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In the 1840s, Britain engaged in a series of trade liberalizations, with important consequences for itself and the international system. Many have tried to explain the central piece, Repeal of the Corn Laws, using liberal arguments from international political economy. Few find these arguments persuasive. Applying defensive neoclassical realism, I demonstrate how fluctuations in external threats to Britain—in particular posed by France—drove reassessments of trade policy. British leaders judged both the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts in terms of their contributions to security. Reassessments were also shaped by new information, such as the potato blight in Ireland. While defensive neoclassical realism highlights when a state may seek change to attain greater security, liberalism indicates how strongly constituents may defend existing policies. I use both to explain why tariffs remained popular, but Cabinets overrode protectionism's domestic supporters in this decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following independence in 1960, Nigeria intentionally crafted a 'big brother' honorific title for itself inspired by a Pan-Africanist Afrocentric ideology which it pursues through altruistic sharing of its human, military and economic resources. Successive governments have internalized this Africa-focused foreign policy thrust to establish a putative regional influence in Africa. However, despite belatedly signing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement which seeks to increase intra-African trade and introducing a novel visa-on-arrival policy for African passport holders, the porosity of Nigeria's boundaries continues to pose a threat and has led to the closure of land borders with its West African neighbours in August 2019. This article examines the implications of Nigeria's schizophrenic 'border diplomacy' for its continental leadership and argues that the substance and rhetoric of the country's border diplomacy represent a foreign policy interest which prioritizes its people, economy and national security while normatively extending Nigeria's hegemonic leadership in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many works have examined the variables driving the formation of North-South free trade agreements (FTAs) between developed and developing countries. This study analyzes the determinants shaping their utilization in the contexts of their political economy and of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) schemes that are unilaterally granted by developed economies to developing countries' exports. Most of the goods liberalized through GSP are liberalized from early on in North-South FTAs; however, since FTA concessions are legally binding, goods that are excluded or only partially liberalized in GSP will be also excluded or protected in FTAs. As GSP schemes are subject to unilateral restriction/elimination by the developed country, exporters using GSP tariffs will lobby for the non-removable liberalization of their exports through an FTA and subsequently will have a high FTA utilization. These scenarios result in North-South FTAs being used to a great extent to export goods covered by and exported through GSP, thus consolidating pre-FTA trade patterns. These arguments were tested by analyzing disaggregated and rarely accessed data on Thailand's and Malaysia's exports through the Japanese GSP and their bilateral FTAs with Japan, as well as interviews with key actors involved in the policymaking of these FTAs. Most sectors in Thailand and Malaysia that benefited from GSP lobbied for FTA liberalization with Japan. Goods previously exported through GSP account for most of FTA utilization and the previous use of GSP preferences has a higher predictive value of subsequent FTA utilization than FTA tariff savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norman Gash (1912–2009), the leading authority on the 'age of Peel', died on 1 May 2009, having left instructions to his daughters that the bulk of his private correspondence and personal papers should be destroyed. A small exception was made in respect of material relating to Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), the subject of his most famous historical and biographical labours. A collection of papers and correspondence was bequeathed to the Peel Society at Tamworth, on strict condition that it should never be sold.1 Among the 'Gash Bequest' was a hitherto unpublished essay on 'The Economic Achievement of Sir Robert Peel 1841–1846'. Typed in characteristic style on Gash's Remington typewriter, with only occasional manuscript insertions, the essay aptly summarises the position which he had developed in the final volume of his biography of Peel, the second volume of which was published 50 years ago this autumn.2 The essay is republished below as written, without any supporting notes or references. It acts not only as a commemoration of the half‐century since Gash's life of Peel was completed, but of the 40 years which have elapsed since he published an equally ground‐breaking article on the Conservative Party in the first volume of Parliamentary History.3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A qualitative game describes a situation in which antagonistic players strive to keep the evolutions of their state variables in predetermined constraint sets. We argue that a qualitative game model is a suitable mathematical representation of the struggle between a domestic central bank of a small open economy and a foreign central bank of a large economy to maintain their respective state variables within an acceptable band regardless of the other player's choices. The actions of the foreign central bank affect the domestic exchange rate and, hence, domestic inflation, output gap and interest rate. However, these actions do not necessarily aim to destabilise the small open economy, nor do they take into account the state of the latter. The domestic bank's problem, therefore, is similar to that of a game against nature. We refer to this type of qualitative game as a nuisance-agent game (or NA-game). We use viability theory to derive satisficing rules (in the sense of Simon) of nominal interest-rate adjustments for the domestic central bank of a small open economy in a qualitative NA-game against the foreign central bank. [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]

Purpose: This study investigates the effect of multilateral trade liberalization on services export diversification with a view to complementing the recently published work on the effect of multilateral trade liberalization on export product diversification. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical exercise been performed using a panel dataset of 133 countries over the period 1995–2014. Findings: The findings show that multilateral trade liberalization is associated with greater services export diversification in both developed and developing countries alike. This is particularly the case in countries with a high reliance on manufactured goods exports or those that enjoy greater export product diversification. Interestingly, multilateral trade liberalization enhances services export diversification in countries that experience higher foreign direct investment inflows. Research limitations/implications: These findings highlight the importance of multilateral trade liberalization for services export diversification. The study has considered explicitly supply-side factors that could affect services export diversification. This is because the indicator of multilateral trade liberalization is highly correlated with some demand-side factors, such as the world demand for services exports. Therefore, another avenue for future research could involve looking at the demand side factors that could influence services export diversification, and whether the degree of multilateral trade liberalization matters for the influence of these demand factors on services export diversification. Practical implications: The current study through its positive effect on both export product diversification and services export diversification, greater cooperation among World Trade Organization (WTO) Members on trade matters could help revive economic growth, particularly in the current COVID-19 pandemic that has significantly plummeted it. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is first study that has investigated this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of market power has sparked off increasing public debate over the past decade. Using a novel large-scale firm-level dataset, this paper examines the effect of trade liberalization on corporate market power in emerging and developing economies. We find that opening up to trade significantly reduces market power by promoting competition and improving resource allocation. The cumulative impact is estimated at 4 percent reduction in average markups over a 5-year horizon post each trade liberalization episode. We also draw on machine learning algorithms to account for nonlinearities in the relationship and show that trade reform is complementary to other structural reforms. [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.

This article explores British efforts to organize a Chinese section for the famous Great Exhibition of 1851. It details the difficult negotiations and compromises that took place among British administrators, Chinese imperial authorities, and local merchants in order to secure a Chinese display that promoted the imagined virtues of free trade. The article argues that Britain's failure to solicit the active support of Chinese elites reflected the strained commercial and political relations in the period between the two Opium Wars. By probing the global origins of Great Exhibition, the article provides a more comprehensive picture of Sino-British encounters in the mid-nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang proposed the theory of "kicking away the ladder", in reference to how the world's great powers managed to establish themselves as such after a prolonged period of robust measures to protect their development. Once they achieved that, they entered the free global market, demanding that small countries eschew any protectionist measures and immediately enter the 'free trade' in a highly unprotected manner. According to this approach, Cybernetics in Latin America can be interpreted in different ways: it can be a confirmation of the disappearance of technological, social, and industrial development defended by the already non-existent Latin American developmental states that had a utopian view of technology as a tool for self-determination, but, on the other, it can also be a provocation for those in the region who still believe in the possibilities of Cybernetics to develop and support its proposals. There is a fundamental difference between using technology and producing it, while the ways of using it are also techniques or technologies in themselves. This paper outlines the meaning of first-order cybernetics and then interprets what second-order cybernetics has represented in Latin America, its Viable System Model, and how its components have evolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was aimed to measure and evaluation the imported inflation in agricultural sector in Iraq. Moreover, studying and analyzing the most important factors affecting it during 1990-2019. This research reached to- via results of unit root test- that all variables were non-stationary at the level, but all of them were stationary at the 𝟏𝐬𝐭 difference. The research conclude- through significance of parameters of agricultural trade openness in the model. That the imported inflation can be rising in agricultural sector after the trade liberalization and interring to WTO and increasing of dumping policy in agricultural products, whereas found when measuring the imported inflation the high dependency of agricultural sector in Iraq on the imported equipment's and agricultural and foods products, and influence of rising of global prices in it especially after 2003.The research recommended to controlling the rates of imported inflation by using studied import policies and not allowed of randomized of importing agricultural products, the research recommends also to reduce the impact of dumping policy in agricultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inception of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in 2018, an event which redefined the institutional dimensions of Africa-European relations, is at the centre of historic normative debates between two dominant contending schools on the imperatives of African unity. While Pan-Africanists advocate for African unity as a strategy to rupture trade relations between the two continents in question, Afro-European integrationists assert that the quest for African unity should not be divorced from deeper exchanges between Africa and Europe. The AfCFTA is embedded in an ensemble of Africa-EU free trade institutions and therefore is bound to be perceived by Pan-Africanists as Africa yielding to European domination and mobilized by Afro-European integrationists as a vindication of the validity of their assertions. With the aid of Bob Jessop's regulation analysis, Radhika Desai's concept of combined development, and my notion of syndic neo-corporatism as well as the method of sequence analysis, this paper makes a case beyond the normative perspectives of the two schools. It does so in order to demonstrate that while Pan-Africanists miss the point that African elites instrumentally value the AfCFTA as a rent extraction scheme, Afro-European integrationists fail to recognize that the AfCFTA fits the strategic quest of the EU to prevail over its global competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines to what extent the EU includes Moroccan and Tunisian civil society actors in bilateral political processes in the two policy domains of trade liberalization and anti-corruption. It finds that while the EU has strongly committed itself to more such interaction, gaps between its discourses and its practices remain. We observe variance between both sectors and both countries. Civil society is much more substantially included in EU policy processes in Tunisia than in Morocco, which is partly due to the EU's respect for some of Moroccan government's red lines. Moreover, the EU tends to be more open towards including civil society on transparency and anti-corruption than on trade. This may at least partly be explained by the fact that EU interests are more aligned with those of civil society on the former than on the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study draws inference on the impact of agricultural trade openness, total factor productivity (TFP) growth, and domestic agriculture support on food security in Africa. To retain estimates efficiency and consistency in the presence of complex error terms, we employed the Panel-Corrected-Standard-Error (PCSE) estimator on panel data spanning 2005–2016 for 13 African countries. Results suggest that agricultural trade liberalisation and TFP have significant and favourable effects. Moreover, we find that reducing agricultural support beyond distortion-free levels enhances food security. Further to trade openness, we call for export growth-oriented domestic support anchored on agricultural human-capital development, innovation, and research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the twenty-first century, why did country after country in the developing world open their economies to the global market? This paper argues that increases in democracy were more likely to lead to trade liberalization when governments violated workers' basic rights to act collectively. Democracy empowered pro-trade domestic groups and therefore had the potential to lead to trade liberalization, but respect for labor rights empowered protectionist labor unions to launch protests and strikes that hampered such reforms. This paper supports these arguments with a multimethod approach that combines quantitative analysis of data from 126 developing countries from 1985 to 2010 with qualitative case studies of Argentina and Mexico. In general, the empirical evidence suggests that democracy and labor repression often worked together to facilitate the process of trade liberalization in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the scale of international trade is expanding at a great pace, leading to the development of the economy of different countries. Global industrialization and urbanization are developing with each passing day, and this fast economic expansion is putting a tremendous impact on the environment. Like the other countries, the scale of Chinese export trade is also increasing with time, resulting in the stable economy of our country. With the improvement of living standards, people are continuously demanding high environmental facilities. Further, the impact of trade (enterprises, companies, industries, etc.) on the ecological environment has become a worldwide problem because economic progress brought forth by trade expansion may directly affect the environment by causing pollution to rise or the degradation of natural resources. This indeed is a serious issue; therefore, various countries have started focusing on the impact of export trade on the ecological environment. In recent years, the issue of economic benefits and the environmental impact of export trade has become a hot topic of research. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship between trade, economy, and environmental quality in China. For the accomplishment of our research study, we selected Anhui free trade zone (FTZ) as an example to analyze the interaction between the economic benefits of Anhui export trade and the local environment. It is among the top trading provinces in China having a faster economic development. In order to accurately study the economic benefits and environmental impact of export trade in the Anhui FTZ, this paper selects industrial waste gas, wastewater, and solid waste to establish an export trade environmental impact indicating system. After comparative analysis, three factors that include industrial soot (dust) emissions for export trade, chemical oxygen demand for trade, and general industrial solid waste dumping and discards are selected to evaluate the impact on the environment of the free trade zone. Based on this, the export trade environment vector autoregressive (VAR) model is established, and the variance decomposition method is used to analyze the dynamic impact of various factors on the environmental impact index. Further, we established an economic benefit VAR model based on the export economic benefit index (EI), export value (EV), and export product concentration (EPC) index and judged the economic benefit of the Anhui free trade zone based on the contribution rate of the obtained three factors. The experimental results show that the export volume and product concentration directly affect the economic benefits of the region, and at the same time, the expansion of export trade promotes the growth of economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In today's internationalism-sceptical age, the pro-internationalism side is defended from liberal perspectives. Worries concern free trade, free movement, international representative institutions, and senses of global democracy. These are important issues. On the other hand, they cloud the reality that other forms of internationalism have been available to us, including in times not distant from our own. I'm interested to think through 'red' internationalisms – internationalisms held by social democrats on one hand and the communist world on the other. Arguing that though a previously close family clearly split, that split might look different than we think. Furthermore, even though one branch of that family lives on, it's a different creature than it once was. These are 'lost traditions of internationalism' – internationalisms that were sometimes problematic yet might be worth remembering in times when we often think the options are either disbanding internationalism altogether or supporting the liberal institutionalisms against which populists often rail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzed the relationship between openness to agricultural exchange, foreign direct investment, capital, consumer price index, and GDP in Pakistan utilizing time series data for the 1971-2019 period. We used autoregressive distributed lag ARDL-bound testing method to analyze the long-run and short-run correlation between projected variables. The study's findings also confirmed a positive and important long-term correlation between openness to agricultural trade, foreign direct investment and Pakistan's economic development. There is no long-run relationship between consumer price and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partial currency substitution typically occurs in small open economies amid economic crises. Often, the foreign currency continues to circulate even after macroeconomic stability returns. Central banks have responded by applying de-dollarization policies. We extend the model in Matsuyama et al. (1993) and implement an experiment to study the effectiveness of two policy instruments: (1) taxes on domestic transactions in foreign currency and (2) a reduction in the storage cost of local currency. We contribute to the theoretical literature by characterizing a new circulation regime for small open economies where agents use the foreign currency solely for international trade and settle domestic transactions exclusively in local currency. Our experimental evidence suggests that both taxes and storage cost reductions can foster de-dollarization as they reduce foreign currency acceptance and reinforce the use of local currency. However, we find that the impact of a reduction in the storage costs of the local currency is more significant and robust. It lowered the acceptance rate of foreign currency by more than 20 percentage points and increased the acceptance of local currency by more than 30 percentage points. On the other hand, the tax policy reduced foreign currency acceptance by a smaller amount and only for encounters with foreign agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic populism said to be represented by the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump and the breakdown in trade and investment following the COVID-19 outbreak have rekindled interest in the redistributive consequences of trade liberalisation. Against this backdrop, the authors in this Special Section consider the broader drivers of inclusion and exclusion in trade governance, focusing on the trade politics of Canada, the European Union and the United States. This short introduction spells out the importance of considering the interplay between redistributive and deliberative drivers of inclusion and exclusion in producing trade policy contestation. It focuses on the three key drivers of inclusion and exclusion that the authors subsequently draw on in their contributions: discursive factors; institutional mechanisms and inter-scalar and multi-level dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to growing contestation and politicisation of trade policy, policy makers have aimed to enhance the 'inclusiveness' of trade policy through the institutionalisation of deliberative forums in which civil society organisations participate. However, it is not clear whether these processes actually enhance inclusiveness. This article adds to our understanding of this question by, first, developing an analytical framework (the 'inclusiveness ladder') and, second, applying it to the civil society mechanisms (CSMs) of European Union (EU) free trade agreements. The unique feature of CSMs is their focus on ensuring that the actual implementation of trade agreement does not run counter to sustainable development principles. Specifically, our empirical research involves a mixed methods analysis of primary and secondary sources and a survey of civil society participants. We find that CS is largely included at the level of logistics and partly at the level of information sharing, whereas monitoring capacities remain limited and impact on policy-making is quasi-absent. Moreover, results suggest differences between business participants, who seem largely satisfied with the lower steps on the 'ladder', and non-governmental actors who insist on policy impact. Finally, we outline avenues for further research and reflect on policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, debate about the distributive consequences of trade liberalisation has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic. Within the European Union (EU), a strong politicisation of trade policy occurred in the wake of the launch of negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the United States (US). These talks were effectively portrayed by critics of the agreements as 'made for and by big business', a master frame that succeeded in bringing together a broad coalition of civil society organisations. In this article, we show how the European Commission developed and communicated a counter-frame stipulating that TTIP and similar trade agreements are inclusive of and especially valuable to small firms. Based on a framing analysis of official documents and speeches, we analyse the rationale of this frame and how it has been communicated through story-telling. We show that this positive frame has only partially been mirrored in the positions of associations representing small firms themselves. The debate on the inclusive benefits and redistributive effects of trade agreements, including between enterprises of different sizes, continues within academia, politics, and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a component of illicit globalization, smuggling has loomed large in international political economy in recent years. The question of sovereignty is at the forefront of the discussion because smugglers make efforts to evade state regulations and thus jeopardize sovereign power. This paper examines the operation of commodity smuggling between China and Myanmar and discusses major factors that facilitate this business. Another objective is to explore antismuggling initiatives launched by the Chinese state to exercise its sovereignty over cross-border commodity flows. The study case is the Ruili (China)-Muse (Myanmar) border crossing, where smuggling has been an essential component of cross-border networks for decades. Increased smuggling does not infer the Chinese state as weak or failing, but reveals the illicit side of globalization that operates in parallel with trade liberalization and economic integration. Nevertheless, border control is not in vain, but draws on antismuggling campaigns to push informal economies to become formalized, and safeguards national sovereignty at the border. This article presents new material on the complexity of trade governance in one of Asia's most isolated borderlands, and contributes to theoretical debates on the articulation of effective sovereignty in relation to illicit globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I offer a methodological analysis of the empirical research on the causal effects of trade liberalisation, and assess whether such studies can be of any use for guiding policy prescriptions in real-world economies. The analysis focuses on the mainstream economic research that has been used to support arguments in favour of trade liberalisation during the last decades. Even though there are empirical results that could be taken as valid evidence for a causal connection between free trade and economic gains, none of the existing evidence licences trustworthy inferences about the policy effectiveness of trade liberalisation reforms in real-world cases. There are three aspects of the empirical literature that make it highly problematic for making reliable policy inferences: (a) the criteria used to define the notion of 'free trade', (b) the background assumptions embedded in the econometric techniques used for estimating causal effects, and (c) the widespread desire among academic economists to attain scientific results in terms of universally valid generalisations. The analysis exposes a worrisome mismatch between, on the one hand, the research aims and outcomes of scientific economics and, on the other, the kind of evidence that would be useful for guiding actual policy deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a simple Stock-Flow Consistent open economy model with flexible exchange rates. It can reproduce the same dynamics and results of the flexible exchange rates 'benchmark' model by Godley and Lavoie [2007b. Monetary Economics: An Integrated Approach to Credit, Money, Income, Production and Wealth. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan]. The latter is considered the 'centre of gravity' of SFC open economy literature. Yet the new model uses only one-third of the equations of the original one and features a different mechanism of determination of the exchange rate. Its small size and its flexibility make the model suitable both for didactic purposes and for extensions with further building blocks to address a variety of research topics. [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]

Much has been written about Ambiguum 41 and Saint Maximus the Confessor’s perspective on gender. This article revisits this Ambiguum and shows how Saint Maximus’ perspective is interpreted and applied in Christian experience through various narratives of the lives of saints. Reading Saint Maximus holistically, it is clear that the saint speaks about gender not being abolished, but transfigured, when humans reach the summit of dispassion in divine virtue, leading to the perfection of love. The Confessor’s perspective opens the eye to understand saintly models–male or female, in marriage or in celibacy–that have reflected throughout the centuries the beauty of God’s image. The epiclesis of the Holy Spirit, in fervent harmony with humanity, continues to transfigure both man and woman, rendering them earthly angels without losing their natural gender identity. This study reveals how all this divine economy opens the way for humanity to a great mystery: the mystical marriage with Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present study examines the effect of human capital accumulation and its influencing variables such as expenditure on education and quality of education, labor force, free trade and investment and its impact on economic development which can be measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product and GDP per capita. The data for the current study is comprised of economic indicators from almost 181 countries around the globe while using the panel technique. The outcome of the study suggest that enhancing the quality level of education through increasing the budget expenditure for education sector will result in capable work force which will in turn promote the economic growth of our country, similarly funds reimbursements towards fixed capital and free trade are also major determinants of economic development. The present study is also unique in terms of data collection from a vast number of countries to generate the empirical findings related to the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the argument that a small open economy with goods and service markets integrated into a major currency block has decreased autonomy over its monetary policy. The idea is derived from Optimum Currency Area theory (OCA), which tries to answer the question of what economic area is supposed to share one common currency. The main cost of joining a common currency area is a loss of independent monetary policy of the economy. Independence of monetary policy can be interpreted as the ability to set interest rates autonomously of the international interest rates. The de facto independence of an economy is strongly influenced by its size and market integration as R. McKinnon famously noted. Therefore, the paper's question is: do the countries abstaining from joining the Eurozone have a truly independent monetary policy? If the independence of their monetary policy is low, then the cost of joining the Eurozone is also low. The topic is highly relevant for the examined countries as five of them are legally bound to accept Euro. Therefore, the costs of losing "not so independent" monetary policy should not be so high. We analyze the data if the European countries with sovereign currency follow the monetary policy of the Eurozone and the United States. As previous literature stated, the independent monetary policy sets the interest rates to impact the economy's internal balance. On the other hand, if the central bank uses its interest rate tool to affect the exchange rate, then the monetary policy is not so independent. The results show that the monetary authorities of the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark follow the lead of the European Central Bank much more evidently than the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. [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]

This study examines the relationship between the interest rate and the exchange rate of the Republic of North Macedonia. In our survey, we used time series techniques such as unit root tests, cointegration test, causality test and vector error correction model. Quarterly data from January, 2000 to December 2020 were used for the study. Using Johansen test for cointegration, the obtained results confirmed that between the series, three cointegration connections were determined according to the cointegration rank test based on the maximum inherent value. Based on this, the existence of three cointegration links between interest rates and the exchange rate indicates that there is an economic relationship between them in the long run. Using Granger causality test, the obtained results showed that is not found causality between the discount rate and the exchange rate in the long run. The study has found that the exchange rate Granger cause the interest rate on treasury bills, i.e. changes in the exchange rate would lead to changes in the interest rate on treasury bills. There is no causality between the interest rate on lombard loans, the reference rate, the default interest rate and the exchange rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the legal origins of the 'substance of rights' doctrine, and its judicial development since its creation in landmark Union citizenship cases over a decade ago. It is demonstrated how the status of Union citizenship has evolved from being a proclaimed fundamental status for the individual in a lawful cross-border situation, to an increasingly operational and legally effective status regardless of the nature of the free movement situation. Under a genuinely substantive status of Union citizenship, any and all Member States are obligated to neither restrict freedom of movement under art. 21 TFEU, nor deprive , de jure or de facto, a Union citizen of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of Union citizenship rights under art. 20 TFEU. Thereby, the relevance of art. 20 TFEU is no longer reserved to the Union citizen's relationship to their home Member State. In addition, it is argued that, as the jurisdictional spheres of art. 21 TFEU and 20 TFEU merge, the legal mechanisms of EU fundamental rights protection should also be streamlined across Directive 2004/38, art. 21 TFEU and art. 20 TFEU; thereby giving further substance to the citizenship ideal of civis europaeus sum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millmow awards Clark a win on points over the neo-Malthusians, but Clark's own exaggerations did not help the cause. Millmow is much less satisfactory on Clark's most important contribution to economics, the development of the modern system of national accounts in his book, I National Income and Outlay i (1937). In reviewing Alex Millmow's biography of Colin Clark, I should begin with disclosure of my own interests. [Extracted from the article]

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a significant and inaugural project of the "Belt and Road" initiative which is considered as structure and manifesto for panoramic and fundamental collaboration between China and Pakistan. The CPEC project was initiated to develop economic growth and facilitate free trade between both countries. However, it has generated immense employment opportunities, education facilities, and improved quality of life for local citizens, specifically women, as well as international overreach. This study investigates and examines the benefits of CPEC project and its influence on women empowerment. Based on the background of the CPEC, this study has been carried out by applying a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods to fill the gap. Data was aggregated with the help of a survey questionnaire and interviews from the residents of the Thar region of Pakistan, which comes under CPEC route. In total, 306 samples were acquired and analysed using different statistical tools such as SPSS (Statistical package for social sciences) and PLS (Partial least squares) to formulate the study results. The findings revealed that the development of CPEC has remarkably improved the quality of life for women by providing enormous employment opportunities, education facilities, skills enhancement programs, and training facilities. The analyzed results will guide government policymakers and officials to promote operational activities in the region, develop new educational institutions, and create employment opportunities for the local community and women to obtain further development of CPEC projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AEAfCFTA) is a revolutionary treaty of the African Union (AU) which creates an African single market to guarantee the free movement of persons, capital, goods and services. The AEAfCFTA is geared towards enabling seamless trade among African countries. The single market relies heavily on the processing of the personal data of persons resident within and outside the AU, thereby necessitating an effective data protection regime. However, the data protection regime across Africa is fragmented, with each country either having a distinct data protection framework or none at all. This lack of a uniform continental framework threatens to clog the wheels of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), because by demanding compliance with the various data protection laws across Africa, free trade will be inhibited, the very problem the AEAfCFTA seeks to remediate. These concerns are considered and applicable solutions are proposed to ensure the successful implementation of the AfCFTA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reason that a historically high increase in demand for commodities is unlikely to push up equilibrium commodity prices to a more elevated level. But I do agree, demand growth for commodities is unlikely to push up equilibrium commodity prices to a more elevated level, what does push up the level would be a cost increase. Demand for primary commodities will stay elevated as more and more people enter the middle class. Considering this, and with the latest commodity boom in mind, prices will most probably also stay high. Falling demand and especially the falling share of primary commodities in the economy hide the fact that even mature economies still demand more primary commodities to continue to build their societies. [Extracted from the article]

This study aims to develop scientifically sound proposals and recommendations for implementing the principles and characteristics of digital monopolies and determine the patterns and relationships of individual products. To achieve the goal, methodological approaches used included correlation analysis. The results are methodological justifications to determine the key principles of digital monopolies within the service approach. The scientific novelty of the results is to identify the synergetic relationship of individual products of digital companies, which can be used to build an appropriate antimonopoly policy of the United States. The practical significance of the results consists of approbation of the proposed principles of digital monopolies on the example of the relationship of Google's selected products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants in the UK from the Central and Eastern European states that acceded to the European Union in 2004 and 2007 often have close proximity to precarity. This contribution illustrates that the positioning of the migrants in the casualised labour market has not occurred by accident but has been brought about by the (disingenuous) way in which nationals of the accession states were permitted access to the UK labour market. The positioning has been further maintained through the increasingly restrictive direction of the intertwined EU-UK response to claims for support from vulnerable EU migrant citizens. This piece presents the idea of 'confined labour market citizenship' as a way to understand the way many migrants have experienced working and living in the UK in the years following EU enlargement. This concept, it is argued, is able to capture: the role of the UK state as it regulated post-accession migration rules and implemented laws relating to social security entitlement; the influence of the broader EU framework on free movement and citizenship of the Union; and the impact of employers 'on the ground' in creating and exacerbating conditions of precarity and exploitation. The analysis throughout the paper exposes how EU8 and EU2 migrants have served as scapegoats for the result of the Brexit referendum, deflecting attention from the instrumentalisation of the migration issue by politicians. They have also been guinea pigs, testing out a confined version of EU citizenship with less tolerance for those in precarious and insecure work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claude-Jacques Herbert's Essay on the general police of grain (Essai sur la police générale des grains) has particular features that could have enabled it to make a crucial contribution to the gradual conversion of French public opinion to free trade at the end of 1753. First, the essay is an explicit criticism of Delamare's Treatise on the police (Traité de la police) and of the French regulations of the grain trade. Against them, Herbert promotes new principles grounded on a specific conception of free trade and on the central role played by prices in economics. Reviewing these elements, we may suppose that the success of Herbert's Essay can also be explained by the conceptions it proposes. These could indeed have been approved both by the proponents of internal and moderate free trade and those of total freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin America, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, have been using Inflation Targeting for at least two decades, and although there were significant improvements in social indicators, macroeconomic results have been mixed. In particular, the real exchange rate has been much more volatile and growth was significantly slower in Brazil and Mexico. In accordance with these facts, we sketch a simple New Consensus open economy model with hysteresis and we show that a policy that targets inflation disregarding the effects on the real exchange rate may have negative long-run effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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