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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]

International markets are extremely polarised, with a few big superstar businesses operating alongside numerous small competitors, and globalisation has been highlighted as a powerful force behind the superstars' increasingly dominant presence. The empirical literature has established that superstars are more efficient compared to their smaller counterparts, and, unlike them, they exhibit strategic behaviour. Building on this evidence, we develop a model to examine how an initial productivity advantage allows a select few firms to expand, via innovation, to the extent that it becomes optimal to adopt strategic behaviour, and show how polarised markets emerge endogenously as the unique subgame perfect equilibrium in pure strategies. We then introduce international trade and show that, in polarised markets, trade liberalisation puts into motion a novel composition effect, reallocating market share from smaller to larger rivals and raising large firms' profits. This effect suppresses the pro-competitive welfare gains from trade and cements the dominant position of big businesses, who come out as the big winners of globalisation. We find that, although trade increases welfare, by reducing average markup and markup heterogeneity, in the presence of a handful of large powerful firms, welfare gains are severely diminished, and subsidising smaller enterprises may turn out to be welfare-enhancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial tariff reductions and increased usage of non‐tariff measures (NTMs) have been key dynamics of global trade policy in recent decades. We use highly disaggregated data on applied most favored nation tariffs, NTMs, and trade to investigate how International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality as a form of external pressure to reduce tariffs contributed to this dynamic in developing countries. Our results show that structural adjustment programs (SAPs) effectively lowered tariffs without increasing the usage of NTMs. A typical three‐year program containing tariff conditionality decreased tariff rates in the range of 2.0 to 3.8 percentage points in total. Furthermore, IMF programs reduced NTM initializations significantly. We also show that tariff conditionality was more effective in initiating tariff cuts for countries without previous greater globalization efforts than being a "catalyst" for ongoing liberalization efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a dynamic preferential trade agreement (PTA) formation model, we show that political biases in exporting and import‐competing sectors substantially impact the extent of PTA formation. While both exclusion and free riding incentives constrain the expansion to global free trade in a free trade agreement (FTA) game, only the former incentive arises in a customs union (CU) game. When we endogenize the choice between FTAs and CUs, the tension between the flexibility benefit of FTAs and the coordination benefit of CUs reveals that FTAs always serve as PTA building blocks while CUs may serve as PTA building or stumbling blocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the U.S. shift towards economic protectionism, termed "friend-shoring," which involves tariffs and trade restrictions aimed at redirecting supply chains from China to benefit the US and its allies. It discusses how this approach, along with subsidies promoting high-tech industries and regional trade agreements, has led to a retaliatory trade war with China and other BRICS members, escalating tariffs and restrictions on both sides.

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]

Wheat market integration between the US and the UK before the "first era of globalization" (in the second half of the nineteenth century) was frequently interrupted by policy and "exogenous" events such as wars. This paper adds Canada to this story by looking at trade and price data, as well as contemporary debates. This allows us to triangulate the role of policy and wars, since Canada as a small open economy was part of the British Empire. We find that, despite its privileged access to British markets, Canada faced similar barriers to the US, suggesting that membership of the British Empire provided only a modest benefit to trade. We also describe the limitations she faced accessing the US market, in particular after American independence. [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]

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]

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]

This article outlines various phases of the evolution of trade liberalization and globalization, and the changing division of labour in the world economy. It discusses how economic specialization and international trade have been shaped by power relations, corporate interests and national economic capacities. It explores the challenging implications of trade liberalization—accelerated, constrained and broadened by WTO rules and regulations—for developing countries. Earlier food security and industrialization efforts have thus been undermined. With competing demands on and inducements for rivals in a multipolar world, seen as a new Cold War, developing nations should mobilize for pacifist non-alignment. By cooperating better and not taking sides, the Global South will be better able to negotiate more effectively in their own collective and national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewing Marc Lavoie's comprehensive and well-structured discussion of open-economy macroeconomics allows us to revisit some key Post-Keynesian contributions and confirm their continued relevance to our understanding of international economic, financial and monetary relations. In the process Lavoie draws a consistently sharp contrast with standard-theory concepts and models, much of it organized around his elaboration of endogenous money in an international context and modern trade flows embedded in a highly globalized and financialized world economy which have little to do with comparative advantage. He thereby provides us with a conceptual road map for a meta-economic revolution which recognizes that the world economy has a growth dynamic all of its own rather than being just the sum of its parts, the two-hundred or so national economies connected to each other through their balance of payments and exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper enriches the existing set of global trade negotiation simulations by incorporating explicit, country-specific domestic political consequences incurred from trade concessions. Several semesters of testing with undergraduate students in the U.S. and master's students in Argentina demonstrate that the simulation statistically significantly enhances students' understanding of the role that domestic political pressures play in preventing negotiators from reaching the first-best trade regime. Students learn-by-doing that conflicting country philosophies regarding free trade vary substantially not only between developed and developing countries, but also depending on the geography and key industries of each country. The simulation also provides students with current, realistic economic values for the country and the world from freeing trade. Seventeen country tables provide instructors with tremendous flexibility in structuring the negotiation framework. A complete instructor's manual with a detailed description of how to use the simulation, all student handouts and an Excel file that automatically calculates point totals is available via e-mail from the corresponding author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries, trade is increasingly associated with greater returns to high-skilled labor and rising inequality. These empirical patterns are at odds with canonical models of trade in the developing world. What does this mean for the political economy of trade in these countries? We argue that although developing countries have a comparative advantage in low-skill products, these are produced by workers that are relatively high-skilled compared to their peers. Trade and global production benefit relatively skilled workers, particularly those exposed to exports and inward foreign direct investment in manufacturing. Our argument offers insight into why relatively skilled workers are most supportive of free trade and why inequality is rising in developing countries. We examine micro- and macro-level implications of our argument using cross-national survey data on policy preferences and aggregate data on trade and inequality. The findings have important implications for the political economy of trade and global production in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to empirically analyse the potential long-run and shortrun effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the ready-made garments (rmg) export growth of Bangladesh. We distinguish two transmission channels: credit growth and degree of openness to trade, through which the pandemic could affect the rmg export, using monthly time series data from June 2009 to August 2020. We employ a bounds test approach to the autoregressive distributed lag (ardl) cointegration method. The bounds test specifies long-run and short-run relationships between credit growth, openness, and rmg exports. We found that the pandemic has a significant negative effect in the short run but a positive impact on export through these transmission channels in the long run. Thus, more credit support to this sector and opening up the economy for international trade is essential for the total recovery of the rmg export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the trade relationship between Mexico and South Korea through the lens of trade in value-added perspective. Using the global input–output model, we dissect gross exports into their value-added components to analyze the sectors benefiting most from value-added generation in both countries. To do this, we use the multiregional input–output matrices developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The results show a growing bilateral relationship between 2000 and 2021, with South Korea having a stronger position by generating a larger share of value-added linked to the bilateral relationship. Nevertheless, the gap has narrowed over time. Notably, South Korean exports to Mexico have substantially contributed to value-added generation in technology-based manufacturing sectors such as machinery, equipment, electronics, electrical, and optical products. Similarly, Mexico's mining sector increasingly relies on exports to South Korea for value-added generation. The trends observed in this study's findings persist even amidst the reconfiguration of Global Value Chains, indicating that a free trade agreement between Mexico and South Korea has the potential to further enhance value-added generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC) is a rail-sea intermodal transport corridor whose fundamental purpose is to closely connect western China and ASEAN through shortening the transport distance and trade time cost. Since the ILSTC is still a new initiative, there are few research focusing on its performance and implementation effects. Using computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, this paper attempts to analyze the economic impacts of the ILSTC since 2019 by simulating the scenario of transport time cost reduction. Results show that the ILSTC can promote the gross domestic product of China and the entire ASEAN by 0.20% and 0.84%, respectively; China's and the whole ASEAN's social welfare are both improved by more than US$10 billion; China's export and import with the whole ASEAN increases by 9.97% and 9.54%, respectively; The value-added trade flow contained in China's intermediate products which export to ASEAN countries first and finally return to China become larger; The impact on different sectors are heterogeneous, in which bilateral value-added and gross trade of grains and crops would increase most significantly; The value-added provided from service industry are also improved. Overall, the ILSTC plays a more important role in promoting the macro-economy of China and ASEAN countries than trade liberalization. On these basis, related conclusions for the promotion of commercial relationship between China and ASEAN countries are proposed, hoping to provide reference for traders and policy makers. • Measure the economic effects of China and ASEAN countries from the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC). • Expand the simulation results from the perspective of value-added trade to track changes in intra-industry trade. • Shed lights on better policy options between trade liberalization and the ILSTC for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of digital forex trading is a form of technological progress as well as the impact of trade liberalization which is a product of globalization. Digital Trading Forex (DTF) is a form of commodity futures trading based on a digital platform that uses technology called Artificial Intelligence Technology (AI) and Blockchain. Many previous studies on forex trading, stock investment, legal relations between brokers and investors have been carried out, but none have focused on discussing the draft regulation of Bappebti that suits the needs of the digitalization era. Regulations in Indonesia that regulate trading activities are still limited to manual trading through online electronic systems, so it appears that there is a void of norms regarding global digital trading in Bappebti regulations. This void results in the absence of a standard for identification and verification of the legality of futures brokerage companies in the community. This is the beginning of many fraud cases that are not completely resolved. The blocking action taken by Bappebti to crack down on illegal brokers actually puts trading Customers suffering double losses and it is unlikely that the funds that have been deposited can be redistributed to the Customers. This is an interesting thing to study and analyze further, so that through this research will produce a design of an identification and verification system for brokers so that customers get proper legal protection by using a technological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the possible role of US trade liberalization in explaining Puerto Rico's deindustrialization. In order to address this issue, time series techniques were used. The results of the Granger Causality Test suggest that the imports made by the US from Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Costa Rica do not explain Puerto Rico's deindustrialization. Therefore, no causal relationship was found between the imports made by the US from its NAFTA partners and the countries where the corporations that benefited from Section 936 relocated with the deindustrialization of Puerto Rico. Besides, the impulse response exercise suggests that in the first period, deindustrialization explains its variability by 100%, and in the final period, it explains 95.47%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic and policy interest in civil society participation in the European Union's trade policy has been growing since the late 1990s. We analyse civil society's engagement with the Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs)—consultation mechanisms established by the European Commission at the implementation stage of its free trade agreements. While the Commission's formal rationale for the DAGs is partnership with civil society, in fact this relationship involves a marked power and resistance dynamic. We focus on civil society's agency and resistance, develop a conceptual framework laying out different possible types of resistance, and empirically demonstrate the wealth of both overt and subtle resistance practices employed by DAG members. Most of this resistance is (moderately) comprehensive and directed against the DAGs' rationalities and technologies. While showing that DAGs are deeply contested, our study also provides a nuanced analysis of resistance with particular attention for divisions between business and non-business members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uncovers the origins of 'cakeism' i.e., the notion the UK could keep certain EU benefits or not suffer costs after Brexit. The analysis demonstrates how the assumptions behind cakeism originated after 1992 in policy circles associated with the Conservative Party. They argued that a free-trade alternative to the EU was easy to put in place by simply disaggregating preferred elements of the single market from supranationalism. A Westminster-centric perspective also meant these proto-Brexiters were unable to countenance any potential domestic disruption caused by leaving the EU. During May's Brexit negotiations, European Research Group MPs resorted to cakeist arguments that reprised the same assumptions about international trade and the unitary nature of the UK state articulated well before 2016. Cakeist ideas helped scupper May's customs plan and paved the way for Johnson's free trade deal, thereby demonstrating the enduring influence of the early think-tank debate on leaving the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is a member of many multilateral trade bodies and engages in trade agreements of a multilateral and bilateral kind across most regions. In June 2018, it launched negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) which are still ongoing and since then Australia and the EU have conducted fifteen rounds of negotiations (last one on 28 May 2023 in Brussels). This paper aims to explore the business awareness of the EU amongst Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to analyse the factors that influence their internationalisation. To ascertain this, we reviewed the results of two surveys1 that were conducted pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic (also coinciding with the Brexit transition period). This paper argues that SMEs in Australia are essentially unaware of the EU as a market and that no significant change in the business perception of the EU and potential international trade opportunities occurred between the pre- and post-COVID-19 political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing free trade conditions to all WTO Members, the GATT 1994 includes general exceptions to Article XX, which allows members to adopt trade and legislative restrictions and measures to promote values and interests and the protection of the environment. Driven by the aim of protecting the environment, various countries have been adopting a considerable number of measures to protect the environment and all human, animal and plant life and health under their jurisdiction. However, such restrictions are likely to influence the free trade regime through a clash of interests and relationships between WTO Members, which are challenged through WTO dispute settlement mechanisms. Although the WTO provides exceptions under Article XX of its free trade conditions to protect the environment via the national environmental measures of WTO Members, the justifications for such measures are challenged in meeting the requirements of Article XX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth and development of a country rely on trade as it serves as a driving force with efficient utilization of factor of endowments. Several commodities are traded world-wide, among them spices which has a long history of being one of the highly traded commodity. Developing countries including India are the leading producer and exporter of spices in the world. The demand for Indian spices has gone up in the United States of America, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, etc. The study assess the comparative advantage of major spices exporting countries for pepper, cardamom and turmeric-based on data available in International Trade Centre. To analyse the effect of trade liberalisation, a simulation model (SMART) developed by UNCTAD was used to estimate trade creation, diversion and revenue effect on importing and exporting countries. The result shows that India has a comparative advantage in the export of Turmeric, Guatemala in Cardamom and Vietnam in Pepper. The impact of tariff relief on India has greater advantage, which has trade creation in the export of cardamom and turmeric. Whereas in pepper, comparatively, trade diversion is higher than trade creation, indicating that less efficient countries are given a chance to export to the top importing countries due to a reduction in tariff. Indian spice exporters should focus on promoting or exporting spices to countries like Netherlands, United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In globalization's era, the sustainability of a region is inseparable from the in-depth and close economic and trade cooperation of intra-regional countries to achieve complementary advantages, intra-regional and extra-regional positive economic cycles, and stable and balanced benefits distribution. For Asia-Pacific countries, the lack of deep cooperation in the past has affected their sustainability, but this can be made up for by the RCEP agreement aimed at achieving intra-regional trade liberalization. We adopt the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) simulation analysis method to quantitatively analyze the impact of changes in macroeconomic and international trade indicators of several intra-regional countries after implementing the RCEP tariff reduction and exemption on the RCEP. Simulation results and comparative analysis based on international relations prove that despite the interference of trade benefits conflicts and international political factors, the RCEP can still exist in long term, and effectively promote regional economic integration and sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also a development opportunity for intra-regional countries and can also be used in the context of globalization providing references for integration and sustainability in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the developments in economic theory so far, the European Union (EU) accession process is believed to bring significant benefits to newcomers, especially in terms of fostering their economic growth, which is induced by abolishing import tariffs and other trade barriers, intensifying trade flows and ensuring a more efficient usage of resources. Although empirical evidence on these correlations is mixed, many in the new EU member states and in candidate countries hope that EU membership will pave the way towards their economic prosperity, which would ensure a meaningful reduction in the income gap between new and old EU members. Accordingly, trade liberalisation, which implies lower transaction costs, increased specialisation, scale economy, and competitive pressures, has become a priority, especially for the accessing economies which are traditionally less open in comparison to the economies which first joined the EU. This study aims to assess the impact of trade openness, measured through the dynamics of exports and imports, on the economic growth of the last three member countries to join the EU (Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia) by employing panel data for the period before and after their accession (1997-2017). The results of the study confirm the expansion of the sample countries’ trade flows after the accession, as well as a positive correlation between the dynamics of trade flows and gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Still, it can be concluded that the exploitation of the positive effects of trade openness is conditioned by the level of the countries’ pre-accession economic progress and other determining variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is particularly essential in the equilibrium between man and nature because of its intimate contact with nature. So the cornerstone for the sustainable development of the human economy and society is the sustainable development of agriculture. When it comes to global trade, agricultural trade has always been in a very special position. The basic situation of agriculture involves food safety, environmental protection, Chinese politics, and many other issues. In order to overcome the problems of overlapping, repetitive, and too many indicators in the evaluation method of agricultural environmental sustainable development and unfavorable for practical operation, this paper proposes an ecological footprint model based on emergy. The model can effectively evaluate the ability of sustainable development of agricultural environment and solve the problem that traditional evaluation methods cannot comprehensively evaluate. This makes agricultural development sustainable and is conducive to the liberalization of international agricultural trade. The experimental results of this paper show that from 2014 to 2018, the degree of damage to the agricultural environment has increased from 21% to 45%, which has led to a decline in the quality of agricultural products, and the output and sales are not as good as before. It can be seen that only by ensuring the sustainable development of the agricultural environment can we ensure the smooth progress of the international agricultural trade liberalization and make China's economy flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author who is British high commissioner for New Zealand, discusses parting remarks before her departure for the United Kingdom. It mentions he take an interest in New Zealand that was disproportionate to its presence in masters curriculum. It also mentions prospect of a post-Brexit free trade agreement, which New Zealand identified early on as a priority and negotiations began in June 2020, and agreement in principle.

The author reflects on near 50-year diplomatic relationship between New Zealand and the People's Republic of China. It mentions increase in bilateral trade between two countries and economic connections between two countries were further strengthened with the entry into force earlier this year of both the bilateral free trade agreement upgrade. It also mentions Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, with two-way trade between China and New Zealand.

The entry of a low-wage country into a world economy with preexisting wage differentials puts the gains from trade in a former low-wage and then medium-wage country under pressure. If negotiations over the formation of a free trade area cover international transfers, there is a strong presumption that they bring about global free trade and compensation of the medium-wage country if necessary. In the absence of international transfers, by contrast, the medium-wage country is not compensated when global free trade causes a reduction in its gains from trade, and it may even happen that it is not part of the equilibrium free trade area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, the European Commission released a mechanism to fight climate change, namely the European Green Deal. This policy was put in place to materialize the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015, that is, to combat the issue of climate change along the lines of sustainable development and fight poverty. In the context of the European Green Deal, one of the key instruments envisaged to achieve the ambitious plans of the European Union (EU) is the so-called Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which is the focus of this article and has been described as an 'extraterritorial outreach' for attempting to regulate matters outside the EU borders. This article seeks to answer is whether the CBAM is justified in line with the need to protect the environment and address climate change as well as increasing global economic welfare and reducing poverty. This article provides an overview of CBAM, analyses the rationale behind CBAM as well as the various misgivings from third parties. It contextualizes CBAM in the context of free trade and examines whether CBAM is consistent with multilateral trade rules. It then provides the design of a CBAM based on the principles of international trade and sustainable development. The article concludes that, overall, the analysis of CBAMs, particularly regarding the fervency of the EU to make its CBAM compatible with both trade rules and climate change objectives, demonstrates states' growing interest in protecting the planet, while preserving economic values; it also indicates the importance of trade in managing those interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Chinese communist trade officials used commercial marketing not just to spur trade with foreign capitalists, but also to redefine China's national identity in the eyes of companies, consumers, and governments outside the socialist bloc. Chinese officials sought to unmake the perception of China as a backward, 'semi-colonial' state and to write a narrative of China as a modern, postcolonial member of the postwar international commercial order. This article examines two persistent themes that emerged within 'new' China's commercial narrative of itself. First, Chinese officials developed a story of solidarity with decolonizing states based on the theme of shared oppression at the hands of imperialist aggressors. Second, Chinese officials used commercial marketing to call for open and inclusive trade, regardless of differences in domestic political systems or ideology. By doing so, these officials wrested 'free trade' for China's own use as a cudgel for attacking U.S. sanctions and as a device for framing 'new' China as a champion of trade rights for postcolonial states. Both themes reveal how China sought to redefine its image in the eyes of diverse audiences outside the socialist bloc through international commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A side effect of economic globalisation and new information and communication technologies is the increasing fragmentation of the production process across different countries and continents, contributing to the rise of trade in intermediate goods, which has increased to almost 2/3 of total world trade. Most of this trade, i.e., intermediate goods, are transported by sea. Maritime trade is one of the most economical but also complex ways of trading and transporting goods, requiring good coordination, various stops and controls, transhipments, storage, ICT technology to track the cargo, etc. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to quantify the impact of trade facilitation on trade in intermediate goods on the sample of EU28 countries, using biennial data for the period 2010-2018. We estimate augmented gravity model on bilateral trade data using a Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator. Our results suggest that, as expected, logistics, and in particular ICT development, has a significant and positive effect on trade in intermediate inputs, when controlling for other variables in the gravity model such as GDP of trading partners, distance, contiguity, existence of a free trade agreement, exchange rate, and common cultural proxies. Our results support the global trend of development and investment in logistics, and, in particular, new ICT technologies, which can not only contribute to the continued growth of trade in intermediates, but also help mitigate the negative effects of recent global economic shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There exists a nonlinear, hump-shaped pattern between prefecture-level trade openness and manufacture labor share in China. • Internal geography is critical in shaping patterns of trade-induced structural change. • Internal reallocations of resources across regions and sectors within one country are central to the economic development. • Place-based policies based on regional stage of structural transformation are needed. Notable heterogeneity regarding international trade openness and level of development across different regions with significant inter-provincial migration has been a prominent feature in contemporary China. This paper studies the particular role of international trade in the structural transformation across each region in China. Combining several data, we document that there exhibits a non-monotone, hump-shaped relationship between international trade freeness and prefecture-level manufacture labor share in China. We rationalize this stylized fact in a spatial equilibrium model with multi-region, multi-sector, costly trade and endogenous allocation of labor, capital, and land. The analysis highlights the role of internal geography in shaping patterns of trade-induced structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has been characterized by a slowdown in globalization, referred to by some as "slowbalisation" and "deglobalization". The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced this impression. To overcome the deadlock in the Doha round negotiations at WTO the major players in world trade are negotiating or have already implemented several free trade agreements (FTAs) as a second-best solution. We analyze within a common framework nine mega FTAs, some of them are already in effect, others will be enacted soon. Overall, not the big players in world trade, the EU and the United States win by a simultaneous implementation of the nine FTAs. Japan would be the winner because it participates in four combinations (overlaps) of FTAs: EU-Japan, USA-Japan, CPTPP and RCEP. The United States hardly gain from further globalization. Similarly, the EU27 cannot profit much from further globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes aggregate data on trade flows to examine the performance of bilateral free trade agreements (BFTAs) between the United States and 11 BFTA nations in a two-dimensional approach. In line with the literature, this study applies the gravity model and analyzes the effect of the treatment using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) panel data from 1992 to 2017. We use the PPML as an alternative methodology to an ordinary least squares model, as it can treat zero trade values and lead to unbiased estimates and different consistencies. We consider the trade in goods but excluded services because of the different nature of trade for services. Moreover, this study highlights the quantitative performance of BFTAs without considering the industry level to compare the overall benefits for the trade flows from the U.S. as an exporter to BFTA countries and vice versa. It thus adds to the debate on the effect of FTAs on trade flows and conducts pre-FTA and post-FTA analyses to compare the volumes of exports and imports during both periods. Findings vary according to the direction of trade; notably, some trading partners increased their trading volume to 388%. In sum, this paper provides a collective current state assessment to demonstrate the most plausible reasons for the effects of the 11 BFTAs, in addition to informing policymakers on the lessons learned from each BFTA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While there is a growing body of legally-focused analyses exploring the potential restrictions on public health policy space due to international trade rules, few studies have adopted a more politically-informed approach. This paper applies an integrated political economy and power analysis approach to understand how power relations and dynamics emerging as a result of the international trade and investment regime influence nutrition and alcohol regulatory development in a case study of South Africa.Methods: We interviewed 36 key stakeholders involved in nutrition, alcohol and/or trade/investment policymaking in South Africa. Interview transcripts and notes were imported into NVivo and analyzed using thematic analysis. We used a conceptual framework for analyzing power in health policymaking to guide the analysis.Results: Under the neoliberal paradigm that promotes trade liberalization and market extension, corporate power in nutrition and alcohol policymaking has been entrenched in South Africa via various mechanisms. These include via close relationships between economic policymakers and industry; institutional structures that codify industry involvement in all policy development but restrict health input in economic and trade policy decisions; limited stakeholder knowledge of the broader linkages between trade/investment and food/alcohol environments; high evidentiary requirements to prove public health policy effectiveness; both deliberate use of neoliberal frames/narratives as well as processes of socialization and internalization of neoliberal ideas/values shaping perceptions and policy preferences and ultimately generating policy norms prioritizing economic/trade over health objectives.Conclusions: Exposing power in policymaking can expand our own ideational boundaries of what is required to promote transformative policy change. This work points to a number of potential strategies for challenging corporate power in nutrition and alcohol policymaking in the context of international trade and investment liberalization in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article introduces the price transmission effect of establishing free trade areas with African countries from the perspective of trade facilitation. Studies on China-Africa economic cooperation, tariff reduction effects, trade facilitation effects, and price transmission effects in free trade areas were reviewed. The existing literature rarely incorporates tariffs, trade facilitation, and price transmission mechanisms into the research when studying the effects of free trade areas. The present article introduces trade facilitation into the research field of China-Africa cooperation. Taking the China-Mauritius free trade area as an example, the Global Trade Analysis Project model is used to study the price transmission effect after the establishment of the China-African free trade area. Create a model and motivation for other countries to establish free trade areas with African countries. The main conclusions are as follows: China-Mauritian free trade area has improved not only the terms of trade, GDP, and social welfare of the two countries, but also other African countries. This improvement effect mainly comes from the improvement of trade facilitation, and the contribution of zero tariff policy is relatively small. The domestic price changes in many industrial sectors of the two countries showed a significant increase, while the import prices generally showed a downward trend. Therefore, countries should actively participate in the process of global economic integration, and, in the negotiation of trade liberalization, both sides should adopt differentiated negotiation strategies and improve the weak aspects of trade facilitation, respectively, to achieve a win-win situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia's Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into force in 2022 as the world's largest free trade agreement. RCEP was concluded, signed and brought into force in the face of major international uncertainty and is a significant boost to the global trading system. RCEP brings Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand into the same agreement with the ten member ASEAN group at its centre. It keeps markets open and updates trade and investment rules in East Asia, a major centre of global economic activity, at a time of rising protectionism when the WTO itself is under threat. The agreement builds on ASEAN's free trade agreements and strengthens ASEAN centrality. One of the pillars of RCEP is an economic cooperation agenda which has its antecedents in ASEAN's approach to bringing along its least developed members and builds on the experience of capacity building in APEC and technical cooperation under the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. There is an opportunity to create a framework that facilitates deeper economic cooperation that involves experience-sharing, extending RCEP's rules and membership at the same time as strengthening political cooperation. The paper suggests some areas that might be best suited to cooperation -- that is confidence and trust building instead of or before negotiation -- and discusses how non-members may be engaged and the membership expanded. Options such as multilateralising provisions and becoming a platform for policy convergence and coordinating unilateral reforms are canvassed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Carter and Mérel (2016), we explore the export benefits of reforming supply management (SM) in Canada's dairy sector. A trade model with ten regions and five dairy product categories is developed and used to examine the potential benefits of opening international markets to Canadian dairy products. In addition to a baseline, three scenarios are compared—one with SM in place but with Canada able to export freely. Two other scenarios assume SM is eliminated and there is complete free trade, but with high‐ and low‐cost structures. Findings indicate that, in the high‐cost scenario, domestic consumers gain from lower prices as the domestic supply and exports fall compared to the status quo, but producers are less well off. However, under a low domestic cost structure, Canada becomes a major exporter of milk, with both producers and consumers gaining from free trade. This scenario assumes that domestic producers take advantage of economies of scale, enabling them to compete in international markets. Appropriate policies will be required to reform the quota regime, while minimizing the harm done to dairy farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Purpose: This paper aims at assessing the impact of institutional and cultural distances and trade barriers on ASEAN's trade efficiency using a panel data set of 65 countries for the period 2006–2017. Design/methodology/approach: First, the authors applied an improved version of the stochastic frontier model to estimate the trade efficiency scores. After that, we used the system generalized method of moment (GMM) estimator to investigate the impacts of institutional and cultural distances on ASEAN's trade efficiency. Findings: The results show that the trade efficiency of ASEAN countries with the rest of the world (ROW) is moderate, ranging from 0.561 to 0.612, but shows a downward trend. This result indicates that considerable trade potential exists between ASEAN countries and ROW. Institutional and cultural distances, as well as the trade barriers, negatively affect ASEAN's trade efficiency. Efforts to reduce differences in institutions and cultures and to promote trade liberalization are vital remedies for ASEAN countries to turn potentials into actual trade performance. Originality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature in three different ways. First, this is the first study on the impact of the differences between internal and external characteristics on trade efficiency, specifically, the impact of institutional and cultural distances on ASEAN's trade efficiency. Second, to obtain accurate efficiency scores, the authors use an improved version of the stochastic frontier model proposed by Karakaplan (2018), which can control the problem of endogeneity. Third, in quantifying the determinants of trade efficiency, the authors apply a system GMM estimator, which allows us to overcome the problems of endogeneity, measurement errors, and omitted variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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

This article analyzes the effects of trade (and power) asymmetries in negotiations between developed countries (DCS) and developing countries (DC). Based on the current state of multilateral trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization regime, we reveal how DCs benefit from this regime, building it according to their interests. To the extent that the DC organize themselves to defend their interests at the multilateral level, the DCS favor negotiations at the bilateral level to establish agreements that go from preferential to reciprocal, in which they impose conditions that favor them. Given the loss of preferences and trade defense policies, domestic DC industries are at a disadvantage compared to consolidated industries in the North. We take the Dominican Republic and its negotiation process and insertion into DR-CAFTA as a case study. Este artículo analiza los efectos de las asimetrías comerciales (y de poder) en negociaciones entre países desarrollados (PD) y países en vías de desarrollo (PVD). Tomando como base el estado actual de las negociaciones multilaterales de comercio en el régimen de la Organización Mundial del Comercio, revelamos cómo los PD se benefician de este régimen, construyéndolo afín a sus intereses. En la medida que los PVD se organizan para defender sus intereses a nivel multilateral, los PD favorecen negociaciones a nivel bilateral para establecer acuerdos que transiten de preferenciales a recíprocos, en los cuales imponen condiciones que les favorecen. Ante la pérdida de preferencias y políticas de defensa comercial, industrias domésticas de PVD quedan en desventaja ante industrias consolidadas del Norte. Tomamos a la República Dominicana y su proceso de negociación e inserción al DRCAFTA como estudio de caso. Cet article analyse les effets des asymétries commerciales (et de pouvoir) dans les négociations entre les pays développés (PD) et les pays en voie de développement (PVD). Sur la base de l'état actuel des négociations commerciales multilatérales dans le cadre du régime de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce, nous révélons comment les PD bénéficient de ce régime, le construisant en fonction de leurs intérêts. Dans la mesure où les PVD s'organisent pour défendre leurs intérêts au niveau multilatéral, les PD privilégient les négociations au niveau bilatéral pour établir des accords allant du préférentiel au réciproque, dans lesquels elles imposent des conditions qui les favorisent. Compte tenu de la perte des préférences et des politiques de défense commerciale, les industries nationales du PVD sont désavantagées par rapport aux industries consolidées du Nord. Nous prenons la République Dominicaine et son processus de négociation et son insertion dans le DR-CAFTA comme étude de cas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the deepening vertical specialization of production networks and value chains among countries, the problem of global embodied carbon emission leakage under multilateral trade agreement cooperation is becoming increasingly prominent. This study measures the index of "World Trade Organization+" and "World Trade Organization-X," finds the complex impact of the two types of deep integration of trade agreements on embodied carbon emissions from the network perspective, and compares them to draw conclusions and suggestions. First, the global trade-embodied carbon transfer link spontaneously diversifies, with most countries moving from the network's perimeter to its center. Second, more trade agreements can help carbon-absorbing, and carbon-spillover countries narrow the "production side" and "consumption side" divide. Third, "World Trade Organization+" and "World Trade Organization-X" deep integration influence embodied carbon emission linkages differently for countries with different embodied carbon emission attributes, with "World Trade Organization-X" having a more significant impact. At the policy level, free trade agreements have deepened to a certain extent to provide a consistent and synergistic path for trade governance and climate globalization. Countries should actively introduce relevant provisions based on the governance of trade-embodied carbon emission reductions in "World Trade Organization+" and "World Trade Organization-X", especially in "World Trade Organization-X", and some of the relevant policy provisions can be appropriately weighted in favor of developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current United States Administration will face considerable challenges in the key areas of international trade law and policy. In order to understand the future international trade architecture for the coming decade, including in the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is essential to understand the drivers of key trade strategies in leading economies. This article explains the reasons why and the extent to which the negotiating perspective of a country is determined by its ability to penetrate in global value chains, embrace tariff reforms, and face the trade balance consequences. These abilities may in turn influence a country's willingness to impose anti-dumping or subsidies and countervailing measures. Given the employment generation capability of the manufacturing sector and the consequent domestic economic compulsions, the WTO negotiations on freeing trade in this category have progressed slowly. The Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations to reduce the high bound tariff to address tariff "overhang" reached a stalemate in the last decade due to diverging perspectives of developed and developing countries. In addition, developed countries have ceased using contingency measures as policy instruments, and leading developing countries are taking refuge by doing the same. In this context, this article explores the tariff and contingency policies of two key developed countries (United States and European Union) and developing countries (China and India), to gauge each country's willingness for future reforms. The perspective regarding manufacturing competitiveness differs significantly among these countries, which also shapes their manufacturing policy interventions. This article concludes that, given the trade and industrial policy choices made by these countries in recent past, it would be difficult to reach a WTO-induced multilateral trade agreement on NAMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]