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The success of some early Asian emerging countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, followed by China and India since 1980, has raised the bar for developing economies. However, other Asian emerging countries, like those from Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and now Viet Nam, have not yet been able to replicate the performance of their Asian predecessors. Could it be that they are already experiencing the problems of a Latin American-style "middle-income trap"? In these two regions, the common factor has been the inability to "upgrade" their growth strategies when the existing ones have run their course and become counterproductive. The "middle-income trap" indicates that productivity growth is more difficult to sustain at higher and more complex stages of the catching-up process. While Latin American countries have exhausted their purely extractive development model (and productivity growth has stalled for decades), Southeast Asian ones have failed to recapture their pre-1997 high growth trajectories as they have been priced out of labor-intensive activities. This paper analyses how the "more of the same but hopefully better" supply-side-strategy that many mainstream economists and trade agreements focus on is the wrong solution for escaping the "trap"; instead, middle-income countries facing a slowdown in productivity growth should reengineer existing development strategies. Matching the performance of the above-mentioned countries requires a conscious, national-level strategy to promote investment in activities with higher long-term potentials for productivity growth, especially higher value-added manufactured exports. The main policy implication of this analysis is that Latin America must reignite productivity growth by adding value to their commodity exports and strengthening backward linkages of export products and services, while Southeast Asian countries should "deepen" their assembly operations in manufacturing. Nicholas Kaldor's argument that manufacturing has the greatest scope to realize increasing returns to scale remains true, even in today's decentralized, fragmented manufacturing systems, but the limited size of domestic markets means that middle-income countries must prioritize manufactured exports using all of the policy instruments still available to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of global, regional and domestic saving for domestic investment financing in the panel of Latin American and Caribbean countries along with its three regional integration blocks, namely SICA, Andean Community and MERCOSUR. Panel regression and rolling-window estimation results reveal that global saving is the main source of domestic investment financing in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, SICA, Andean Community and MERCOSUR. The role of domestic and regional savings is rather limited, implying that there are weak regional and domestic channels that can funnel domestic and regional savings into investment in the analysed samples. The importance of regional agreement saving is insignificant and decreases over the analysed period except for the Andean Community. The results indicate low financial integration of the member-countries within the three regional trade agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article gives an in-depth understanding of the commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) on labour under the new generation of free trade agreements (FTAs) of the European Union (EU), and especially, the EU – Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). Following that, via the EU’s foreign and trade policies, this research clarifies the history as well as the evolution of the CSR commitments in the EU’s new generation FTAs. On that basis, this article also delves into the nature of CSR commitments related to labour in the EVFTA. Last but not least, the article reviews the current legislation of the EU and its member states as partners and suggests different policy implications that Vietnam and other developing nations might adopt to execute their CSR commitments in the context of global sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2010, the European Union (EU) and Malaysia began negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA). This paper examines the prospects and challenges facing the EU-Malaysia FTA negotiations from a political economy perspective. It will argue two points. First, while a deep FTA would offer significant welfare gains to Malaysia, a deep agreement is unlikely to be negotiated. This is because of the difficulty Malaysia would have in opening its services markets and changing investment regulations. Second, even a deep FTA would be of little economic or strategic use for the EU. Both points beg the question: why bother negotiating an FTA? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tendencias: Revista de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas is the property of Universidad de Narino, Facultad de Ciencias Economics y Administrativas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We consider the impact of MERCOSUR on trade among Brazilian states and on trade by Brazilian states with MERCOSUR and the rest of the world. We use a theoretically founded gravity model to shed light on MERCOSUR's possible creation and diversion effects as well as its 'preference erosion' effect on trade among Brazilian states. Using data on interstate trade over a 4-year period, including 1 year prior to the MERCOSUR period (1991), we deliver empirical evidence at state level with a focus on the impact of MERCOSUR which can vary across Brazilian regions. We show that MERCOSUR increased Brazilian states' trade with member countries, but had no effect on either interstate trade or Brazilian states' trade with third countries. The paper finds that MERCOSUR's impact varies across Brazilian regions and that Center West region did not benefit from the integration to MERCOSUR. We use an estimation method dealing better with the traditional issue of zero trade values and heteroskedasticity than ordinary least squares does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to the terms-of-trade theory, negotiations over tariffs alone, coupled with an effective market access preservation rule, can bring governments to the efficiency frontier. In this paper, we show that the nature of international price determination is important for this central result of the terms-of-trade theory. While the received theory assumes that international prices are fully disciplined by aggregate market clearing conditions, we show here that support for 'shallow' integration is overturned, and instead a need for 'deep' integration is suggested ? wherein direct negotiations occur over both border and behind-the-border policies ? if international prices are determined through bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research on antidumping suggests a number of channels through which antidumping affects the volume of world trade. This paper uses a structural approach to the gravity model framework to evaluate these hypotheses using data on trade volume over the period 1948 to 2001. We conclude that the volume and welfare effects have been negative but quite modest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the impact of membership in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade between PTA members. Rather than considering the impact of PTA membership on the volume of trade we consider the impact of membership on the structure of trade. For a large sample of countries over the period 1962-2000 we find that membership in a PTA is associated with an increase in the extent of intra-industry trade. Our results indicate that this is especially the case for PTAs formed between richer countries, with the effects of PTAs between poorer countries found to be smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a diversification explanation in order understand the development of PTAs in Southeast Asia. I argue that an important reason why ASEAN states participate in PTAs has been to diversify existing trade ties and to reduce overdependence on a narrow range of export markets. Southeast Asian countries have formed PTAs with markets with which they had weak or unexplored economic relations, as demonstrated by three case analyses: the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (AJCEP). To maximise the economic gains and the diversification effects of PTA participation, ASEAN countries have pursued a strategy of strengthening economic unity while keeping external economic linkages as diversified as possible. Although East Asia, and especially China, was an important alternative market to reduce ASEAN's dependence on trade with America, ASEAN countries have also pursued PTAs with a number of other trading partners. This paper explains how PTAs have helped ASEAN states to develop more policy autonomy in their trading environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recently we have seen that the middle-sized states are coming together in several forums. The WTO meetings and India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) dialogue forum are among those to be cited. Such groupings are mainly economyoriented and whether they will have political output needs to be seen, however, in the future if globalization goes in a similar way as today, we might see more groupings. Those groupings should be seen as reactions to unjust and exclusive globalization. The IBSA Dialogue Forum members have enhanced their relations economically by signing bilateral trade agreements and acting together on economic issues in global forums. If they can hold together, they are creating a market more than ¼ of global population and, if successful, it has a chance to be the engine of growth in the South. Moreover if they can create the biggest market in the South, they would also be influential in the being of the voice of the South. In that sense, this paper addresses the possible ways to develop relations between the IBSA members and economic development in the South, furthermore, implication of the IBSA on global governance and development can be as critical as its contribution to economic development, since the global governing bodies have legitimacy crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade between members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) accounts for only 5 percent of their total trade. This abysmally low level of intraregional trade is a matter of concern for policy-makers in South Asia, considering the large number of trade complementarities that exist between SAARC member nations. The aim of this paper is to explain the reasons for this problem and discuss possible solutions. Firstly, the paper provides the rationale behind improving intraregional trade in South Asia, using existing literature and trade theory, and discusses the historical background to trade in South Asia leading up to the signing of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA). The paper recommends a two-pronged approach to improving trade in the SAARC region. In the short term, it proposes trade facilitation with the aim of improving existing infrastructure and administrative procedures, as well as amendments to SAFTA based on its performance since its implementation in January, 2006. In the long term, the paper takes into account the political hostility between the two largest economies and the uneven balance of power in the region and recommends plurilateralism as the way ahead. It is anticipated that with the realisation of economic benefits through plurilateralism, doors for negotiations and dialogue will open up which may further facilitate regional economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates agricultural trade creation and diversion effects of the most important free trade agreements (FTAs). Trade creation and diversion effects are estimated using a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood (PPML) estimator with various fixed effects to deal with heteroskedasticity and zero trade observations. The analysis finds that PPML estimation is preferred to OLS and the estimated impacts of FTAs are different if zero trade observations are considered. The ASEAN-China preferential trade agreement, EU-15, EU-25, and Southern African Development Community agreements have generated large increases in agricultural trade among their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial body of research has taken shape on trade in services since the mid-1980s. Much of this is inspired by the WTO and regional trade agreements. However, an increasing number of papers focus on the impacts of unilateral services sector liberalization. The literature touches on important linkages between trade and FDI in services and the general pattern of productivity growth and economic development. This paper surveys the literature on services trade, focusing on contributions that investigate the determinants of international trade and investment in services, the potential gains from greater trade, and efforts to cooperate to achieve such liberalization through trade agreements. There is increasing evidence that services liberalization is a major potential source of gains in economic performance, including productivity in manufacturing and the coordination of activities both between and within firms. The performance of service sectors, and thus services policies, may also be an important determinant of trade volumes, the distributional effects of trade, and overall patterns of economic growth and development. At the same time, services trade is also a source of increasing political unease about the impacts of globalization on labor markets, linked to worries about offshoring and the potential pressure this places on wages in high income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade using a comprehensive data base of PTAs in force and a detailed matrix of world trade. Total trade between PTA partners is a poor proxy for preferential trade (trade in tariff lines where preferences are likely to matter): while the former was one-third of global trade in 2000–2002, the latter was between one-sixth and one-tenth. Gravity model estimates indicate that using total trade to assess the impacts of PTAs leads to a significant downward bias in the PTA coefficient: the semi-elasticity of trade with respect to PTA membership rises from 87% for total trade to 119% for preferential trade. Product exclusions and long phase-in periods significantly limit preferential trade; the marginal impact of South-South agreements on preferential trade is much higher than North-South PTAs, while the effect of North-North agreements is insignificantly different from zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade flows of cultural goods have grown rapidly over the last decades and their liberalization will be an important issue of future multilateral trade negotiations. In this paper, we focus on bilateral trade in cultural goods and investigate its determinants. Furthermore, we use trade in cultural goods as a proxy for countries’ cultural proximity and study if countries with proximate cultural tastes have more intense bilateral exchanges. Our estimations show a positive and significant influence of cultural flows on overall trade, suggesting that regulations fostering domestic cultural creation might have impacts going beyond what is generally expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural is the property of Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper develops a theory of the endogenous formation of a common market in a three-country, two-factor political economy model. In the status quo, Home and Foreign implement nondiscriminatory policies toward international factor flows in order to maximize the domestic median voter's welfare. Then the two countries simultaneously hold referenda on a common market initiative, leading to the removal of the pre-existing policies for factor flows between the member countries, while no coordination is imposed on policies vis-à-vis the Rest of the World. Several interesting results emerge. In a common market, the returns on factors moving between the members are more likely to increase the larger is the import demand of one country relative to the factor supply of the exporting partner. Factors that do not relocate are more likely to see their returns decrease when flows are large and import demands are inelastic. Importantly, for the common market to emerge as an equilibrium, some factors must continue to experience enhanced protection when the integration process is completed. This result highlights the potential tension between social desirability and the political feasibility of the integration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of proliferation of preferential trade agreements, bilaterally and regionally, was particularly more pronounced both in the aftermath of the regional financial and economic crisis that affected East Asia in 1997-98 and in the inability of the WTO to yield any substantial outcome to improve growth prospects of the Asian economies. This paper analyses the implications of ASEAN's ongoing FTAs and examines its role in fostering deeper economic integration within ASEAN and in Asia. It analyses the evolution and characteristics of FTA proliferation in ASEAN, identifying major trends. The paper argues that in their present state, if not properly designed and managed, there are valid concerns that these FTAs could end up becoming a stumbling block towards integration efforts. Implementation integrity among FTA members therefore remains a key to its success, and empirical and policy research needs to be much more forthcoming in this area in order to fully understand the economic ramifications of these FTAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Balkan states are engaged in a complex and contradictory process of simultaneous regional integration and disintegration. The main instrument of regional integration has been a network of bilateral Free Trade Agreements which the Balkan countries have adopted under the guidance of the Stability Pact for South East Europe, and more recently the extension of the CEFTA free trade area to the region. The bilateral FTAs have been criticised for creating a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of differentiated trade relations, and creating risks of trade deflection and trade diversion. At the same time other arrangements, including the contractual relations of individual countries with the EU, cut across the region and fragment their mutual trade relations. Moreover, Croatia is likely to become an EU member within the next few years, at which point it will suspend its trade agreements with the non-member Balkan states. Therefore, soon after having established a new mechanism of integration, the region will once again be split apart, leaving a rump association of five or six poverty-stricken and politically unstable countries to pursue the vision of regional cooperation. This paper focuses on the prospects for regional integration among these remaining countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. It explores the patterns of their mutual trade, and the opportunities and obstacles to increasing trade between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of changes in Latin American trade regime. The inward-looking import substitution industrialization (ISI) approach to development was replaced in the 1990s by an outward-looking strategy. The protectionist policies of the ISI strategy generated an anti-export bias, but unilateral trade liberalization (UTL) reduced this bias considerably. An issue discussed is why the pro-ISI consensus of the 1960s was replaced by the pro-export consensus of the 1990s? There has been a surprising proliferation of (bilateral) free trade agreements (FTAs) during the 1990s. In the paper it is argued that UTL and FTAs are complementary strategies. Latin America has comparative advantages in natural resources. A new debate over the development strategy has emerged. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are seen as crucial to a country’s growth in the twenty-first century. So, how can Latin American countries incorporate such technologies into their economies. Is it possible to make the leap from producing natural resources to producing ICT? In today’s globalized world, it is essential for Latin American countries to increase its exports. This paper reviews actions on different fronts; some that should be carried at the domestic level, and also, measures at the external level which require that the developed countries provide better market access to Latin American exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) significantly influenced the liberalisation of agri-food products in Western Balkan (WB) countries. In all Western Balkan countries, there has been an intensification of the trade of agri-food products and a partial change in the regional and commodity structures of trade. This paper aims to identify comparative advantages of agri-food sectors and consider its tendencies during the EU integration process. Additionally, this paper will discuss some opportunities for improvement of the export positions of agri-food products. In that context and based on the literature review, the indexes of revealed comparative advantages and its modified version will be used as a main method for analysis in this research. Results showed that all Western Balkan countries, except Albania, have comparative advantages in exporting agri-food products. It is evident that Serbia has the highest level of comparative advantages in this sector. Moreover, this paper suggests that all countries should aim to provide the best possible positions for their agri-food products during pre-accession negotiations for EU membership and take the necessary steps towards increasing the level of competitiveness in the common EU market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant player behind the Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPs) agreement, as regards patents, was a handful of American pharmaceutical transnational corporations ('big pharma'). Given that TRIPs was exceptionally controversial, how was US big pharma uniquely enabled to command the entire trade diplomatic machinery of the US and, through that, enact global law in its favour? This paper explores one crucial factor in the enacting of TRIPs, namely the prior pursuit of domestic US patent reform, from which a highly integrated and powerful single-issue political coalition between US big pharma, the new biotechnology sector and academic life science departments was formed. This created the political context in the US in which patent issues, particularly those affecting the pharmaceuticals industry, came to be considered matters of state. But explaining both the success of this patent coalition and the subsequent success of the US-led international demands for TRIPs in turn demands appeal to analysis of the structure of the global economy and its transformation to one of neoliberal financialisation, from a watershed of 1980. The paper explores how the critical histories of each of the three sectors of the patent coalition are illuminated by analysis in the context of this structural change and the underlying connections between apparently disparate issues it reveals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines Schutz’s phenomenology of law in the context of the transformation of positivistic practices in a post-totalitarian society. His major contribution is seen in the disentanglement of social phenomena from any form of naturalness by incorporating the dimension of meaning and interpretation into them. This philosophical gesture is made possible by renouncing any theory of transcendent ground(s) of a pre-formed order (Section 1) and leads to an interpretive concept of law, in which the reciprocity of perspectives play the major role. The conclusions are pointing toward a phenomenological concept of law able to take our freedom seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU claims that its free trade agreements with regional organisations of developing countries can promote the respective regions' integration into the world economy. Taking as case studies EU negotiations with the Southern African Development Community and Mercosur, the paper argues that the EU and its partners have different conceptions of integration into the world economy. For the EU the latter simply means multilateral trade liberalisation under the wto, while, for its partners, it involves increasing industrial production and exports of manufactured products. If the latter notion is accepted, an fta with the EU should increase European foreign direct investment into the region or at least increase their trade surpluses, thus increasing the resources available for support of local firms. The paper argues that an fta with the EU will not be likely to produce these results; thus the fta will simply be an instrument to promote market access for EU firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil has one of the worst patterns of income distribution in the world. The persistence of this problem has interested researchers worldwide, and has stimulated a lively debate in Brazil. The role played by past trade liberalization and the possible effects of future changes such as the Doha Round, are central to this discussion. Global economic integration has complex effects; it is not obvious whether Brazil's poor will benefit. For example, although Brazil's poorest regions and workers depend on agriculture, some have argued that increased agricultural exports will benefit mainly landowners rather than poorer people. This paper addresses the potential impacts of a Doha agreement on income distribution and poverty in Brazil, and seeks to extend previous results. It focuses on impacts within agriculture, and on effects linked to ownership of land and other production factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economía del Rosario is the property of Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Senora del Rosario and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies the political viability of free trade agreements (FTAs). The key element of the analysis is the "rent destruction" that these arrangements induce: by eliminating intrabloc trade barriers, an FTA lowers the incentives of import-competing industries to lobby for higher external tariffs, thereby inducing a reduction of the rents created in the lobbying process. Using a conventional competitive model, I show that the prospect of rent destruction can critically undermine (and in some cases rule out entirely) the political viability of welfare-reducing FTAs. This result contrasts sharply with findings from the earlier regionalism literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of post-war trade liberalization resulted from regional, preferential trade agreements. Preferential trade agreements cut tariffs on goods originating only in those nations that have signed the agreement. Therefore, they need ‘rules of origin’ to determine which goods benefit from the tariff cut. Rules of origin have long been ignored for two good reasons: they are dauntingly complex and at first sight appear mind-numbingly dull. The third standard reason for ignoring them – the assertion that they do not matter much – turns out to be wrong. We show that rules of origin are important barriers to trade. Moreover, such rules are emerging as an important trade issue for three additional reasons. First, preferential trade deals are proliferating worldwide. Second, the global fragmentation of production implies complex international supply chains which are particularly constrained and distorted by rules of origin. Third, the extent to which regionalism challenges the WTO-based trading system depends in part on incompatibilities and rigidities built into rules of origin. Our empirical results exploit a ‘natural experiment’ that was created by technical changes to Europe's lattice of rules of origin (ROOs) in 1997. This change, known as ‘diagonal cumulation’, relaxed the restrictiveness of rules of origin on trade among the EU's free trade agreement (FTA) partners without changing the degree of tariff preference. Our analysis allows us to establish a lower-bound and upper-bound estimate of trade impact of ROOs reduced trade among the EU's trade partners. The lower bound we find is something like 10% while the upper bound is around 70%. The second part of the paper draws the policy lessons that arise from considering the implications of our empirical findings. The most direct lessons are for FTA-writers. We argue that Europe's implementation of ‘cumulation’ is a good way of reducing the welfare-reducing impact of overlapping rules of origin without gutting their fraud-fighting ability. We also suggest a three-part procedure for establishing a more multilateral framework for rules of origin which would be more transparent, flexible, administratively feasible and negotiable. — Patricia Augier, Michael Gasiorek and Charles Lai-Tong [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the recent tit-for-tat trade dispute between China and the US, interest in quantifying the effects of the so-called phase one agreement has risen. To this end, the paper quantifies the impact of the asymmetric managed trade agreement using a multi-country open-economy dynamic general equilibrium model. Besides assessing the direct implications for China and the US, trade diversion effects are also analyzed. The model-based analysis finds noticeable positive (negative) impacts of the agreement for the US (China) as well as negative spillover effects for countries not directly affected by the managed trade deal due to trade diversion. The impact of possible future trade agreements is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the `USA Trade and Development Act' (aka African Growth and Opportunity Act-AGOA) in the context of the WTO promotion for free trade. First, it briefly reviews `free trade' relations for the African continent. It then analyses the trade relations of the US with Africa, as well as the performance of the US in following its own doctrine of open markets. The core of the paper addresses the trade agreement itself, discussing the conditionalities for eligibility for African countries to enlist the agreement, as well as analysing the provisions for the trade; it gives empirical findings about the impact of the act in its first years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What features of the dispute settlement process help governments live up to their trade liberalization commitments? Exploiting data on GATT/WTO trade disputes initiated and completed between 1973 and 1998, this paper identifies economic and institutional determinants that help defendant governments commit to liberalizing trade. We find substantial evidence consistent with the theory that power measures, including threat of retaliation by the plaintiff, yield credibility to allow defendant governments to live up to their commitments. We find only limited evidence, however, that particular procedural or institutional features beyond the basic GATT/WTO dispute settlement forum itself contributed to the successful economic resolution of trade disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Desarrollo y Sociedad is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper estimates the effect on international trade of multilateral trade agreements--the World Trade Organization (WTO), its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) extended from rich countries to developing countries. I use a standard "gravity" model of bilateral merchandise trade and a large panel data set covering over 50 years and 175 countries. An extensive search reveals little evidence that countries joining or belonging to the GATT/WTO have different trade patterns from outsiders, though the GSP seems to have a strong effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the labor-standard setting institution associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), sometimes referred to as the Labor Side Accord. The agreement is best describes as a tri-national institutional arrangement that grafts formal international procedures onto domestic labor market regimes. This feature ensures that it stands apart from the European Union social policy, which is best seen as a supranational deliberative governance arrangement. The manner in which NAALC procedures have been used is documented and the main discernible patter of action is explained. The paper argues that NAALC is cumbersome and convoluted to operate. Yet it also argues that NAALC holds out interesting lessons for other regional trading blocs and other global experiments in labor market standard setting as its decentralized and horizontal character is more in keeping with the broad institutional design of such arrangements. The paper concludes by suggesting that NAALC will only reach its full potential hen organized labor in the three participating countries adopt a more active approach to transnational collaboration inside NAFTA.

This paper models self-enforcing agreements and the evolution of preferences for reciprocity when all agents are rational, Bayesian optimisers. In this ‘indirect’ evolutionary model, player types are defined not by their strategies, but by their preferences. The paper studies the evolution of a community consisting of ‘opportunists’, who maximise material payoffs, and ‘reciprocators’, who prefer joint co-operation to exploiting their opponents. Players are randomly matched to play a finitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game. In the unique evolutionary equilibrium, the reciprocators co-operate throughout their careers, and the opportunists co-operate up to, but not including, the last stage of their careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to empirically explore the nexus between foreign direct investment (FDI) and other factors for global value chain (GVC) participation (backward and forward) in Vietnam, a transitional economy. The estimation shows that the economic size and market development of Vietnam and its trading partners are the main determinants of the nation's GVC participation. Inward FDI flows into the country have a positive impact on its GVC participation in both forward and backward linkages. Geographical distance is an impediment to Vietnam's backward GVC participation, whilst engagement in free trade agreements is advantageous to its GVC participation in both backward and forward linkages. We find that the logistics performance of Vietnam and its trading partners also positively affects the country's GVC participation. The paper provides policy implications for Vietnam to better use FDI and other factors to enhance its GVC participation, such as by attracting large supplier firms in upstream industries across the multinational enterprises' (MNEs) value chains, promoting trade liberalization and improving logistical efficiency. Keywords: Vietnam, global value chains (GVCs), foreign direct investment (FDI)., 1. Introduction Research by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2013) has estimated that about 80 per cent of global trade (in terms of gross exports) is [...]

Asia –Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) is one of the major Preferential Trade Agreement integrating two major markets of India and China in the Asia-Pacific region. The textile industry is one of most important industry that requires APTA trade liberalisation to promote intra-regional trade. The present paper highlights how the export and import share of the select economies within APTA have changed and it provides a scenario analysis with a commitment to expand the sector. The paper also brings out significant improvement which India may focus on to improve the trade scenario of the textile industry and how APTA may provide a direction in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at analyzing the circumstances and objectives of the regional integration in the context of global development. The EU is one of the most influential and important actors of the global world, which represents one of the most developed examples of the regional integration. During the development, the EU went through the several stages on enlargement. Even nowadays, without having targeted to the reactive new member in foreseen future, the EU continues the process of integration of adjacent regions by setting goals and priorities through different forms such as the European Neighborhood, the Eastern Partnership, Association Agreements, various types of Trade agreements. The Eastern Partnership which represents the EU's eastern neighborhood consisting by former soviet republics has steadily gone up with integration: 1. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine have already signed the Association Agreement (AA) including Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) with the EU and now these countries work on further progress in terms of the Implementation of AA/DCFTA; 2. Armenia and Azerbaijan are seeking new framework to up-grade their relationship with the EU, Belarus created EU Belarus Co-ordination Group and acts within the Single Support Framework program for 2017-2020. The evolution of EaP countries' trade data evidently show the changes and growing dynamics in the region. The obvious increasing tendency of trade volumes predicts for further success in the future after the DC FTAs are enacted fully for some countries and/or other trade facilitation measures are utilized fully for others. A new approach to the economic growth also suggests that benefit from economic growth supports poverty reduction, widely spreads across sectors and affects the majority of the labor force and hence, rise the welfare of the population. In this context, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) appears to be a useful tool to achieve this overwhelming goal. In the difficult business climate prevailing in most of the EaP countries, the role of the EU support could include raising awareness on CSR and supporting the implementation of relevant standards in the enterprises that are benefiting from the EU assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization was oversold. Politicians and some economists wrongly argued for trade agreements on the basis of job creation. The gains to GDP or growth were overestimated, and the costs, including adverse distributional effects, were underestimated. There have been important political consequences of this overselling, including the undermining of confidence in the elites that advocated globalization. The failures of globalization and the misguided backlash against it contain many lessons: about the importance of science and learning in society, the importance of the shared acceptance of facts, the dangerous consequences of deliberately misinforming the public, and the folly of ignoring the distributional consequences of economic forces just because they may lead to growth. The new protectionism advocated by the administration of Donald Trump will only worsen the plight of those already hurt by globalization. What is needed is a comprehensive system of social protection. After cataloguing the failures of globalization and explaining how they led to our current political mire, this paper outlines a set of policies that could put the economy and our politics back on a better path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising global labor standards has been a goal of labor activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and nations for over a century. The International Labor Organization (ILO) was created nearly one hundred years ago for that purpose, but a century later its goal remains largely unfinished. This paper will propose a retooling initiative for the ILO that will give it the enforcement power it needs for real labor standard change and the resources it needs to use that enforcement power to promote work according to established international labor standards. This enforcement power will take place through regional free trade agreements (RFTAs), which have increased greatly in popularity over the past twenty years. The initiative will take a degree of voluntarism on behalf of the trade partner countries and their multinational corporations (MNCs), but it will satisfy goals of all parties involved, including the MNCs that will pay for the enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a large trade surplus country and could potentially become involved in bilateral trade retaliation. This paper uses a numerical simulation method to empirically explore how Chinese involvement in bilateral trade retaliation could affect both China and other countries. We analyze four different country groupings using scenario solutions of numerical global general equilibrium models to simulate trade retaliation equilibria and calculate their impacts. Our simulation results suggest that China will be hurt by trade retaliation sequences with other countries, but impacts depend on who is involved. Trade retaliation with large countries and major trade partners will hurt China more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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With the deepening of regional industrial transfer, traditional trade data cannot fully explain the real level of trade in a region. This paper aims to reveal the changing pattern of real trade along the "Belt and Road" by establishing a value-added trade (VAT) network of the "Belt and Road" countries and comparing it with the trade network. Applying a network method, we analyze and compare the structures, characteristics, evolutions, and underlying dynamisms of both networks. With a thorough interpretation and visualization of the network density, network centrality, trade communities, and influencing factors of both networks in the three time sections of 2005, 2010, and 2015, we come to the following findings: (1) the connectivity of both networks has been greatly enhanced, reflecting a more integrated regional economy. (2) The center-external structure of both networks has been further strengthened and the polarization of the VAT network is more obvious than that of the trade network. (3) The organizations of trade communities and VAT communities are largely different. Specifically, China rapidly increased its core position in the VAT network and incorporated more and more countries into its VAT community. (4) The underlying factors have similar impacts on both networks. While the growth of regional economic size and free trade agreements will enhance both trade and VAT, the economic gaps and population differences among the "Belt and Road" countries will prohibit regional economic ties. Based on these findings, we propose suggestions on further regional economic cooperation by taking advantage of China's core position to promote regional VAT, construct broad trade channels, and enhance trade governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the ex-post trade effects of China's multilateral, regional and bilateral trade liberalization using augmented gravity and panel data estimation methods for the period 1995–2016. China's accession to the WTO was revealed to have had a significant impact on the volume of trade as well as on bilateral exports and imports. Regional trade agreements and the majority of bilateral trade agreements were found not to be effective in increasing China's foreign trade. Only the agreements with Chile, Costa Rica and Switzerland were effective in increasing China's trade volume. Moreover, the results for Chile were driven by increases in both exports and imports, while for Costa Rica and Switzerland only by increased imports from these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]