significant positive impact on India's export efficiency. This highlights the importance of good institutions and better regulatory quality in realizing the potential level of exports with partner nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional economic theory of international trade has, from its inception, played a crucial role in sustaining the doctrine of economic policy that promotes free foreign trade overall as something beneficial for all parties involved. The paper specifically stresses the need, when assessing the consequences of free international trade (i.e., free imports) on social-economic well-being, to perform analyses that distinguish between social-sectors (within this or that country), as opposed to the usual practice of doing so at the whole country level. It is also discussed here the standard (implicit) assumption that there are sufficient possibilities regarding comparative advantages for every country in the world to exploit one to develop its exports to the point of countervailing the value of its imports under a no-tariffs rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published in 2020, Patrick Porter's I The False Promise of Liberal Order i is set in this twin context of the Trump presidency and the backlash from the liberal internationalist establishment. The liberal internationalist ideas came to animate US foreign policy conduct in the post-Cold War years which is a subject of criticism in Porter's book from a realist perspective. The coming of Donald Trump to power as the 45 SP th sp President of the United States amounted to a moment of reckoning for the American foreign policy establishment. [Extracted from the article]

This paper explores the effects of import competition on the manufacturing sector in Chile following the implementation of the country's two largest Free Trade Agreements (FTA) (with the USA and China). Exploiting cross-industry variation in import exposure, we analyse the effects on manufacturing sales, employment and labour productivity at the finest level of industrial classification (4 digit ISIC level). We detect an overall negative effect of increased Chinese import penetration, owing to substitution effects from low and medium tech imports and a less pronounced effect from USA imports. By introducing interaction effects, we find that the levels of foreign ownership and the export intensity of the domestic industries reverse the negative effect due to the opportunities offered via participation in global value chains. An IV strategy is applied to address standard endogeneity concerns and confirm the robustness of our estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary economics speaks about trade in the familiar abstractions of comparative advantage, tracing the modern formulation of the case for free trade made in terms of welfare maximization to late-Victorian economists like W. Stanley Jevons and Alfred Marshall. Though Jevons and Marshall did formalize theories that treat countries as if they are abstract individuals, a closer reading suggests that their thinking on trade was informed by colonial imaginaries of civilization and race. The economics invented by Jevons and Marshall manages claims about human sameness and difference in a particularly colonial fashion. They both slide readily and uncertainly between the idea that parts of humanity are permanently lesser races and explaining lesser humans as simply developmentally backward. The latter might achieve full physiological and moral humanity over time through the improvements (and attendant but necessary suffering) administered by Empire via market competition. They sometimes point to a common set of desires and calculating capacities, but never so decisively as contemporary economics. Jevons takes these commonalities as the basis of a quantitative science of economics, but doubts their empirical universality. Marshall sees these traits as distinctively modern and achieved only via the rise of modern institutions. By contrast, contemporary economics insists on the universality of these traits, claiming for economics a distinctive "analytical egalitarianism." But difference is only defined away by fiat in contemporary textbooks and where difference arises, as in the problem of uneven development, the colonial impulse of economics remains. The connection to Jevons' and Marshall's own colonial management of difference becomes sharply visible. To return to Jevons and Marshall allows us to provincialize economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most theoretical and empirical accounts of trade politics focus on political conflict among competing private interest groups and over policies between the dichotomy of trade liberalization and protectionism. This article challenges this conceptualization by arguing that issues of antitrust, market power, and competition are central to the politics over free trade, and that in this domain state actors are comparatively more important. Original archival evidence from the American New Deal and post-war foreign economic policy shows that post-war free-trade policies were heavily influenced by views, formed in the 1930s, about domestic industrial organization and antitrust. These preferences were then pushed into international economic policy during and after World War II through trade negotiations, extraterritorial application of American law, and pressure for domestic competition laws abroad. In one of the most prominent episodes of trade liberalization, an antitrust campaign and debate permeated trade issues, based in independent state learning and economic preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of trade liberalization on wages, inequality, and employment in middle-income countries remains an important empirical question. However, with few exceptions, most of the empirical literature has focused on aggregate impacts at a national or regional level and the effects on skilled versus unskilled workers. This paper focuses on the effects of trade liberalization on industry-specific wages, earnings, and employment in rural and urban areas of Peru, providing more nuanced evidence on the distributional effects of trade. We use an instrumental variable approach and different measures of trade liberalization for the 2001–2016 period. Our main results suggest that, first, trade openness is associated with an increase in urban workers' earnings and wages, with self-employed workers benefitting the most. Second, whereas wages of workers with low and high levels of education decrease as a consequence of trade openness, the earnings of self-employed workers are affected positively, benefiting unskilled workers the most. In addition, while earnings increase in almost all industries in both rural and urban areas, effects are heterogeneous for wages. Overall, both salaried and self-employed agricultural workers benefitted from trade openness, indicative that agriculture is a competitive sector with important export potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2018, the African Union (AU) agreed to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to the free flow of goods and services within Africa. Simultaneously, the AU adopted a protocol supporting the free movement of persons between the countries of Africa. Both are considered necessary for the successful social and economic development of the countries of the African continent. As of January 2021, 54 countries had signed the AfCFTA and 35 countries had fully ratified, whereas 33 countries had signed the Free Movement of Persons (FMP) Protocol and only four countries had fully ratified. Yet, barriers against migration within the African continent have been falling. This article analyses the reasons for the slow adoption of the protocol, looks at how the free movement agenda is progressing despite that, and suggests ways of moving the protocol and its agenda forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge is an essential ingredient for economic development, growth and gaining a competitive advantage. In order to produce novel and valuable knowledge, it is advantageous, perhaps vital, to rely on insights gained from prior research efforts. Those knowledge spillovers (KS) provide the rationale for sustained economic growth and produce unique place-based knowledge spaces. Due to the spatial embeddedness and stickiness of knowledge, most investigations mainly pay attention to the localized nature of KS, but what about those spillovers from other jurisdictions, or perhaps even from across the globe? To analyse the role played by international KS, the present study investigates to what extent international KS shape the evolution of the UK science and technology space. The first step involves creating knowledge spaces following the methodology outlined by Kogler et al. (2013; 2017) for the period 2006-15. Subsequently, we are following the paper trail of publications and patents developed by UK authors and inventors to depict to what degree international KS in specific science and technology domains have contributed to the production of novel knowledge in the UK. The results indicate that four out of five citations made in publications and patents in the UK are the works of authors and inventors residing elsewhere. This has important policy implications considering recent tendencies to curtail trade and the free movement of labour, all of which contribute to the diffusion of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The happiness of citizens has long been the focus of all national governments. From a perspective of import trade liberalization, this paper uses 2010–2015 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data to analyse whether import trade liberalization can improve national happiness and through which channels. The results show that import trade liberalization can significantly improve individual happiness and promote the happiness of citizens in the central region. When individuals are high-educated or high-income ones, trade liberalization can make them come out of the feelings of unhappiness more quickly. The trade liberalization can consolidate the happiness foundation of rural residents and improve the feelings of very happy of the urban ones. Further mechanism analysis demonstrates that import trade liberalization can improve individual happiness by enhancing individual fitness and marketization of the provinces where the individual is settled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition process in the Western Balkan Countries (W.B.C.) is followed by efforts focused on modernisation and industrial manufacture growth. However, industries in these countries are still under the pressure of the need for restructuring and the rules of an open market. Opening towards the world and transferring new technologies are related processes. Although they are of the same importance, adoption of new technologies is a process which is more demanding than trade liberalisation process. Technological and trade openness pander to other factors of development and contribute to higher efficiency of investments. Industrial manufacture growth spurs economic growth. Furthermore, share of industrial production in G.D.P. as dependent variable represents the scope and quality of industrial development. The hypothesis is that the share of industrial production in G.D.P. is affected by: Technological readiness, Manufacture value added and Merchandise trade as well as Gross investments and Innovations. Results of panel analysis indicate that Technological readiness, Manufacture value added and Gross investments have positive and significant impact on industrial development. Negative coefficient of merchandise trade liberalisation in the panel model implies slowdown of industrial development, and one of the reasons is continuously high merchandise trade deficit in W.B.C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though trade tariffs have generally fallen since the GATT agreement, non-tariff trade barriers still exist and show an upward trend. An important type of non-tariff trade barrier is logistics service related to the transport of goods to foreign markets. Efficient logistics is of great importance for small and open economies such as the Central and Eastern European EU member countries that became EU members in 2004 or later and are in the process of economic convergence with the old EU member countries, mostly through trade. On the other hand, logistics is important for old EU member countries because it influences competitiveness in global supply chains. The aim of this paper is to examine the homogeneity of the two blocks of EU countries in terms of logistics performance, i.e. to examine the impact of logistics performance on the international bilateral trade of the EU15 and CEMS with the rest of the world in the period 2010–2018. We develop and estimate a structural gravity model with Poisson pseudo-maximum probability estimator, using the LPI and its sub-indices as the main independent variables of interest. Our results show that differences in LPI values have heterogenous impact on bilateral trade, especially when considering trade in different classes of goods and different groups of country pairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the interconnections between sovereign debt and the competitiveness of nations in the aftermath of the recent sovereign debt crises in the Eurozone. Further, it identifies new challenges to improving competitiveness. Based on a deductive approach, we analyse secondary data regarding sovereign debt and competitiveness in 28 EU countries for the period from 2006 to 2017. We also look at the recent theoretical developments in the competitiveness of companies, nations, and regions with the goal of identifying the new challenges to Portuguese competitiveness. In the period under analysis, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal had considerable losses in competitiveness and increases in their sovereign debt ratio. Despite benefiting directly from Porter's insights into improving the country's competitiveness, the Portuguese sovereign debt ratio has increased steeply. A previous analysis identified a path; however, there are new challenges such as those associated with EU competitiveness, shared value, and smart connected products. These need to be considered to support the creation of new strategies and policies for a small and open economy. Based on our analysis, we argue that competitiveness-oriented policies must more explicitly consider the negative implications of sovereign debt, and must recognize the new challenges to competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship among trade openness, economic growth and poverty level in 40 sub-Saharan Africa countries from 1990 to 2017. Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, Panel Vector Auto-regression (VAR) and the System of Generalised Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) were employed. A robustness test was also applied. The sensitivity analysis was done through the Panel ARDL model. The results revealed that trade openness, foreign direct investment and institutional quality significantly increase economic growth in the long term, while institutional quality reduces economic growth in the short run. Furthermore, trade liberalisation, institutional quality and population growth rate lead to poverty reduction in the long run, while trade openness has adverse effects in the short run. Moreover, poverty does not have a significant response to trade and growth shocks. Poverty presented a positive change but the level was not significant. The Pairwise Dumitrescu Hurlin Panel Causality results highlight feedback effects among trade, economic growth and poverty level in the region. Based on these findings, the study recommends that governments in Africa should reviewed their poverty reduction programmes in order to move towards achieving the sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of the foreign acquisition on domestic firms' R&D activities using a firm-level dataset. We exploit a rich dataset of South Korea, which is a representative small open economy. We find that foreign takeover leads to increased R&D expenditures, which are more outsourced. The effect stood out after the global financial crisis, for listed companies and companies that rely on trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But even in this narrow field, deterrence will primarily rest with internal balancing - flowing from the US and its large fleet, which currently stands at 68 nuclear subs.[23] Second, China and Russia on some issues balance against the US, which at times marginally increases China's influence. Most sections also consider a 20-year horizon, depending on both the type of revisionist state that China will be and whether the United States remains a status quo-oriented state, as it would under a moderate or centrist administration, or if it returns to a more revisionist one, as it was during the Trump administration and may once again become if a far-left or far-right US government is elected. China will remain a conservative revisionist in trade, but tensions will likely worsen As a conservative revisionist on trade, China will continue to broadly respect WTO decisions and at least limit subsidies and grey area practices. The previous system would have served the interests of the United States and its allies; under Cold Peace, the United States as former hegemon should be the relatively status quo power, and China the relatively revisionist one.[29] But what kind of revisions might China seek?. [Extracted from the article]

This work present results of an analysis of supply, use, and production of obsidian artifacts in Tepeticpac and Metepec, two settlements of Late Postclassic (a.d. 1250/1300–1519) Tlaxcallan. The first sample (n = 9222) was recovered in two architectural compounds at Tepeticpac, a first-order settlement and part of the Tlaxcallan urban core. Tepeticpac materials exhibit a strong focus on prismatic blade production intended mainly for ceremonial or ritual use. The second sample (n = 14,915) comes from an architectural compound and a nearby obsidian discard area in Metepec, a peripheral second-order site. Metepec artifacts focused on the production of blades and bifacials, with greater evidence of different phases of obsidian processing indicating the presence of a nearby obsidian workshop. Comparison of obsidian craft production from both sites points towards decentralized craft production at Tlaxcallan and an open market economy for obsidian acquisition and consumption but also to marked political and socioeconomic hierarchies within the polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cambodia and Ghana, the promotion of women's equal rights to food and land has occurred in parallel with processes of trade liberalization and agricultural commercialization. This article considers how a feminist methodology that foregrounds the right to food and inter-related human rights could identify the inequalities engendered and sustained in rural communities through neo-liberal agricultural development. An explicitly feminist approach to the implementation of the right to food demands that we focus on dynamic, intersectional and contexualized relations of power to go beyond the top-down, apolitical and technical focus of mainstream laws and policies on gender and agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international community is facing the dilemma of an insufficient supply of public goods due to the conjunction of various forces and factors including the profound impact of the economic crisis, increased trade protectionism, changes in the global governance system and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a non-rivalrous and non-excludable public good provided to the international community by China as a responsible major country in the new era of historical development. International law has an important role in promoting and guaranteeing the supply of international public goods (IPGs). Since the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, the international governance environment has changed dramatically, with the rule of law being the basic premise and important guarantee of the long-term and smooth implementation of the BRI. In pursuing the BRI, buttressed as it is by the rule of law, China should pay attention to diversified governance based on a combination of international soft and hard law and make judicious use of existing bilateral, regional and multilateral international legal mechanisms. In addition, China must also pay close attention to the latest developments in international economic and trade rules and must innovate and improve its ability to supply rules for investment, trade liberalization, etc. Buttressed by international law, the BRI should focus not only on recent concrete initiatives in trade and investment liberalization, but also on the long-term planning and sustainable development of institutional supply, so as to realize the vision and goals of the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article views analysis of the influence of capital–labour income distribution on economic growth from a historical perspective, using data from 1900 onwards. We study the three Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where conventional accounts of the postwar growth miracles in these small, open economies have emphasized the role of wage restraint, favouring profits and investment over consumption. Instead, we show that the 1950s and 1960s saw growing wage shares, and use the Bhaduri–Marglin model to econometrically analyse the effects on consumption, investment, exports and imports and the total effects on GDP. Furthermore, we estimate the effects of wage pressure on labour productivity. Growing wage shares have had a small positive effect on GDP growth in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the positive effect was larger in the postwar period than in other times. However, the positive growth effects of wage pressure were modest as the demand was only weakly wage-led. In contrast, supply side effects were large. Labour productivity was stimulated by vigorous wage increases, as argued by the Swedish Rehn–Meidner model as well as by post-Keynesian economists. The present investigation opens several further avenues for research on the distribution–growth nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new perspective on British free traders' economic thought in the first half of the twentieth century. Former studies have exclusively focused on the aspect of consumerism and idealistic internationalism as the characteristics of British free trade ideology. In so doing, they have overlooked another important aspect of British free traders' thought. That is, especially within the tradition of left-leaning liberals or New Liberals, the discourse of producerism and a kind of economic nationalism emphasising the home market rather than the external market paradoxically coexisted with fervent support for free trade. This paper elucidates that overlooked tradition of producerism and economic nationalism within liberal economic thought, mainly based on the analysis of the works of J. A. Hobson and J. M. Keynes. Both Hobson and Keynes are known to have frequently changed their opinions on external economic policy, and there has been controversy over how their changing economic thought should be interpreted. This article also suggests an original coherent interpretation regarding this matter by observing the contradictory coexistence of economic nationalism and free trade ideology within the liberal tradition and sheds new light on both Hobson's and Keynes's economic thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to study the significance of international trade-union cooperation during the first two post-Second-World-War decades as regards the development of a more liberal labour-migration regime in Western Europe. The article illuminates the mutual interplay between the national and international level of the trade-union movement. Mainly, it focuses on discussions within the International Metalworkers' Federation, but also the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Thereby it creates an analytical bridge between the two different structures of the socialist/social democratic international trade-union movement. The article shows that trade unionists generally articulated positive attitudes to migration, at least as long as they were possible to control. Trade unionists connected migration with population and reconstruction issues, and tied movements of labour to a broader policy that aimed at a more effective use of all the means of production available. At the same time, they construed migration as a short-term solution to counter imbalances in Europe between the supply and demand for labour. The goal in the longer run was national labour markets in full employment, where all workers had similar conditions, which would decrease migration incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]