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Seaborne shipping is the dominant mode of transport in international trade in agricultural products, and an increasing part of seaborne agricultural trade is carried in containers. Furthermore, the majority of world containers are moved through liner shipping services, that is, regular transport services provided by global shipping companies which comprise a dense network connecting ports and countries around the world. Using a theoretically consistent gravity equation and a novel identification strategy based on the use of intra‐national trade flows, this paper investigates the effect of liner shipping connectivity on international trade in agricultural products. The results show that liner shipping connectivity has a positive and statistically significative effect on agricultural trade. Moreover, this positive effect can be observed for the majority of the agricultural products analysed and is also identified for countries at different stages of development. These findings appear especially relevant in terms of the objective of increasing less developed countries' participation in global agricultural trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glazed tiles were prestigious building materials reserved for embellishing the roofs of royal architectures of ancient states in East Asia. This paper, by studying glazed tiles from the palace precincts of Shangjingcheng, Xigucheng, and Baliancheng, three capital cities of the Bohai state (698–926 ad), aims to expose the vibrant technological and economic interactions among ancient states of East Asia untold in historical chronicles. Although it is well recorded that Bohai maintained intimate political, cultural, and commercial engagements with the Tang empire and the Yamato state, it is obscure what kinds of technology and commodities were involved in these activities. It appears that the bodies of these tiles were produced of local iron‐rich clays, and the glazes were made of compounds of the same clays and lead materials. The glazing technique may have been transmitted from the Tang empire yet modified in response to local circumstances. Lead materials were acquired from various sources, partly from the one for the Huangye sancai wares in the Tang empire, and partly from the one for Nara sancai wares of the Yamato state in Japan. Archaeology is therefore capable of enriching our knowledge of the human past, even in the historical period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of externally funded trade policy reforms on firm productivity by combining data from the International Aid Transparency Initiative and World Bank Enterprise Surveys. By specifying baseline and end‐line surveys based on the 2006 to 2020 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, we find that 70 of 83 countries received external funds for trade policy reforms, and primarily use records based on 45,886 firms with data on productivity across these countries. Applying difference‐in‐differences and triple‐difference techniques, this paper finds that the impact of externally funded trade policy reforms is significant, accounting for 12% of firms' average productivity growth in the recipient countries relative to firms in non‐recipient countries. We also show that externally funded trade policy reforms improve firms' international‐trade‐climate in the recipient countries by 0.17 standard deviations, which translates into a 27% increase in the average productivity of firms with a good international‐trade‐climate in recipient countries over that of firms in non‐recipient countries and firms with poor international trade climate in recipient countries. These results suggest that interventions should focus on financing trade policy reforms that are more likely to improve the international‐trade‐climate of firms in the recipient countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of globalization economy, countries in the world are more and more closely connected in business, and international import and export trade has also achieved rapid development. Based on the analysis of the status quo of the country's import and export trade, this article combines the main national economic indicators to analyze and study the algorithm of import and export trade forecasting. RVM is a sparse probability model and a new supervised learning method. Firstly, this paper introduces the protection system of block chain technology for import and export trade data information. Then, a hybrid RVM model is constructed, which is optimized by PSO algorithm, and the import and export volume is predicted based on this model. Based on the analysis of the data, it is tested that the security protection coefficient of the blockchain security technology for import and export trade data can reach up to 99.9%, and the accuracy of the import and export trade forecast based on the PSO optimized hybrid RVM model can reach up to 85.79%. A series of experiments show that the import and export trade forecast model studied in this paper can accurately predict the volume of import and export trade, thus providing a new method for the country's import and export trade, with high practical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the recent changes in the supply and demand of dairy products, many opportunities arise for exporting and importing countries. This paper examines determinants of dairy‐product trade by applying the Poisson Pseudo‐Maximum Likelihood (PPML) method to the gravity model using panel data on 49 exporting and 235 importing countries for the 17 years from 2000 to 2016. The gravity model is estimated using both interval data and dynamic analyses. The results show that domestic subsidies have a modest, but significant, impact on dairy‐product trade across the models. For example, a 1% increase in subsidies leads to a roughly 0.02% increase in trade for an average country. Memberships in trade agreements, market size factors, and government institutions also positively affect dairy‐product trade. However, tariffs are insignificant in the main model specification. Results from the lag‐policy analysis show that the impact of subsidies disappears after the second year of distribution; whereas for the lead‐policy analysis, results suggest at least 3 years of anticipatory effects on domestic subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how global trade shapes and intensifies disasters. Juxtaposing three basic, everyday consumer goods – a t‐shirt, a brick, and a tea bag – with disasters manifesting in their respective global supply chains, it highlights how climate change, local environmental degradation, and carbon emissions are dynamically shaped by consumption. Analysis of data collected in South and Southeast Asia reveals that local environmental degradation linked to international trade interacts with global climate change and the policies intended to mitigate it, influencing how and where disasters manifest. Underpinning this analysis is the physical and conceptual presence of the container. With more and more of the natural environment packaged and redistributed for global trade, the container thinking that underpins these logistics is increasingly imbricated in environmental processes. Indeed, as this paper aims to show, the container logic that frames analysis of these processes – linked to and drawn from the logistics of global trade – serves as both obfuscator and actor in the global landscape of environmental risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the use of Flegg's location quotients (FLQ) and proposes a novel procedure for the estimation of the unknown parameter δ in regions with and without input–output frame availability. Applied to data for the Korean regions for the year 2015, firstly the determination of the optimal δ is addressed by solving a general optimization problem and, secondly, a regression equation is proposed to estimate the value of δ from the explanatory variables of interregional road freight transport (IRFT) and imports from the rest of the world (IROW). The results obtained show a lower bias in regard to the true values of the regional inputs coefficients in relation to other methods based on location quotients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the direct and combined impacts of trade facilitation and information and communication technology (ICT) on bilateral flows of 25 sub‐Saharan countries. For that purpose, we select time to export and import as specific trade facilitation indicators and broadband use to study ICT impacts. Our sample covers a total of 93 countries over the period 2004–2018. By preprocessing data analysis, we impute time costs missing values, an essential shortcoming of the available databases, to study trade facilitation over time. Lastly, we employ a gravity model and implement a Bonus Vetus Estimation. Our results show that broadband use exerts a positive and significant effect on trade, especially relevant for intra‐African trade flows. Furthermore, the combined effects indicate that broadband also modulates the negative impacts of time to export and time to import in the case of intra‐SSA countries' trade. The more significant result is found for time to export. Our results also confirm that time costs are not only particularly harmful to intra‐African trade but also negatively impact trade flows from SSA countries to the rest of the world. These outcomes show the importance of coordinating trade facilitation and digital transformation policies, particularly those devoted to digitally transforming African customs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International affairs has a gender problem. Despite a rise in feminist‐informed foreign policy in some corners of the globe, gendered (and racialised, heteronormative, classist, and so on) power structures continue to impact women's representation internationally. This paper seeks to know why. Using Australia as a case study, it explores four premier international affairs agencies, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence (inclusive of the Department of Defence and Australian Defence Force), Department of Home Affairs, and the Australian Federal Police, to answer: Why do women remain under‐represented in international affairs? Using feminist institutionalist theory, this article argues that three core reasons underline women's under‐representation: (1) historical legacies that maintain masculine supremacy in the field; (2) contemporary layering and duplication of gendered challenges across individual, agency, diplomatic field, and society contexts; and (3) the compounding effect of challenges at different stages of women's careers, lives, and posting cycles. In addition, this paper reveals surprising findings, including that more militaristic agency structures result in more proportional representation of women compared with more bureaucratic agency structures, inverting conventional theory on militaries as the most male‐dominated and patriarchal spheres of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the potential implications of the implementation of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement for Ghana in terms of trade, welfare and revenue effects. By applying the WITS‐SMART simulation model on 2018 disaggregated international trade data, the paper finds that total trade effects in Ghana are likely to surge by US$ 148.3 million while promoting consumers' welfare by US$ 8.597 million. However, revenue losses are imminent as the country might experience a drop in tariff revenue of US$ 8.604 million. Overall, the free trade area is expected to improve on the country's trade balance as exports are envisaged to outweigh imports. In order to mitigate the revenue losses, the paper recommends that the country keep substantial portion of tariff lines for sensitive and excluded products over a longer period during the liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the complexities of global food trade requires an overarching framework with which to address its network and territorial topologies, while avoiding the duality. In this paper, I propose the framework of "border assemblages" to supplement and rework existing approaches to food regimes and global networks, focusing on the extraterritorial reach of the global food trade. Specifically, this paper highlights the (de‐/re‐) territorialization processes of the border assemblages involved in the formation of food geopolitics and geoeconomics in the global food trade amidst biosecurity and food safety crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to the imposition of economic sanctions intended to isolate Russia from much of global commerce, which implicitly includes the medical research enterprise. The prospect of ongoing isolation of Russia's substantial research enterprise raises issues related to but distinct from the more familiar problem of corruption. In this paper, we identify reasons that the culture of research ethics in Russia may have been weak even before the war, contributing to hard questions about its future role in the global clinical research community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding international transmission mechanism that generates the world business cycle is of immense interest. In this paper, we compile a rich global dataset and utilize a trade‐linked structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model with a relatively realistic identification scheme to construct a worldwide dynamic interdependency system. Empirical results indicate that the trade‐linked SVAR system can largely capture the common dynamic properties of national business cycle fluctuations, providing a meaningful transmission foundation to the world business cycle derived from dynamic factor models. Based on the worldwide trade‐linked SVAR system, we further shed light on three crucial topics in international economics. The findings and methods in this paper help to evaluate the macroeconomic consequences of recent trade dispute between world major economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of Covid‐19 lockdowns on exports by Chinese cities. We use city‐level export data at a monthly frequency from January 2018 through April 2020. Differences‐in‐differences estimates suggest cities in lockdown experienced a ceteris paribus 34 percentage points reduction in the year‐on‐year growth rate of exports. The lockdown impacted the intensive and extensive margin, with higher exit and lower new entry into foreign markets. The drop in exports was smaller in (i) coastal cities; (ii) cities with better‐developed ICT infrastructure; and (iii) cities with a larger share of potential teleworkers. Time‐sensitive and differentiated goods experienced a more pronounced decline in export growth. Global supply chain characteristics matter, with more upstream products and industries that had accumulated larger inventories experiencing a smaller decline in export growth. Also, products that relied more on imported (domestic) intermediates experienced a sharper (flatter) slowdown in export growth. The rapid recovery in cities' exports after lockdowns were lifted suggests the policy was cost‐effective in terms of its effects on trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite contributions, most of the studies on electronic‐telecommunications trade are conducted within the framework of a global value chain and mainly based on an enterprise‐level. The global trade structure and dynamics of electronic‐telecommunications are still mysterious. In this paper, by deriving trade data of electronic‐telecommunications between countries (regions) from the UN Comtrade Database, characteristics in product, space and network of the global electronic‐telecommunications trade from 2000 to 2017 are explored, and the factors influencing its evolution. The results indicate that telecommunications equipment is gradually replacing electronic integrated circuits, thus leading the development of global trade on electronic‐telecommunications. In space, the global import pattern of electronic‐telecommunications has always been a tri‐polar pattern dominated by Asia‐Pacific, Europe, and North America, while the geography of global electronic‐telecommunications export has undergone fundamental changes, most notably the rise of the East Asia region represented by Mainland China. The global trade center in electronic and communication products has changed from USA to China. In terms of network structure, the global electronic‐telecommunications trade network continues to expand, showing significant small‐world and core‐peripheral characteristics, and a more competitive multi‐centric core is observed. In addition, Quadratic Assignment Procedure analysis indicates that culture proximity, innovation differences, and manufacturing differences have a positive effect on the international trade, while geographical distance, economic gap, openness gap, trade gap, and infrastructure gap play negative roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networks describe a wide range of systems in nature and society including examples the Internet, metabolic networks, electric power grids, supply chains, and the world trade Web among many others. The stability and reliability of a network are of prime importance to network designers. The domination number and its various, for example, bondage number, reinforcement number, etc. have been used network vulnerability parameters. Very recently, the average lower bondage number has been defined by Turacı in Reference [27]. In this paper, the average lower bondage number of the corona graphs and join graphs of given any two graphs G1 and G2 have been investigated, also exact formulas have been obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade in cotton cloth and dammar in late nineteenth‐century Sulawesi passed through three distinct exchange spheres mediated by barter. The highland end users transformed European‐made cloth into a special‐purpose money like the classic case of brass rods among the Tiv. In contrast to Bohannon's treatment of the Tiv, I set the highlanders' use of cloth money in the same analytic frame as the money of European trading companies and their local intermediaries. Each of these three exchange spheres utilized a different special‐purpose money, each of which performed only a few of the functions of general‐purpose money. European traders utilized "financial paper" as a "means of exchange" with European partners. They utilized a system of "bookkeeping barter" to manage the trade with their local intermediaries, where money now served as a "standard of value" and "unit of account." Lastly, the highlanders utilized the cotton cloth they bartered for dammar as a "means of payment" but not as a "means of exchange." By examining the terms by which money was socially embedded in all three exchange spheres, we gain an alternate perspective on the creation of many of the classic "social currencies" emerging out of early international trade networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates food safety concerns raised in the Brexit debate since the referendum and suggests that, although the issue of chlorinated chicken entered public discourse, it represents wider concerns about food safety standards. Food safety has had high resonance in the UK since the 1980s, but Brexit shows how it connects to wider concerns also raised about Brexit, such as impacts on healthcare, the effects of austerity on food poverty, the limitations of low waged employment, concerns about migration and labour markets, and regional economic disparities. Brexit's impact on the UK food system is immense because food has been highly integrated into EU governance. While food standards can be portrayed as a single narrow issue, the paper suggests it provides a useful lens with which to examine, interrogate and comprehend these wider Brexit politics. The complex realities of food politics and wider food system dynamics undermine any simplistic political narrative of 'taking back control'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impacts of the 2015 New Zealand (NZ) All Black rugby test match with Manu Samoa in Samoa: the 'Game that stopped two nations' (henceforth referred to as 'the Game'). Outlining key concepts as well as events and experiences surrounding the Game, this paper reflects on how the Game aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals as well as NZ's current Pacific Reset Agenda, an agenda which aims to increase understanding, friendship, mutual benefit, collective ambition and sustainability (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017). A Likert‐styled questionnaire, a 15‐category ranking exercise, semi‐structured interviews, analysis of relevant media and other sources, informal discussions and participant observation help to provide insights into how sport for diplomacy and development functions. The Game was viewed as providing an opportunity for income generation, most participants felt excited to have shared in the experience, and many were hopeful as to what this might mean for future NZ/Samoan relations. However, we argue that, overall, this event represented a missed opportunity. If sport diplomacy events are to authentically contribute to diplomatic and development goals, more needs to be done to create meaningful and enduring engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper looks at the results of the referendum on the United Kingdom membership to the European Union in order to test the link between the internationalization of the local economy and the openness of the local society as factors associated with the Leave vote (Brexit). The paper compares a number of alternative explanations put forward in the public debate after the referendum. The empirical analysis suggests that the outcome of the referendum can be linked to an increasing tension between the ever increasing internationalization of local firms and the ‘localistic’ attitude of their employees. Brexit can be seen as the result of a process of ‘split Europeanization’ whereby Euroscepticism is triggered by the increasing mismatch between internationalized economies (and corporate economic interests) and localistic societies (and workers’ attitudes and cultural preferences). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the potential impacts of the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area's (AfCFTA) tariff modalities on tax revenues, industrial production, trade flows, welfare and consumption for seven central African countries. Drawing on data from member states and the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database, two methodologies are applied in the study. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) and partial equilibrium (PE) are used to evaluate the long‐ and short‐term effects respectively. The results show that the reduction in tariff barriers provided by the AfCFTA will lead to a decrease in tariff revenue in some Central African countries in the short term. However, in the long term, these losses remain largely offset by the socio‐economic benefit issues generated by the implementation of the agreement, particularly in terms of economic growth and the well‐being of the region's population. To cub these revenue deficits, this paper encourages Central African countries to ratify and implement the AfCFTA. Also, they should diligently adopt all necessary reforms that could help reap the potential long‐term gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An indelible memory of visitors to Willowra Aboriginal community in Central Australia is the sound of donkeys braying as they roam the village in search of sustenance and are chased by barking dogs. While Warlpiri people view donkeys as an integral part of their sonic landscape, outsiders typically perceive the animals as a noisy, land‐management 'pest' and want them removed. Recently, the arrival of a stranger in a truck towing a donkey trailer provoked concerned discussion. Talk intensified when, for a few days, the donkeys disappeared, and the silence of the donkeys echoed throughout the community. Tracing emergent social relations and mimetic connections that entangle donkeys and people in the Willowra region, this paper explores why donkeys matter to local Warlpiri, sensorially and otherwise. I contrast Warlpiri coexistence with donkeys to the treatment of donkeys by conservationists as feral animal and by capitalists as commodity. Linking the silence of donkeys at Willowra to the global trade in ejiao, a glue made from donkey hides used in Chinese medicine and cosmetics, I engage with Michael Taussig's (2019) 'The cry of the burro [donkey]' to examine differing senses of being and predicaments that the sound of donkeys evoke cross‐culturally. I conclude with a call to listen differently to other‐than‐human beings when considering multispecies assemblages. Attending to the sonic range of donkeys as an expression of their agency, I suggest that we learn from Warlpiri and heed the cries of donkeys and their global silencing if we are to ensure our mutual survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Since Maria Teresa Cipriano's and Marie‐Brigitte Carre's seminal 1989 paper ‘Production et typologie des amphores sur la côte adriatique de l'Italie’ in the volume ‘Amphores romaines et histoire économique’, our knowledge of Adriatic Italian wine amphorae has much improved. Most of these ‘new data’, however, remain poorly known among the wider scholarly community and no real update regarding their production loci and distribution patterns has as yet been attempted. This paper fills the void for the central part of the eastern coastline between Rimini and Pescara and reviews the latest evidence regarding the manufacture and circulation of these amphorae. In the process, the central Adriatic area of Italy emerges as a key player in the Late Republican and Early Imperial wine trade. This reassessment provides a new starting point for the diachronic exploration of the Adriatic wine commerce between c.250 BC and AD 150. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper measures regional GDP growth losses that a smaller market size caused by the reintroduction of legal and administrative barriers would cause. We model augmented barriers in a Keynesian framework, pointing at four effects: a border effect, stronger for regions close to borders; an exposure effect, stronger for regions open to trade; a centrality effect, affecting areas close to the economic core; a demand concentration effect, stronger for regions close to large trading partners. By estimating border effects with data on EU NUTS 3 regions and simulating a general increase in barriers among EU countries, the four regional effects clearly emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Leaving the EU will reshape the UK's economic relations with the rest of the world. This paper summarizes the findings of recent research studying the UK's role in the global economy, and the consequences of Brexit for UK trade, investment, and living standards. We emphasize that international integration affects investment and labour flows as well as trade in goods and services. There are important interdependencies between different forms of integration that should be accounted for when evaluating policy changes. Brexit is likely to make the UK poorer by reducing trade and investment flows, but the magnitude of the economic decline will depend upon the nature of the UK's post‐Brexit economic relations with the EU and the rest of the world. We conclude by considering options for UK‐EU relations after Brexit and how the UK should approach future trade negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The United Kingdom has opted to leave the European Union. The consequences of Brexit on international trade are large and negative. While the UK aims for new, ambitious trade agreements after Brexit, it is not explicit about the type of agreements it envisions or with whom specifically. This paper considers the UK's options. We confirm Brexit's substantial, negative trade effects for the UK, EU, and major countries around the world. After reviewing all potential options, our answer to the question whether the UK has an alternative for the existing agreement with the EU is: No. Paradoxically, only a trade agreement with the EU can compensate for Brexit's trade losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the extent to which threshold firms have emerged within British Columbia's wood processing industries. Threshold firms comprise an innovative business segment and are growth oriented, larger than most small firms but not giant, locally owned, international in scope at least with respect to exporting, reliant on skilled, well paid employees, and that have developed knowledge-based product market advantages. The analysis draws on an extended case study survey of 14 firms located in the lower mainland and Okanagan regions of British Columbia, and selected for their potential as threshold firms. The analysis examines six characteristics associated with threshold firms: size and ownership, internationalization, wood supply, labor relations, innovative design and collaboration, and local embeddedness. These firms reveal attributes of threshold firms, and the paper concludes by suggesting that an innovative forest policy for British Columbia could usefully focus on this type of firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of logistics lie in military and imperial methods of expansion and control of geographical space. It is principally associated with the more recent contexts of business management and engineering. Logistics systems are now the conveyor belts of the global system of trade, commerce and production, and its associated techniques and strategies aim at optimizing flows and throughput within discrete units (such as firms), in economic networks and across geographical space. Because flows are important determinants for the development of places, logistics has the power to structure territories. Therefore, it has raised considerable interest in the field of geography, not only with regard to cities and their dense agglomeration of people, buildings, and infrastructure but also in geopolitical terms as it fosters the exploration, control, and surveillance of areas. The paper presents a critical account of logistics operations and their relevance for the making (and unmaking) of territories, related policy dimensions, and future challenges for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how fisheries services are classified in the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework for trade in services and discusses the potential impact of unclear classifications. The WTO plays a key role in regulation and assessment in the area of trade in services, mainly due to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which contains the only set of multilateral rules managing such trade internationally. The purpose of GATS is to create a credible and reliable system of international trade rules that ensures fair treatment of all participants. Through negotiations, individual countries establish commitments to provide market access and limiting national treatment in various service sectors. During such negotiations, the classification of services is a prerequisite to ensure unambiguous and comparable commitments. However, the classification list used by the WTO, namely the W/120, is based on, and corresponds to, old versions of other classification lists, leading to unclear classifications. This lack of clarity in sectoral classifications makes policy analysis unnecessarily difficult and creates a risk that trade agreements may be interpreted differently by different parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade in vulnerable marine species is regulated once they are listed in CITES Appendices (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Parties to the Convention submit proposal(s) 150 days prior to the CITES Conference for voting on the inclusion of new species in Appendices I and II, making a case for why CITES listing criteria are met in each case. Before the vote, Parties receive advice from (a) the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, (b) the International Union for Conservation of Nature—TRAFFIC and (c) the CITES Secretariat, among others. This paper offers an expert review of listing processes, which are the subject of much debate in fishery and environment‐protection communities, looking at two specific cases: silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis, Carcharhinidae) and bigeye thresher shark (Alopias superciliosus, Alopiidae). The reviewers determine that the evidence made available to voting Parties is substantial, but suffers from non‐standard presentation across assessments. The best available data are not always presented or described transparently in relation to CITES criteria. An extension of the assessment period, as well as the opportunity to refute evidence, has been suggested as ways to support more informed and effective decision‐making by CITES Parties, whose composition of delegations varies greatly in their experience of marine species management and trade. Experts welcomed a greater coherence of advice between fishery and non‐fishery sources in the long term, and proposed a range of suggested improvements for the delivery of information and advice to CITES Parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a VAT should in principle be neutral with respect to international trade, it may in practice function as a tax on exporters' input purchases if firms receive incomplete VAT refunds. Using data for over 100 countries that span the majority of historical VAT adoption episodes, this paper finds that—consistent with this hypothesis—the VAT reduces the exports of an industry with a 10 percentage point higher intermediate goods share of output by over 8% relative to an industry with a lower share. This effect is driven by developing countries and is absent for high‐income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the costs to replace fish by protein from meat, from grains and legumes, or from dairy products. We apply the World Trade Model, an input–output model of the interactions among major world regions based on comparative advantage, to analyze alternative scenarios about protein content and sources in global diets. We find that the substitution of fish by meat or dairy entails several trillion U.S. dollars of additional costs annually, corresponding to increased use of pastureland, cropland, water, and other factors of production. The price of animal products increases steeply as higher‐cost producers need to come online, yielding rents to owners of scarce resources. By contrast, the global economy adjusts at significantly lower costs to the substitution of fish by grains and legumes, but this dietary shift involves substantial modification in the mix of agricultural output and its geographic distribution. There have been few analytic studies able to associate costs and prices directly with specific combinations of dietary options. We provide a flexible economic framework for analyzing alternative scenarios about the present and future production of food. The focus on the provision of protein for the human diet, allowing for substitutions between land‐based and aquatic sources, lays the groundwork for subsequent closer examinations of the potential future contribution of aquaculture and, in a yet broader framework, the impact of the coming generation of large dams on fish habitat and freshwater ecosystems more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiregion input–output (MRIO) models have become increasingly important in economic and environmental analysis. However, the current resolution of most MRIO models fails to capture the heterogeneity between subregions, especially in cities. The lack of city‐level MRIO tables has impeded the accomplishment of city‐level studies and hampered the understanding of the relationship between urban growth and consumption, and teleconnections to other regions. In this paper, we propose a partial survey‐based multiple‐layer framework for MRIO table compilation of a Chinese province that distinguishes city‐based regions. This framework can effectively address a large number of data processes and retain consistency between layers. Using the framework, we first compile a nested Hebei‐China city‐level MRIO table and then apply city‐level energy footprint accounting of the North China urban agglomeration. Our results present the critical role of Hebei cities in energy supply in 2012 and quantify energy use embodied in goods for the domestic trade. Tangshan, Shijiazhuang, and Handan are distinctive cities in the energy supply chain of other regions, for both less developed and developed regions. This multiple‐layer framework represents a feasible approach for developing subregional‐level MRIO models and offers the possibility to analyze global trade at the subregional level with limited data. The data and results from the analysis in this article are available for download from China Emission Accounts and Datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that the relationship between trade liberalization and firm productivity is sensitive to the method used to estimate the production function. We estimate the productivity of Colombian manufacturing plants using the methods of Levinsohn and Petrin, Ackerberg et al., and Gandhi et al. and at times come to surprisingly different conclusions about firm productivity growth after the liberalization. Results from a growth decomposition exercise and from a quantile regression model reinforce the dissimilarity of results across methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a boom in industrial cassava served as a 'gateway' to intensify capitalist relations in Cambodia's north eastern borderland. Situated on Cambodia's border with Vietnam, Mondulkiri province has experienced a rapid increase in cassava production and trade since 2006, with transformative consequences for the region's forests and farmers. Using field data from 2012 to 2014, we explore how the boom ignited and intensified over time, through a conjuncture of conditions. Alongside strong market demand for cassava, these included resource abundance (soil fertility, timber, land, labour), connectivity to markets and cross border networks, and facilitative governance conditions. Over time, the boom strengthened capitalist relations, particularly through farmer debt and the revalorisation and accumulation of land. However, unlike booms of tree crops elsewhere, we argue that it is the very impermanence of cassava that is formative here, because the crop's short-term nature and low overheads facilitate practices like land laundering and land mortgaging. Like the 'gateway drugs' that were believed to place users on a path to addiction and risk, this paper shows that gateway crops such as cassava may similarly place farmers on a trajectory of more intense competition and reduced choice in their engagements with capitalist modes of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discussed the relationship between Ankara and Moscow is principally based on energy security and domestic business interests. The paper analyses the dynamics of Ankara-Moscow cooperation in order to understand which of the three scenarios in EU-Turkey relations conflict, cooperation or convergence. The article adds that intimacy of Turkish-Russia energy relations and EU-Russian regional antagonism makes transactional cooperation on energy demand the most likely of future scenarios.

Offshore detention and bilateral free trade constitute hallmarks of Australia's international policy. This paper explores how these policy directions were originally justified in the Pacific Solution and the Australia‐US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). In the literature both policies are theorised as security offerings but whilst the Pacific Solution is obviously exclusionary, AUSFTA aimed at including Australia in the US's orbit. This suggests that security as a justification for policy is flexible, complex, and warrants closer observation of its practical articulations. Reviewing the speeches with which the relevant Ministers introduced their legislation, I argue that offshore detention and bilateral free trade derive from a specific language of security in which policy‐makers view individual actors as the basis of national threats. The language of security invokes a threatening international environment by focussing on the selfish and amoral components of human behaviour whilst diminishing social institutions and collective structures. Vague anarchy and simplified individualism position the state as a righteous protector rather than a rational policy‐maker. I conclude by questioning whether this is a sound basis for policy and canvass options for escaping the language of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global trade in ornamental fish involves c. 125 countries worldwide and is worth c. US $15–30 billion each year. This total is dominated (90%) by freshwater fishes, most of which are sourced from breeding facilities located in developing countries, typically in Asia or South America, but also in Israel, USA and Europe. Some fish are still obtained from natural (wild) sources, but the exact percentage of wild‐caught fish is difficult to quantify given a lack of reliable data. Although c. 1000 species of freshwater fishes are widely available (from a total of > 5300 on sale), the most dominant freshwater fishes in the market comprise only 30 species from the orders Cyprinodontiformes, Perciformes, Characiformes and Siluriformes. In this perspectives review paper, illustrative example case studies of wild‐fish collecting (Barcelos and Rio Xingu, Brazil) and breeding projects (Java, Indonesia) are described. In addition, wild‐collecting expeditions to West Papua, Indonesia are discussed, focused on discovering novel species of rainbowfish (Melanotaeniidae) for breeding in captivity. Sustainability of the aquarium industry is considered in its broadest sense. The aquarium industry has been portrayed as both a major threat to natural ecosystems, but also as being part of the solution in terms of helping to maintain species when they have gone extinct in the wild or offering an income to impoverished citizens who might otherwise engage in much more destructive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have limited low‐cost biomass resources to satisfy their own demand for bioenergy; consequently, international trade in biomass in various liquid and solid forms is increasing. The aim of this study is to present a quantitative overview of the development of international biomass trade for energy purposes. This paper focuses on the main biomass producing and consuming countries, as well as exporters and importers of liquid and solid biofuels, such as wood pellets, biodiesel, and bio‐ethanol, and biomass products, for example industrial roundwood. The study discusses changes in trends that have occurred over the past decade, and investigates emerging energy biomass trade streams. Due to increased demand for wood pellets from the heating and industrial sectors, global wood pellet markets and international trade have increased significantly in the past decade. The United States and Brazil remain leaders in bio‐ethanol production with about 45 Mt and 24 Mt respectively. In recent years, Asian markets such as China (industrial roundwood), South Korea (wood pellets), Malaysia, and Indonesia (palm oil) have developed considerably. In the EU‐28, more than 60% of total palm oil consumption is used for energy purposes. The EU is the global leader in biomass for energy utilization and also the main importer of most biomass products, particularly wood pellets. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have limited, low‐cost biomass resources to satisfy their own demand for bioenergy. International trade of biomass in various solid and liquid forms is consequently increasing. The aim of this study is to present a quantitative overview of the development of international biomass trade for energy purposes, including a discussion of methodological issues. The paper focuses on the production, export, and import of solid and liquid biofuels, including industrial roundwood, wood chips, fuel wood, wood pellets, biodiesel, and bioethanol. The study highlights changes in trends that have occurred over the past decade. Trade on global bioenergy markets is increasing: total trade of biomass for energy purposes is estimated as having increased twofold from around 780 PJ in 2004 to 1250 PJ in 2015. Despite the importance of the bioenergy market and the growth of biomass trade for energy, accurate evaluation of energy‐related biomass trade faces several methodological challenges, such as uncertainties in international statistics, inconsistent data regarding export and import volumes, as well as limited information about the final use of traded products. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies on international trade highlight the role of innovation on international exchange but do not capture the effect of technological innovation when unobservable common factors (UCFs) are considered. This paper examines the long‐run relationship between technological innovation and international exchange using panel data for eight African countries over the period 1981–2013. The non‐stationarity and cointegration between technological innovation, international exchange, public investment, real gross domestic income and foreign direct investment were examined, controlling for cross‐sectional dependence and heterogeneity between countries. The results suggest that technological innovation in Africa remains low after controlling for UCFs, while public investment, real gross domestic product and foreign direct investment have significant impact on international exchange. Moreover, the results from the homogeneous and heterogeneous estimates, with and without UCFs, show that ignoring UCFs is likely to bias the coefficients. These findings reveal that African countries should invest more in public infrastructures and research and development to upgrade their capability To play an active role in the international market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether the technological development of a nation reduces the inter‐regional hierarchy in knowledge flow. We examine two scenarios that are the alternative to each other. The first is what we call the globalization of regional innovation system/weakening of inter‐regional hierarchy scenario: As many regions develop their niches in the global economy, the national "anchor" region loses its relative importance as the importer and distributor of new knowledge, rendering the domestic inter‐regional hierarchy less significant as a result. The second scenario is the globalization of national innovation system/persistence of inter‐regional hierarchy. The nation's traditional anchor region becomes even more active in importing technology and distributing it to other regions of the country. To test which scenario is closer to reality, we employ social network metrics to analyse inter‐regional technology diffusion networks using Chinese patent licensing data for the 1998–2013 period. Our findings support the second scenario, showing that the influence of the traditional anchor region persists in the hierarchical network structure as new cities enter the network. We found five anchor regions: the three usual suspects—Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen—plus two that were slightly less expected—Dongguan and Suzhou. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper examines the role of foreign trade in the consumption of energy in Czechoslovakia through a bottom‐up approach in accounting for energy embodied in trade with manufactured goods. It provides a unique analysis of annual changes in energy embodied in trade in a country characterized by changing political regimes. On the whole, Czechoslovakia has been a net exporter of energy throughout the twentieth century with an average 12% of domestic energy consumption embodied in exports. The role of central planning was found to have a significant effect on the absolute levels of energy embodied in trade, which reached its peak in 1972, when Czechoslovakia had net exports of embodied energy of 29 gigajoules per capita, well above those of Sweden in 1970 or China in 2013. Increased product specialization with a shift toward heavy industrial goods also had a clear impact on the composition of energy embodied in exports. Despite this development, the energy intensity curve of Czechoslovakia does not change substantially when adjusted for foreign trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "new‐new" trade theory has dramatically shifted the focus of international economics research to heterogeneous firms and the margins by which firms participate in international trade. However, few studies have examined the dynamics of agricultural trade at the firm level. This paper employs China Customs data comprising the universe of Chinese firm‐level agricultural import transactions over the period 2000–2009 and develops an empirical strategy to decompose the growth of Chinese agri‐food imports of its four major suppliers, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. Our findings reveal that China's growth in agricultural imports is highly concentrated among a small group of firms, where the top 10% of Chinese agricultural importers account for nearly 90% of its agricultural imports. We also find evidence of a significant turn‐over of importers of agri‐food products. Over 40% of new firms entering China's agricultural import market during our sample exited after just 1.7 years. Finally, decomposing import growth patterns for Canada and its competing suppliers reveals significant differences in the intensive and extensive margins of trade that hold important implications for trade policies aimed at enhancing Canada's position as a major agri‐food supplier in the Chinese market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an extended Solow model by considering the time‐variant spillover effect of interregional economies. Instead of using fixed spatial distances among regions, the regions' temporal‐spatial distances are measured by constructing a database of train types and calculating the fastest region‐to‐region routes. We collect provincial economic data and railroads data over the period 2003–2012 in China to establish a dynamic temporal‐spatial panel model. The estimation results indicate significant temporal‐spatial externalities. Compared with classical spatial models, the temporal‐spatial model not only has a much better goodness‐of‐fit but also has consistent total effects, direct effects and indirect effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trans‐Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are two of the most discussed preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the 21st century. However, the future of these PTAs—whether they will be implemented—still remains mired in debate. This paper empirically explores various factors contributing to the development of the agreements based on the recent patterns of multilateral PTAs across the globe. It also discusses the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans‐Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), for which negotiations have just begun among the TPP members, without the United States. The analysis reveals both political and economic factors that affect the complex situation surrounding these PTAs. In addition, a trilateral PTA among China, Japan, and South Korea may help promote the implementation of the RCEP. The chances of the CPTPP forming are higher than that of the TPP, which means the TPP is likely to form without the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses whether regions benefit from their neighbours' transport facilities. We focus on ports and estimate a gravity model of trade that includes port facilities indicators as explanatory variables. The model is estimated by using exports from 19 Spanish regions to 45 countries from 2000 onwards. To test for the existence of regional spillovers, we construct a weight matrix that takes into account the relative importance of the neighbouring ports, as well as the quality of port infrastructure in destination countries. The findings suggest that regional spillovers play a larger role than port facilities themselves in the growth of Spanish exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The betel nut trade in Papua New Guinea is big business. Betel nut, a mild indigenous stimulant, is considered the 'green gold of the grassroots'. It is the country's most significant domestic cash crop and, in terms of rural incomes, a rival to the dominant export cash crops. Its sale is an important livelihood strategy in both rural and urban areas, the most visible manifestation of a flourishing informal economy. In betel nut marketplaces money 'flows' and 'overflows', traders wield large wads of cash, and vast sums change hands. Whether seeking their fortunes or only tinned fish, people trade betel nut first and foremost to make money, but such interests in trade do not automatically displace other forms of value. This paper is concerned with marketplaces and trade in contemporary Papua New Guinea and what is conveyed in those transactions between buyer and seller. Against the often impersonal and utilitarian rendering of trade, this paper seeks to foreground the sociability of trade and the multiple forms of value that may be simultaneously attached to monetised market transactions. This is not to conceal the discrete, unenduring, and competitive dynamics of trade, which prominently feature in many betel nut transactions, but instead to examine an important dynamic often overlooked. Market transactions, far from being asocial, or even socially destructive, have the capacity to generate and sustain diverse social relations including those of kinship and friendship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on distance and quality by identifying a firm-based force contributing to explain the observed increase of the quality of shipped goods with the distance of their destination market. This force originates from the influence of distance on firms' strategic behaviour in the presence of consumer heterogeneity, when the quality level of goods is a choice variable for them. Our approach differs from the extant literature because it does not rely on technology or preference/income differentials to identify the determinants and drivers of trade flows. We find that distance has an unambiguously positive effect on the average quality of traded goods. Our results contribute to the analysis of the determinants of firms' trade performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to note that many illegally traded genuine tiger products are suspected to have originated from the intensive tiger farming operations that produce tiger bones and other body parts for TCM products (CITES CoP18 Doc. 71.1, Annex 4). This letter is a response to the recently published paper by Khanwilkar, Sosnowski, and Guynup (2022) that described a decade of importation of tiger parts and products into the United States. In either scenario, despite the presence of tiger trade violations in the USFWS LEMIS data for TCM products, this is not scientific evidence of tiger trade. [Extracted from the article]