Outsourcing Economics has a double meaning. First, it is a book about the economics of outsourcing. Second, it examines the way that economists have understood globalization as a pure market ...phenomenon, and as a result have 'outsourced' the explanation of world economic forces to other disciplines. Markets are embedded in a set of institutions - labor, government, corporate, civil society, and household - that mold the power asymmetries that influence the distribution of the gains from globalization. In this book, William Milberg and Deborah Winkler propose an institutional theory of trade and development starting with the growth of global value chains - international networks of production that have restructured the global economy and its governance over the past twenty-five years. They find that offshoring leads to greater economic insecurity in industrialized countries that lack institutions supporting workers. They also find that offshoring allows firms to reduce domestic investment and focus on finance and short-run stock movements.
Special Economic Zones Farole, Thomas; Akinci, Gokhan
2011, 08-01-2011, 2011-08-01, 20110101
eBook, Book
Open access
Ask three people to describe a special economic zone (SEZ) and three very different images may emerge. The first person may describe a fenced-in industrial estate in a developing country, populated ...by footloose multinational corporations (MNCs) enjoying tax breaks, with laborers in garment factories working in substandard conditions. In contrast, the second person may recount the 'miracle of Shenzhen,' a fishing village transformed into a cosmopolitan city of 14 million, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growing 100-fold, in the 30 years since it was designated as an SEZ. A third person may think about places like Dubai or Singapore, whose ports serve as the basis for wide range of trade- and logistics-oriented activities. In this book, the author use SEZ as a generic expression to describe the broad range of modern economic zones discussed in this book. But we are most concerned with two specific forms of those zones: (1) the export processing zones (EPZs) or free zones, which focus on manufacturing for export; and (2) the large-scale SEZs, which usually combine residential and multiuse commercial and industrial activity. The former represents a traditional model used widely throughout the developing world for almost four decades. The latter represents a more recent form of economic zone, originating in the 1980s in China and gaining in popularity in recent years. Although these models need not be mutually exclusive (many SEZs include EPZ industrial parks within them), they are sufficiently different in their objectives, investment requirements, and approach to require a distinction in this book.
Was the Soviet Union a superpower? Red Globalization is a significant rereading of the Cold War as an economic struggle shaped by the global economy. Oscar Sanchez-Sibony challenges the idea that the ...Soviet Union represented a parallel socio-economic construct to the liberal world economy. Instead he shows that the USSR, a middle-income country more often than not at the mercy of global economic forces, tracked the same path as other countries in the world, moving from 1930s autarky to the globalizing processes of the postwar period. In examining the constraints and opportunities afforded the Soviets in their engagement of the capitalist world, he questions the very foundations of the Cold War narrative as a contest between superpowers in a bipolar world. Far from an economic force in the world, the Soviets managed only to become dependent providers of energy to the rich world, and second-best partners to the global South.
Examining the twenty years since China acceded to the World Trade Organization, this collection provides an original, systematic assessment of the opportunities and challenges that China has ...presented to the WTO. Offering in-depth analyses of the 'two-way' relationship between China and the WTO, the contributions explore a range of key issues from the varied effects of WTO membership for China and the global economy to the responses of the WTO members to China's rapid economic growth. It presents diverse perspectives of leading scholars from multiple disciplines, including law, economics, political science, and international relations, as well as practical insights from senior policymakers from both China and the United States. This is an invaluable contribution to ongoing debates about the implications of the rise of China for global economic governance and enriches discussions of the wide-ranging implications of China's growing integration into the multilateral trading system, both now and in the future. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The Genesis of the GATT Irwin, Douglas A.; Mavroidis, Petros C.; Sykes, Alan O.
06/2008
eBook
This book is part of a wider project on the economic logic behind the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This volume asks: What does the historical record indicate about the aims and ...objectives of the framers of the GATT? Where did the provisions of the GATT come from and how did they evolve through various international meetings and drafts? To what extent does the historical record provide support for one or more of the economic rationales for the GATT? This book examines the motivations and contributions of the two main framers of the GATT, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the smaller role of other countries. The framers desired a commercial agreement on trade practices as well as negotiated reductions in trade barriers. Both were sought as a way to expand international trade to promote world prosperity, restrict the use of discriminatory policies to reduce conflict over trade, and thereby establish economic foundations for maintaining world peace.
African regional trade integration has grown exponentially in the last decade. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the legal framework within which it is being pursued. It will fill a ...huge knowledge gap and serve as an invaluable teaching and research tool for policy makers in the public and private sectors, teachers, researchers and students of African trade and beyond. The author argues that African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are best understood as flexible legal regimes particularly given their commitment to variable geometry and multiple memberships. He analyzes the progress made toward trade liberalization in each region, how the RTAs are financed, their trade remedy and judicial regimes, and how well they measure up to Article XXIV of GATT. The book also covers monetary unions as well as intra-African regional integration, and examines free trade agreements with non-African regions including the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.
The New Global Rulers Büthe, Tim; Mattli, Walter
2011., 20110228, 2011, 2011-02-28, 20110101, c2011
eBook
Over the past two decades, governments have delegated extensive regulatory authority to international private-sector organizations. This internationalization and privatization of rule making has been ...motivated not only by the economic benefits of common rules for global markets, but also by the realization that government regulators often lack the expertise and resources to deal with increasingly complex and urgent regulatory tasks. The New Global Rulers examines who writes the rules in international private organizations, as well as who wins, who loses--and why.
All treaties, from human rights to international trade, include formal exceptions that allow governments to legally break the rules that they have committed to, in order to deal with unexpected ...events. Such institutional 'flexibility' is necessary, yet it raises a tricky theoretical question: how to allow for this necessary flexibility, while preventing its abuse? Krzysztof Pelc examines how designers of rules in vastly different settings come upon similar solutions to render treaties resistant to unexpected events. Essential for undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars in political science, economics, and law, the book provides a comprehensive account of the politics of treaty flexibility. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, its multi-disciplinary approach addresses the paradoxes inherent in making and bending international rules.
For a long time, the post-Soviet countries that include former republics of the Soviet Union have played an important role in the world food market. Currently, a number of countries in the region are ...the world’s leading exporters of agricultural raw materials, in particular, grain production, while others are the major importers of food. The study aims to examine agricultural foreign trade in the post-Soviet region and analyse the changes in the food exports and imports of the individual countries and the region as a whole. This analysis can help to predict the socio-economic development of the large post-Soviet countries, such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In order to study the characteristics of food export, we used an integral indicator of grain units, as it more accurately indicates the long-term changes in the agricultural exports and imports compared to traditional assessments. We applied the indicator to large data sets on the export and import of major agricultural products in the countries collected for a long time. As a result, we identified four development cycles of agricultural foreign trade in the region. Each of them lasts for 40–50 years and differs in the ratio of agricultural exports and imports. In the modern period that began in 2012, the exports of agricultural products prevail over the imports . The study shows that if the current export development trends continue, the region will create the largest export area with a total exceeding 100 million tons of agricultural products by 2035. The analysis of the changes in the total structure of foreign trade of the major exporting countries in the region demonstrates that a significant increase in agricultural export might further strengthen the raw materials export orientation of these countries. The study results can be used for developing and adjusting foreign trade and national agricultural policies in the post-Soviet region.
For a long time, the post-Soviet countries that include former republics of the Soviet Union have played an important role in the world food market. Currently, a number of countries in the region are ...the world’s leading exporters of agricultural raw materials, in particular, grain production, while others are the major importers of food. The study aims to examine agricultural foreign trade in the post-Soviet region and analyse the changes in the food exports and imports of the individual countries and the region as a whole. This analysis can help to predict the socio-economic development of the large post-Soviet countries, such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In order to study the characteristics of food export, we used an integral indicator of grain units, as it more accurately indicates the long-term changes in the agricultural exports and imports compared to traditional assessments. We applied the indicator to large data sets on the export and import of major agricultural products in the countries collected for a long time. As a result, we identified four development cycles of agricultural foreign trade in the region. Each of them lasts for 40–50 years and differs in the ratio of agricultural exports and imports. In the modern period that began in 2012, the exports of agricultural products prevail over the imports. The study shows that if the current export development trends continue, the region will create the largest export area with a total exceeding 100 million tons of agricultural products by 2035. The analysis of the changes in the total structure of foreign trade of the major exporting countries in the region demonstrates that a significant increase in agricultural export might further strengthen the raw materials export orientation of these countries. The study results can be used for developing and adjusting foreign trade and national agricultural policies in the post-Soviet region.
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