Despite the cost and resource‐effectiveness of joint trade negotiations and complementarities between goods and services‐trade flows, more than 12% of the 132 WTO‐notified services‐trade agreements ...(STAs) in force until August 2015 were entered into effect sequentially to goods‐trade accords. This stylised fact motivates our study of the determinants of joint versus sequential negotiation/accession of goods and services accords, a subject hitherto unexplored in the growing literature on the determinants of STA membership. Our results suggest larger marginal effects of fundamental economic, geographic, institutional, doing business and services regulatory factors on the propensity of joint negotiation/accession compared to STA formation alone. Moreover, cultural‐distance variables are only found to affect the likelihood of joint preferential liberalisation of goods and services trade, without influencing STA‐only membership.
Africa's Silk Road Broadman, Harry G; Isik, Gozde
2006, 11-02-2006, 2007
eBook, Book
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China and India's new-found interest in trade and investment with Africa - home to 300 million of the globe's poorest people and the world's most formidable development challenge - presents a ...significant opportunity for growth and integration of the Sub-Saharan continent into the global economy. Africa's Silk Road finds that China and India's South-South commerce with Africa is about far more than natural resources, opening the way for Africa to become a processor of commodities and a competitive supplier of goods and services to these countries - a major departure from its long established relations with the North. A growing number of Chinese and Indian businesses active in Africa operate on a global scale, work with world-class technologies, produce products and services according to the most demanding standards, and foster the integration of African businesses into advanced markets. There are significant imbalances, however, in these emerging commercial relationships. These can be addressed through a series of reforms in all countries:"At-the-border" reforms, such as elimination of China and India's escalating tariffs on Africa's leading exports, and elimination of Africa's tariffs on certain inputs that make exports uncompetitive "Behind-the-border" reforms in Africa, to unleash competitive market forces and strengthen its basic market institutions "Between-the-border" improvements in trade facilitation mechanisms to decrease transactions costs Reforms that leverage linkages between investment and trade, to allow African businesses to participate in global production networks that investments by Chinese and Indian firms can generate.
Through detailed case studies on Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, Spalding examines the debate surrounding the adoption of CAFTA alongside the simultaneous changes to the economic and ...political landscape of Central America at the turn of this century.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was introduced in 1994 between Canada, Mexico, and the United States to encourage trilateral trade. In 2008, an unrestricted reciprocal sugar trade ...agreement, was implemented between Mexico and the United States as part of NAFTA, which led to a significant decrease in the United States' sugar price. However, critics argue that free trade agreements that reduce trade barriers on products such as sugar threaten public health. This study uses the synthetic control method to investigate the causal impact of the unrestricted sugar trade agreement on sugar consumption and diabetes prevalence in the United States. First, we show that sugar consumption in the United States increased by an average of 16% annually after the agreement was signed, corresponding to 5240g per capita. Second, we show that the crude prevalence of diabetes increased by an average of 1% annually in the United States after the agreement was signed, with an increase of 1% and 2% for men and women, respectively. This unintended consequence of NAFTA has had an estimated economic cost of $324.37 million annually.
Mexican cuisine has emerged as a paradox of globalization. Food enthusiasts throughout the world celebrate the humble taco at the same time that Mexicans are eating fewer tortillas and more processed ...food. Today Mexico is experiencing an epidemic of diet-related chronic illness. The precipitous rise of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease--all attributed to changes in the Mexican diet--has resulted in a public health emergency. In her gripping new book, Alyshia Gálvez exposes how changes in policy following NAFTA have fundamentally altered one of the most basic elements of life in Mexico - sustenance. Mexicans are faced with a food system that favors food security over subsistence agriculture, development over sustainability, market participation over social welfare, and ideologies of self-care over public health. Trade agreements negotiated to improve lives have sometimes failed, resulting in unintended consequences for people's everyday lives
How can a state with dysfunctional trade politics spur the negotiation of major free trade agreements (FTAs)? Using the case of Japan's participation in the trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), we ...develop an analytical framework on FTA diffusion that takes into account multidimensional (economic, legal and political) competitive pressures, and the ability of states to act as pivots in triggering FTA cascades. We disaggregate the makeup of a pivotal state into two main components - capability and credibility - and underscore Japan's significant latent capabilities, but also its serious credibility shortcomings. The TPP's boost to Japan's credibility raised the possibility of significant economic, legal and political externalities for specific countries which responded by accelerating FTA initiatives that had long stalled: the trilateral China-Japan-Korea FTA, a 16-state East Asian FTA and the Japan-European Union trade negotiations. This study extends the theoretical frontier in policy diffusion studies by clarifying the combination of factors that allows some states, but not others, to activate the externalities behind the dissemination of defensive FTAs.
We show that multilateral tariff binding liberalization substantially impacts the nature and extent of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) formation. First, it shapes the nature of forces constraining ...expansion of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The constraining force is a free riding incentive of FTA non-members under relatively high bindings but an exclusion incentive of FTA members under relatively low bindings. Second, multilateral tariff binding liberalization shapes the role played by PTAs in the attainment of global free trade. Initially, tariff binding liberalization leads to Custom Union (CU) formation in equilibrium but in a way that undermines the pursuit of global free trade. However, further tariff binding liberalization leads to FTA formation in equilibrium and in a way that facilitates the attainment of global free trade. Our theoretical analysis also has implications regarding recent empirical discussions over the relative merits of FTAs versus CUs.
From Final Goods to Inputs Conconi, Paola; García-Santana, Manuel; Puccio, Laura ...
The American economic review,
08/2018, Letnik:
108, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Recent decades have witnessed a surge of trade in intermediate goods and a proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs). FTAs use rules of origin (RoO) to distinguish goods originating from member ...countries from those originating from third countries. We focus on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the world’s largest FTA, and construct a unique dataset that allows us to map the input-output linkages in its RoO. Exploiting cross-product and cross-country variation in treatment over time, we show that NAFTA RoO led to a sizable reduction in imports of intermediate goods from third countries relative to NAFTA partners.
Using a dynamic preferential trade agreement (PTA) formation model, we show that political biases in exporting and import‐competing sectors substantially impact the extent of PTA formation. While ...both exclusion and free riding incentives constrain the expansion to global free trade in a free trade agreement (FTA) game, only the former incentive arises in a customs union (CU) game. When we endogenize the choice between FTAs and CUs, the tension between the flexibility benefit of FTAs and the coordination benefit of CUs reveals that FTAs always serve as PTA building blocks while CUs may serve as PTA building or stumbling blocks.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review of the fresh produce supply chain management (FSCM). FSCM includes the processes from the production to consumption of fresh ...produce (fruits, flowers and vegetables).Design methodology approach - Literature review is done by systematically collecting the existing literature over a period of 20 years (1989-2009) and classifying it on the basis of structural attributes such as problem context, methodology and the product under consideration. The literature is also categorized according to the geographic region and year of publication.Findings - There is an increase in interest towards FSCM still there is an absence of a journal with the prime attention towards FSCM. The key finding of this review is that the main interest is towards consumer satisfaction and revenue maximization with post-harvest waste reduction being a secondary objective. It is revealed from the review that most of the literature is fragmented and is in silos. Lack of demand forecasting, demand and supply mismatch, lesser integrated approach etc are the major causes of concerns.Research limitations implications - The authors have taken only the fresh produce (fruits, flowers and vegetables), authors may also look at other perishable items such as milk, meat, etc.Practical implications - Result shows a product-problem-methodology mapping which may serve as a framework for the managers addressing issues in FSCM.Originality value - Most of the prior literature reviews are focused on a specific issue such as production planning or inventory management and ignore the broader perspective. There exists a need of having a detailed literature review covering all the operational issues in FSCM. This review fills this gap in the FSCM literature.