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This paper examines the impact of trade liberalisation on the sectoral reallocation of workers, particularly from manufacturing to services. It empirically assesses this relationship using local labour market level data for South Africa, a country that experienced significant reductions in manufacturing tariff protection and declining shares of manufacturing in employment from 1996 to 2011. The empirical analysis draws on population census data covering 234 municipalities fors 1996, 2001 and 2011. Contrary to expectations, employment in both the services and manufacturing sectors grew more slowly in municipalities where manufacturing workers faced large reductions in tariffs. We demonstrate that the relative decline in services employment was, in part, driven by negative spillover effects arising from lower derived demand for services inputs, income and infrastructure investment linked to the weaker growth in manufacturing from tariff reductions. These spillover effects diminished the absorption of labour by the services sector and contributed towards declining participation in the labour force in municipalities where manufacturing workers were exposed to large reductions in tariff protection relative to other municipalities. Tariff reductions have a stronger effect on the employment of women in manufacturing, while the adverse spillover effects on service employment are stronger for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines successful and intensive free-trade policies in Estonia and Latvia, which exist despite the low-levels of domestic welfare in these countries. In contrast to the conventional elite-centric approach, this study uses a survey experiment to explore rationales for positive public opinion toward free trade policy. The results reveal that an individual exposed to the stimulus of a strategic security issue or consumer consideration tends to support free trade. These effects are evident among Latvians and highly-educated Estonians. Furthermore, the favorable international environment enhances the positive public opinion of free trade in Estonia and Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2020 was the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the turning point for the industries poorly affected by the unexpected conditions. This paper focused on the impact of a range of factors on China's exports of metal manufacture in 2020, in particular the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on it. Using cross-sectional data, the paper collected relevant data for 151 countries in 2020. We applied trade gravity model by considering important parameters impacting on China's exports of metal manufacture such as GDP, distance, population, the total number of cases of COVID-19, employment rate, economic degrees of freedom, the political environment and the free trade agreement between China and other countries. Then, by collecting the data set for 2021, this paper compares the models for 2020 and 2021 with the aim of making a comparison of the impact of the pandemic on China's exports of metal manufactures. We also do some analysis about the trend of the effect of COVID-19 in the future. The paper continues with calculation of China's export potential for metal manufacture for its 151 partner countries including 54 of them are at the Trade Potential Untapped level, 38 at the Trade Potential Growing level and 59 at the Trade Potential Mature level based on gravity model. This paper also offers different detailed trade policies for the distinct levels of trade potential in the light of the impact of the COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation of Harriet Martineau's novella "Dawn Island" in the context of free trade and its impact on Britain and the fictional island. The author argues that free trade can be seen as a metaphorical dawn of progress and civilization for both Dawn Island and Britain. The novella explores the transformative effects of trade interactions and the international division of labor, highlighting the benefits and interdependence of global trade systems. The article suggests that Martineau's work contributes to our understanding of economic shifts in nineteenth-century Britain and the broader implications of free trade. Additionally, the article explores the role of women in the anti-corn law movement in 19th-century Britain, focusing on Martineau's novel "Dawn Island." The author examines how Martineau's work challenged traditional gender roles and advocated for free trade. Thorne-Murphy argues that Martineau's novel played a significant role in promoting women's involvement in political and economic issues. This article provides valuable insights into the historical context and the impact of women's participation in the anti-corn law movement. [Extracted from the article]

The consensus on industry policy, state intervention and free trade that have been so central to the neoliberal international order of the past three decades has been fundamentally transformed over the past few years. The Biden administration has coined the term 'New Washington Consensus' to describe these transformations in the global political and economic order. The nub of our argument is that rather than being the start of 'deglobalisation', or a turn away from neoliberalism, it represents the emergence of a form of militarised neoliberalism that repurposes and reorganises security institutions and alliances to enable or facilitate global economic accumulation by states such as the United States and China, such that it leads to new forms of regulatory geographies. We contest the idea that this means a shift back towards more statist forms of development. State activism is an important dimension of the new conjuncture, but we see this as the emergence of a different and more militarised neoliberalism. It is not about disconnecting but reconnecting the global economy in a way that favours certain forms of social forces and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalism has lost its hegemonic status in the global system but neoliberal ideas and practices persist. Post-Brexit UK offers a useful case study of how these operate in a post-hegemonic context. The UK government's vision of free trading ‘Global Britain' crashed against the reality of an increasingly geoeconomic world. Freeports were an initiative designed to boost trade and to develop poorer regions. This paper adapts Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse how the different Freeport discourses interact with material power as the policy develops. It divides this into three levels: national political discourse, national policy discourse and local political and policy discourse (with a case study of one Freeport). At the national level, the Brexiteers forged a discourse that combined neoliberalism, Brexit discourse and ‘levelling up’. When translated to policy this was significantly moderated due to legal commitments and geoeconomic pressures. At the local level, the policy was significantly reframed with little emphasis on trade and more on traditional local development concerns. The contradictions of the initial political discourse opened a space for other actors to reshape the policy. More broadly, this story suggests that global geoeconomic pressures may restrict the role of free trade zones in the developed world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased market access through trade liberalization can affect the markups, prices, and marginal costs of exporters. Understanding these dynamics is critical for firms and policymakers, particularly as they formulate export strategies. We examine the impact of China lowering tariffs on Pakistani products under the Pakistan–China Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which gave Pakistani exporters greater market access. Using disaggregated output and price data for textile manufacturers in Punjab, Pakistan, we estimate product-level markups and marginal costs using the methodology of De Loecker, Goldberg, Khandelwal, and Pavcnik (2016) ["Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform." Economterica 84 (2): 445–510]. We then extend this to the firm level by using the methodology of De Loecker and Warzynsksi (2012) ["Markups and Firm-Level Export Status." American Economic Review, 2437–2471]. We find that Pakistani firms exporting to China followed a dynamic pricing strategy by reducing prices to compete with global competitors in the Chinese market. We also find evidence of a decrease in marginal costs as a result of reductions in X-inefficiencies. But because Pakistan's exports to China are relatively homogeneous, the extent of quality differentiation and markup margins was limited. Finally, we find evidence of pro-competitive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research delves into the effectiveness of Colombia's trade liberalisation process in boosting its exports at the industrial level. Based on an empirical workhorse approach to international trade, the gravity model, we evaluate the effect of trade openness on Colombian exports at the industrial level following the SITC4 categorisation. For this purpose, panel data on Colombian exports to all its trading partners between 2007 and 2020 were used. The results establish that Colombia's trade openness has boosted the exports of most of its industries, except for exports of the mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials group, which is a group of goods that represents the country's largest exports. Furthermore, the research also confirms the prominent impact of labour productivity in boosting Colombian exports of most product groups. Consequently, Colombian policymakers should support a re-composition of the Colombian export basket in order to take proper advantage of trade integration formulas, within a global energy transition framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic literature on the trade-labour linkage has tended to operate within a methodological nationalism that reifies the nation-state as the unit of analysis and treats labour rights as universally applicable. This paper instead starts from the premise that the linkage spotlights certain types of work and worker, resulting in geographically differentiated modes of labour governance. Focusing on the post-Brexit reconstitution of trade policy in the UK and its party political discourse, the paper details how labour provisions were written into free trade agreements, export finance arrangements, supply chain reporting requirements and unilateral preference schemes. Its argument is that these were constructed and contested through distinctions made between leading and laggard states; acceptable and unacceptable exploitation; and desirable and undesirable exploitation – each of which had a spatial politics in shaping where and how labour ought to be governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact on polluting emissions as a result of manufacturing industries in China offering services as well as products. We merge detailed firm-level statistics covering 2000 to 2011, and use two-way linear fixed effects regression to control for firm and year heterogeneities and a host of control variables. The empirical results show that manufacturing servitization significantly reduces the emission intensity of firms. This effect is achieved by improving the total factor productivity of firms, optimizing the efficiency of energy use, and increasing the share of the highly-skilled labour force. Moreover, the emission reduction effect of manufacturing servitization is more profound in the eastern and central regions, pollution-intensive industries, non-state-owned firms, and processing trade firms. In addition, our extended analysis shows that the emission reduction effects of manufacturing servitization can be strengthened through trade liberalization and cohort study. The major policy implication is that governments should undertake industrial policies that reinforce the positive effects of manufacturing servitization in order to achieve win-win outcomes in manufacturing upgrading and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong relationship between regional integration and economic performance. This paper investigates the impact of regional integration on macroeconomic indicators in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – a trade block created by the former Soviet republics in 2014. This study compares two types of regional collaboration strategies: first, unilateral trade liberalization with the one-sided opening of market access that does not imply any mutual concessions, and second, reciprocal regional liberalization evaluated as the degree of regional economic integration between the countries. We apply a random effect panel data analysis with the dataset over 25 years since 1995 covering five countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia). We find that, under the current stage, the EAEU positively affects trade flows, negatively affects the level of employment, and has no impact on other economic performance indicators. We also conclude that despite the declared level of economic integration – customs union – Eurasian block functions mainly as a free trade area facilitating mutual trade, which is different from the broader objectives that regional integration aims to achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the EU-US (TTIP) and EU–Canada (CETA) free trade negotiations, large coalitions of civil society organisations were active not only across borders but also within European member states. In several countries, coalitions saw the opportunity to transform their issue-specific group into a general coalition on EU trade policy in order to achieve more sustained engagement. However, in hindsight, only some of the transformed coalitions remained active and visible with the same organisations, while others experienced a decline in visibility, activities, and membership. This study aims to explore the factors contributing to this divergence in coalition transformation, drawing on the literature from social movement and interest group studies. Based on interviews with trade activists in Belgium and the Netherlands, the analysis points to differences in perception of political and discursive opportunities, resource mobilisation, the degree of ideological and cultural overlap between the coalition's actors, and organisational structure as important factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantify the trade and welfare effects of RCEP. Using a quantitative multi-country and multi-sector trade model that distinguishes key characteristics between intermediates and final goods, we illustrate the heterogeneous impacts of RCEP on trade and welfare. RCEP has trade creation effects within members but has trade diversion effects for non-members. There are substantial welfare gains within RCEP, but the decomposition results indicate that the sources of welfare gains differ, with China and ASEAN countries mainly originating from growth in the volume of trade, but at the cost of the deterioration in terms of trade. Trade liberalization in service also contributes to welfare gains, mainly from intermediates trade. India's accession to RCEP improves the welfare of itself and its members, while its terms of trade deteriorate. We also find that with distinctions between intermediates and final goods, the heterogeneous effects of the two can be captured. Moreover, our model predicts more significant welfare gains than a model without input-output networks and sectoral linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses and explains food imports from Peru: 1980-2021. The econometric method uses Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) models. The result of the stationarity property of I (0) and I(1) of the variables suggests the use of the ARDL model. The Granger causality result shows that variables explain food imports. The bound test cointegration showed a long-run cointegration to exist between foot imports and income, the real exchange rate, relative prices, price of fertilizers, and institution. The short-run analysis shows positive effects of relative prices and the real exchange rate towards food imports. And in the long-run analysis, we have found a positive relationship between food imports and economic growth. Also, there is a negative relationship between food imports and the growth of the real exchange rate, the price of fertilizers, and the opening of the Free Trade Agreement. Policies for self-sufficiency are recommended through investment policies in human capital for research in fertilizers and alternative organic manures; in financial capital for access to credit for small producers; in social capital, with support for sectors with lower productivity in rural areas to reduce dependence on the international market and the growing demand for food imports that puts food security at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policies, including trade policies, typically entail significant executive discretion, marked by a top-down decision-making process. This has been evident in South Korea, where the president, as chief diplomat, wields substantial authority in selecting the country's Free Trade Agreement partners. Given South Korea's efforts to solidify its status as a trade hub and the strategic advantages of joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), why has the country not been able to formally apply for membership? What influenced presidents to consistently list the CPTPP as a foreign economic policy objective, yet refrain from participation while actively pursuing other trade initiatives? This article seeks to adopt insights from the agenda-setting literature to comprehend the mechanisms governing presidential agenda priorities in foreign economic policy. Utilising a framework of foreign policy attention, it uncovers factors and processes that influence South Korean presidents' focus in shaping trade policies. It demonstrates that external policy events drive the president's attention, but the limited progress of the CPTPP underscores the crucial impact of the president's priorities and responsiveness to the domestic audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New generation' free trade agreements now include 'Trade and Sustainable Development' (TSD) chapters designed to improve environmental provisions within overall trading arrangements. The wide-ranging European Union (EU)-Japan agreement of 2018 represents the culmination of a trend towards the greater inclusion of such TSD elements, and, as it covers one-third of global GDP, the significance of this agreement for trading relations cannot be understated. Comparing it with other agreements involving Japan and the EU, I argue that greater attention to sustainable development in trade connections, notwithstanding tangible significant environmental improvements, further embeds an anthropocentric narrative of trade-environment linkages and supports a 'win–win' linkage between enhancing economic growth and ensuring environmental protections. Through an eco-centric critique, I seek to challenge the fundamental anthropocentric assumptions underpinning such inclusions and explore the ways in which the language of environmental protection and climate change has been depoliticised by a particular framing of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countless socially responsible trade initiatives have emerged in recent years offering an uncertain mixture of token and substantive changes. After decades of battles over free trade, this marks a significant shift, challenging established debates over free versus regulated markets by promoting labour, gender, human, and environmental rights through trade agreements. This reorientation contains complex contradictions, with trade justice groups conceding to the popularity of trade while simultaneously insisting on a new vision of what trade is 'about.' Drawing on the idea of trade fetishism, this article argues that the desire for trade involves not only its material motivations, but its seductive content as a fetishised object of global capital, offering the fantasy of 'trade' as a symbolic source of pleasure. Through the case of the new NAFTA 2.0, it points to the relevance of trade politics that aspires not to overcome trade fetishism, but, as Lucas Pohl (2022) suggests, to 'get with' it. Through a trade justice ratchet mechanism, advocates have pushed for unanticipated changes, while also ceding to the limitations of the current order. The outcome is a process of contesting the symbolic content of what trade is and is not about, with significant material and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, digital services not only provide important intermediate inputs for manufacturing but they also affect the availability of other potentially ICT-enabled high-quality services as intermediate inputs. Therefore, it is particularly important and meaningful to explore the relationship between the liberalization of trade in digital services and manufacturing exports. This paper uses a panel dataset of bilateral exports of 15 manufacturing sectors in 54 countries, from 2014 to 2018, to examine the impact of digital services trade policy restrictions on exports of manufactured goods. The main results suggest that the impact of trade policy restrictions on manufacturing exports is mixed but mainly negative. Moreover, regulatory differences in digital services industries between bilateral country pairs also have a significant negative impact on the export performance of manufacturing industries. In addition, we further examine the heterogeneity of this impact mechanism across different policy areas, manufacturing sectors, and bilateral country-pair groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to quantitatively assess the potential effects from the ongoing transformation of the fiscal framework of the European Union, we evaluate the economic and public finance stabilization properties of two benchmark fiscal rules using a New Keynesian small open economy model. If these fiscal rules are implemented one at a time, having just an expenditure growth rule tends to yield more stable macroeconomic outcomes but more volatile public finances, as compared to having only a structural balance rule. Much of the quantitative differences in relative volatilities can be accounted for by using a modified public expenditure definition in the expenditure growth rule, in particular the removal of debt service payments. The expenditure growth rule with a strong-enough debt anchor strikes the balance between the short-term macroeconomic stability and the medium-term public debt convergence. There is a welfare gain for households from having only an expenditure growth rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the geostrategic importance of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), discusses its potential trade impacts on African states, and considers whether it could support regional peace. Regional integration is crucial for achieving industrialisation, promoting trade across African borders, and preserving regional peace and security. Inextricably linked to regional integration is a security community comprising a distinct group of individuals for whom the likelihood of large-scale conflict or violence has diminished. A comparative analysis was conducted using Africa's trade patterns, milestones, and achievements during 2015–2017 and 2022–2023. Subsequently, the key causes of insecurity on the African continent were explored, focusing on the Regional Economic Communities and states embroiled in coups during 2020–2023. The findings suggest that African authorities view the AfCFTA positively and believe economic integration may bring about peace. However, African authorities would require a strong continental strategy – supported by robust regional and national programmes – to promote investor confidence and trade, considering Africa's high levels of intercommunal violence, civil unrest, violent extremism, terrorism, and transnational crime. The AfCFTA delayed trade liberalisation to protect Africa's less developed economies, resulting in poor working conditions, intellectual capital loss, and decreased tax collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega-regional trade agreements progressively became a mechanism for the European Union (EU) to include a wide range of commitments in interregional negotiations. There is a well-developed scholarly debate on the EU's normative power, but we have not seen a similar weight of research on how third countries react to European influence. We suggest that the focus on the macro analysis of state-level interests hides that domestic groups are impacted by EU rules and mobilise to respond to what is perceived as an imposition of European norms. This article explores the EU–Mercosur Agreement and, considering the pivotal role of Brazil in potentially obstructing it, we conducted documentary research to analyse how Brazilian stakeholders have reacted to the EU norm-spreading. We mapped influential individuals and organisations engaged in disclosing their positions and influencing the negotiation outcome. The results demonstrate that while supporters are those directly benefiting from trade liberalisation, opposition comes mainly from sectors impacted by the beyond-trade norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the trade policy substitution hypothesis, this paper uses detailed product-level data from 1997 to 2015 to supplement empirical evidence in China. We find that to the extent permitted by the WTO, there is a substitution relationship between temporary trade barriers and tariff reductions in China. Among the three types of temporary trade barriers, antidumping is the most frequent tool and presents a remarkably negative relationship with tariff reductions. After a set of robustness tests, the relationship still holds. Therefore, this paper verifies the trade policy substitution hypothesis and provides theoretical support for trade policy practice in the context of trade liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interaction of trade, inequality, and unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1997 to 2021. Results from the mean group and pooled mean group estimation revealed that international trade explains a 6% rise in inequality and a 43% rise in unemployment. Our findings provide evidence that international trade, as currently structured, is not beneficial to SSA countries, despite the adoption of trade liberalization policies and regional trade agreements (RTAs). We argue that SSA countries could still derive gains from trade if they undertake massive structural reforms that address labor market frictions and skills gaps in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The statistical significance of the pollution haven hypothesis remains low. This suggests that some elements may have been overlooked in hypothesis testing. Here, pollution havens due to trade liberalization may depend on the degree of technological spillover. This spillover affects the industrial concentration of polluting firms. Using an agglomeration model with technological spillover, we analysed the effect of transport costs on pollution havens to clarify this relationship. Interactions between an international emission permit trading market and local spillover in innovation bring about the following multiple equilibria: the poverty trap equilibrium leads to similar results in the case of global spillover, where lower transport costs encourage economic growth in addition to relocation from the South to the North. By contrast, equilibrium with a higher concentration of firms leads to the pollution havens hypothesis because decreased transport costs prompt polluting firms to relocate to South with relatively small markets due to the home market effect, leading to lower economic growth. Our findings imply that the type of spillover in innovation (local or global) determines the pollution haven hypothesis. In a global economy, narrowing the North-South technology gap could contribute to eliminating pollution havens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a complete macroeconomic (SFC) model to study income and wealth distribution in an open economy. We argue that exchange rates and the stock of foreign debt play a major role in shaping inequality across and within countries. Using the 'relative income hypothesis', we show that debt-financed consumption of low-income households can affect both total income and the disposable income of high-income households in the medium run. In addition, while higher inequality is detrimental to the domestic economy, it can benefit trading partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1953 and 1972 the International Labor Film Institute (ILFI), affiliated with yet organizationally separate from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), spread knowledge about, and encouraged the use of, films among Western trade unionists. Holding five formal film festivals, the ILFI also engaged in the collection and distribution of information about films and filmstrips on trade union topics, themes, and successes. Yet compared to other ICFTU forums, ICFTU and ILFI officials were relatively muted on Cold War issues when it came to film activities. When they did discuss such topics, they evidenced a level of uncertainty and confusion regarding how intensely to engage anti-communist messaging in the area of labor films, indicating a concern over how to strike the correct balance between showcasing topics solely focused on labor and engaging Cold War themes. Studying the ILFI and Western labor's relationship to the medium of film thus reveals both an anxiety among Western labor leaders during the early and middle years of the Cold War over how best to weigh their desire to help workers with their goal of appearing sufficiently anti-communist as well as another way the vagueness of the ICFTU's slogan of 'free trade unionism' impacted the ICFTU's activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the cost of labor on macroeconomic imbalances within the eurozone. For this purpose, we construct a three-country Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) macroeconomic model in an open economy including the eurozone and the rest of the world. We show that internal devaluation is not effective as an economic policy for getting the eurozone economies to converge. Cutting labor costs cannot kick-start economic activity through a rebound in exports of those countries that do so. Instead, it involves the risk of locking their economies concerned into low-wage production activities. The fall in unemployment it entails is the consequence, then, of a downturn in labor productivity. In contradistinction, we defend the idea that the introduction of a new wage rule making monetary wages dependent on productivity gains and on the target for inflation set by the European Central Bank, together with a budgetary stimulation policy, would be conducive to initiating convergence among European economies. In particular, it would produce a convergence in living conditions by improving labor productivity but it would also bring production structures closer together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about Libyan trade unionism and its role in the Arab workers' movement. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, this article contributes a general overview of trade unionism in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the time of the British Administration (1943–1951) until 1957. In this period, the Libyan General Workers Union (LGWU) emerged as the main workers' organisation and the first trade unions laws were promulgated. Since 1957, with the establishment of the Petroleum Workers Union and the presence of foreigners working in oil companies, the LGWU's supremacy as a representative of Libya's workers waned, and Libyan unionism entered a new phase. This article chronicles the unknown history of Libyan trade unionism and highlights the significance of trade union internationalism, specifically, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Libyan labour affairs. This research discusses internal enablers as well as frictions within the labour movement, which ultimately hampered its social and political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on EU trade policy by introducing insights from the political economy literature on development to the study of how EU trade liberalisation affects development in trading partners. Drawing on a comparison of EU trade liberalisation with Moldova and Georgia, we argue that the type of coalition between public and private actors in partner countries' top export sectors determines which firms benefit from better market access to the EU, as indicated by their ability to increase their exports. We show that liberalised trade with the EU tends to contribute to achieving the EU's declared objective of inclusive development if the presence of inclusionary development coalitions ensures that a broad range of firms is enabled to increase their export capacities through a mechanism that we call 'inclusive empowerment'. Otherwise, trade liberalisation contributes to exclusive development, benefitting big, mostly foreign firms, or, at worse, consolidating rent-seeking practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of Benin to explore the tension between the political realities of African countries and the objectives of the AfCFTA. For most of the country's independence, Benin's political economy has been based primarily on informal and/or illegal entrepôt trade with Nigeria. Benin's entrepôt system creates a loophole around trade barriers for products that are stringently regulated in Nigeria by enabling their importation to Benin, and then in turn, re-exporting or smuggling them into Nigeria. This article argues that informal and/or illegal entrepôt trade with Nigeria is so ingrained in Benin's political economy that regional and continental free trade (which is incompatible with entrepôt trade) is all but impossible from Benin's perspective. The entrepôt system is one of the main sources of government revenue, which ruling elites are not willing to surrender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free movement of goods is widely believed to be a prime example of the negative integration paradigm. Its defining characteristic is a strong judicial process, fuelled by – and fuelling – litigation, which eclipses the weak(er) political process. The article argues that this dominant narrative is no longer accurate. Based on a new dataset of all Article 34 TFEU cases decided by the CJEU between 1961 and 2020, it shows that goods litigation has been disappearing from the Court's docket since the mid-1980s. The reasons for this, it is argued, lie in changing incentive structures for both litigants and national courts, which have reduced the appeal of bringing goods cases, as well as a rise in EU legislation. The consequence is a demise of negative and a turn towards positive integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to analyse the impact of leverage and corporate governance on export intensity of manufacturing firms quoted on Pakistan stock exchange for period 2013–2019. The results of a two-step system GMM method show that leverage has a negative relationship to export intensity. We find evidence that a firm's age negatively impacts the export sales to total sales ratio, while profitability has a positive connection with it. Finally, we note that board size exhibits a negative relationship with export intensity. These findings suggest important policy implications for export promotion, specifically for a small-open economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper integrates trade policy and foreign direct investment into a unified analytical framework, and investigates the effects of input trade liberalization on the entry of foreign firms. To identify the causal effects, we utilize China's accession to the WTO in 2001 as a quasi-natural experiment, and perform difference-in-difference estimation. The results show that input trade liberalization significantly increases foreign entry. We also find that input trade liberalization not only promotes the entry of new foreign firms, but also restrains the exit of existing foreign firms, thereby contributing to the net growth of the number of foreign firms. The mechanism tests show that increasing variety as well as quality of intermediate input and reduction in marginal cost are the potential channels through which input trade liberalization promotes foreign entry. This paper further demonstrates that institutional environment strengths the positive effect of input trade liberalization on foreign entry, and the promotive effect of input trade liberalization on foreign entry increases with industry import intensity, additionally, input trade liberalization is also conducive to improving the quality of foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from Canadian and Korean public companies available at Bloomberg, this study attempts to demonstrate the relationship between investment in establishments and trade liberalization, an effect caused mainly by increased competitiveness. This project contributes to the studies previously conducted on the subject and adds information regarding countries with different peculiarities, such as Canada, better known for being the main trading partner of the USA and major producer of commodities, and South Korea, which for some decades has invested to become a reference in technology and world innovation. In line with previous studies, a negative and statistically significant relationship was found between investment and trade liberalization, an effect that was verified mainly for those establishments that are far from the frontier of the sector in which they operate, and for the firms in the frontier this effect is positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theoretically examines the effect of an expansionary monetary policy on export quality and its ramifications on the aggregate employment of the unskilled workers in a competitive general equilibrium framework of a small open economy. Monetary policies are often pursued by the central bank of an economy to manage exchange rate fluctuations under a managed float regime, which may have adverse consequences for export-quality choices and thereby for export growth given the growing preference of buyers in richer nations for higher qualities of imports. Under optimal allocation of wealth over a portfolio of cash, domestic assets and foreign assets, we show that an increase in the domestic money supply affects the choice of export-quality through larger investment, capital formation and consequent endowment effect and through changes in the nominal exchange rate. Under less price-elastic demand for a non-traded good, export quality is upgraded when quality upgrading is relatively capital (than skill) intensive. The expansionary monetary policy may raise aggregate employment of unskilled workers due to larger investment and capital formation, but may lower it through changes in the quality of the export good. The overall effect is thus ambiguous. A larger initial size of bequests has a similar effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and its potential to unleash the development of women in Africa. The envisaged benefits of the AfCFTA include increased trade diversification, regional integration, enhanced human security, increased foreign direct investment and technological advancement. Despite optimism about the prospects of the agreement as a local innovation spearheaded by the African Union, pessimists raise questions about the extent of stakeholder engagement. The agreement must be gender-responsive to enhance outcomes for women cross-border traders. The paper concludes that the lack of gender sensitivity confirms the need to address the specific needs of African women, especially those involved in informal cross-border trade. Hence, for AfCFTA, the policy focus should be on ensuring the formalisation of women who participate in informal trade, thus helping increase access to markets, information and growth opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists of the transnational cleavage, defined as a political reaction against European integration and immigration, also regularly conceptualise international trade preferences as a component of this contemporary societal divide. Yet empirical analyses of this cleavage focus on the former two topics, while trade and the transnational cleavage has not been systematically investigated. Making use of a new item in the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey that measures party support for protection of domestic producer groups versus support for trade liberalisation, we examine the applicability of explanations for European integration positioning for the topic of trade. The results show that party positions on international trade correlate with parties' underlying two-dimensional ideology: parties of the economic left and culturally conservative parties support trade protection. The findings advance previous studies on the transnational cleavage and party positioning on trade, and demonstrate the continued importance of economic factors in driving patterns of trade protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which factors drive support of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for trade liberalisation? The literature suggests that economic factors, ideology, and politicization shape MEP voting behaviour. Drawing on a new dataset encompassing all trade-related MEP votes (2009-2019), this study offers a quantitative assessment of the determinants of MEP support for trade liberalisation. It finds that ideological factors have the strongest and most persistent effect on MEP support for trade liberalisation. The economic competitiveness of MEPs' home regions, in turn, has only a limited effect. Politicization, lastly, has an unclear effect on its own and mostly influences MEP voting behaviour through interactions with ideological and economic factors. The study offers the first comprehensive assessment of the determinants of MEP voting on trade liberalisation and contributes to political economy research on electoral institutions and trade, the European Parliament's role in trade policy and the effects of politicization on policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its emphasis on trade, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been perceived as a liberalisation agenda motivated primarily by strategic concerns with fewer economic benefits. This article analyses the strategies of Indonesia's trade policymakers to legitimize its leading role in RCEP. It is argued that Indonesia's legitimation strategy is implemented through the invocation of two discourses: Indonesia's historical position as a regional leader and bridge-builder and the internationalisation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). While the former is utilised as a coordinative discourse to provide an overarching vision for other state agencies with a protectionist bent, the latter is employed as a communicative discourse to challenge domestic contestations, especially those from civil society and business interests. This article contributes to the study of trade policy discourse by investigating the role of policymakers in mobilising discourses as a strategy for legitimising a strategically-driven liberalisation agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational companies in Honduras are suing the government for lost profits, following President Xiomara Castro's decision to overturn laws that supported economic development projects. The companies are seeking international arbitration under the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), claiming that the government's actions threaten their ability to make a profit. The U.S. Embassy in Honduras has been critical of Castro's policies, and there is concern that the U.S. government is supporting opposition to her administration. These investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases pose a significant challenge to the Castro administration's proposed reforms and the future of Honduras. [Extracted from the article]

The mercantile history of Charlotte Amalie and Gustavia, free ports in the Danish (1672–1917) and Swedish (1784–1878) Caribbean, have existed outside of the standard purview of both national and transnational historiographies, despite the considerable attention they received by eighteenth century political and economic thought. Due to their unique legislative character, they cannot be situated easily within available historical frameworks. In contemporary politico-economic opinion and eyewitness accounts, the Scandinavian free ports were equated to other free trade regimes insofar as they were conceived as a means of commercial rivalry against other nations. The liberal laws of free ports were styled as consistent with Enlightenment theories of equality and industry, even though they did not represent anything novel in the permeable commercial world of early modern colonialism. Interloping, as the practice of trespassing commercial privilege was commonly referred to, was a key feature of the transit trade operating out of these free ports. The utility of the free port trade was highly contingent upon shifting alliances and patterns of conflict. Operating across the peripheries of other empires, Scandinavian free trade designs in the Caribbean were beneficial for various actors, including but not limited to the parent states themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the evolution of trade policies in early British Singapore from its founding in 1819 to about 1830. By focusing on this timeframe, it aims to shed light on the important shifts that occurred during this formative period. The article addresses three issues that are key to understanding the trajectory of early British Singapore. First, it explores the reasons behind the dissolution of the original power- and revenue-sharing arrangements between the British, the Temenggong, and Sultan Hussain by 1824. By investigating the reasons behind this termination, the article seeks to uncover the power struggles that (re-) shaped early governance in Singapore. Second, the article examines the roles played by traditional Malay commercial conventions and practices. As a result, a more multi-faceted understanding emerges of Singapore's commercial and cultural origins. Finally, the article investigates the driving forces behind the establishment of British Singapore as a free port supported by free trade. By exploring the motivation, timing and debates about policy, the article provides insights into the economic and political factors that propelled Singapore's rise as a trading hub. The conclusions in this article offer a thought-provoking reassessment and reframing of Singapore's early development as a port and British settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 1901–1904 discussions about free trade in the Priamur region and the territories in Chinese Manchuria leased to the Russian Empire. The discussions are placed in the contexts of nationalising empire, Russian imperialism, and cosmopolitan society of the globalised free port of Vladivostok. The piece traces the place of ideas about free trade in the social and political imagination of contemporaries in the Priamur region to show how these images were challenged by imperial expansion in Manchuria. It also analyses the rhetorical strategies used by regional actors to re-negotiate the borders of economic and political expansion, as well as the internal and external comparisons they made. The article demonstrates how debates about free trade in the Russian Far East offer deeper insight into how ideas about free trade and free ports as institutions affected not only the economic but social and political transformations in the late imperial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1765 and 1789, the Spanish crown issued a series of comercio libre decrees that liberalised trade between Spanish America and peninsular Spain. What was the crown attempting to do by relaxing trade restrictions within the empire? Because the comercio libre decrees only authorised free trade within the confines of the empire, it may be easy to conclude, as the extant scholarship has, that these decrees were a delayed attempt to revitalise an increasingly obsolete mercantilist system. Indeed, Spain's new imperial system of free trade appears to be little more than an outmoded form of protectionism centred on hoarding bullion. This article pushes against this perspective and shows that Spain's decrees of comercio libre were part of an attempt to erect a peculiar interconnected system of free ports within the empire. Even though Spain's free trade system excluded international trade, its intellectual architects deployed Enlightenment political economy to dynamize and integrate the imperial economy while avoiding the increasingly bellicose competition for international markets that was ascendant among European empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do legislators support some free trade agreements but oppose others? Despite a wide variation in legislative support for free trade agreements, the heterogeneous preferences of legislators have received little attention in the literature, which largely focuses on general trade policy preferences of legislators and individual voters. We bring in geopolitical factors as a key source of legislative preferences on specific free trade agreements. Using voting records of the U.S. House representatives on all major bills related to free trade agreements, we find that the geostrategic importance of potential trading partner has a substantial effect on voting for trade agreements. We find that legislators become less sensitive to their constituents' economic interests when considering trade agreements with allies or countries with closely aligned interests. This highlights the importance of examining security externalities of trade cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of trade liberalisation on female workers in manufacturing using arguably exogenous variation in Indonesia's tariff reductions in the 1990s and 2000s. This study utilises output and input tariff changes to examine two different channels through which trade liberalisation affects women's employment: import competition and imported goods. Our results confirm the findings of previous literature that showed that increased competition driven by a reduction in output tariffs encourages women's employment; however, we also provide new evidence that shows that a reduction in input tariffs may hurt women's employment. We surmise that the latter is driven by importing firms' shifting demands for skilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For small open economies such as Slovakia, foreign demand is a significant factor in economic growth. Since Slovakia acceded to the European Union, its exports have focused primarily on the EU internal market. Therefore, one of its goals is to diversify the territorial structure of foreign trade. Kazakhstan is the economic engine of Central Asia, which has made significant efforts in recent years to transform its economy. The aim of the case study of the Slovak Republic is to examine its export opportunities to Kazakhstan using selected one-factor indicators of competitiveness based on their mutual foreign trade. The imbalance in Slovakia-Kazakhstan's foreign trade suggests sizable reserves. The work evaluates their foreign trade relations through indices of trade intensity, complementarity, and intra-industry trade. It identifies the export potential of Slovakia based on the concept of revealed comparative advantages and import significance of Kazakhstan in the examined period. In 2020, The export potential was used only at 2%, the export gap was 95,928 mil. EUR and concerned 56 commodities at the level of HS 4 aggregation. Considering the geographical distance and costs, Slovakia should focus on the export of goods with higher added value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital account liberalisation can give rise to uncertainty in capital flows, which may lead to an accumulation of financial risks. This study measures the systemic financial risk indices using the coefficient of variation method with data of 24 countries from 2003 to 2019 and the impact of capital account liberalisation on systemic financial risks using the panel threshold model. Evidence shows that systemic financial risk indices vary heterogeneously across countries. The systemic financial risk indices of high-income countries are lower than those of middle- and low-income countries. Second, capital account liberalisation has an asymmetric effect on systemic financial risk with a double threshold. Low-intensity and high-intensity capital account liberalisation increases systemic financial risk. However, medium-intensity capital account liberalisation is effective in reducing systemic financial risk. Third, the heterogeneity results suggest that capital account liberalisation is conducive to reducing the financial risk of high- and middle-income countries and has the opposite effect on low-income countries. Therefore, this study recommends that countries adjust the intensity of capital account liberalisation according to their national conditions. It is necessary to establish a regulatory system for cross-border capital flows and maximise the benefits of liberalisation while safeguarding financial market stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) protested nuclear weapons testing, called for nuclear and conventional disarmament, and simultaneously embraced the promises of atomic energy. The ICFTU also, particularly through its atomic energy committee, pressed the United Nations (UN), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for stronger worker protections and union input at atomic energy sites. Such efforts revealed how a non-governmental organization (NGO) attempted to shape international narratives and standards regarding nuclear weapons and atomic energy, revealing a complex approach to the use of the atom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the welfare effect of trade liberalization in the service industry by focusing on the Chinese movie industry. China has been maintaining an import quota of foreign movies since 1990s. Using a unique Chinese movie dataset, we first estimate a nested logit demand model. And based on the estimated demand parameters, we perform counterfactual tests by removing the movie import quota. Specifically, we quantify the loss to the domestic film makers due to greater competition with foreign competitors, and the gains to consumers from consuming more high quality movies. We find that after trade liberalization, the market share of domestic film makers falls by 21–22% on average during the sample period, whereas the gain in the consumer welfare is comparatively smaller with an increase of around 5–9%. We also find that if the domestic film makers react actively by either strategically changing the release dates or by improving the quality of the home-made movies, then the magnitude of decline in the producer welfare will reduce by a large extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]