Contesting an international trade agreement Cole, Matthew T.; Lake, James; Zissimos, Ben
Journal of international economics,
January 2021, 2021-01-00, 20210101, Volume:
128
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We develop a new theoretical political economy framework called a ‘parallel contest’ that emphasizes the political fight over trade agreement (TA) ratification within countries. TA ratification is ...inherently uncertain in each country because anti- and pro-trade interests contest each other to influence their own government's ratification decision. As in the terms-of-trade theory of TAs, the TA removes terms-of-trade externalities created by unilateral tariffs. But, a TA also creates new terms-of-trade and local-price externalities in our framework due to endogenous ratification uncertainty combined with the requirement that each country ratify the TA for it to go ahead. Thus, reciprocal TA liberalization fails to eliminate all terms-of-trade externalities.
THE “NEW” ECONOMICS OF TRADE AGREEMENTS Grossman, Gene M.; McCalman, Phillip; Staiger, Robert W.
Econometrica,
01/2021, Volume:
89, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
What incentives do governments have to negotiate trade agreements that constrain their domestic regulatory policies? We study a model in which firms design products to appeal to local consumer ...tastes, but their fixed costs increase with the difference between versions of their product destined for different markets. In this setting, firms’ profit-maximizing choices of product attributes are globally optimal in the absence of consumption externalities, but national governments have unilateral incentives to invoke regulatory protectionism to induce firm delocation. An efficient trade agreement requires commitments not to engage in such opportunistic behavior. A rule requiring mutual recognition of standards can be used to achieve efficiency, but one that requires only national treatment falls short. When product attributes confer local consumption externalities, an efficient trade agreement must coordinate the fine details of countries’ regulatory policies.
The adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015 moved the world a step closer to avoiding dangerous climate change. The aggregated individual intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) ...are not yet sufficient to be consistent with the long-term goals of the agreement of 'holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C' and 'pursuing efforts' towards 1.5°C. However, the Paris Agreement gives hope that this inconsistency can be resolved. We find that many of the contributions are conservative and in some cases may be overachieved. We also find that the preparation of the INDCs has advanced national climate policy-making, notably in developing countries. Moreover, provisions in the Paris Agreement require countries to regularly review, update and strengthen these actions. In addition, the significant number of non-state actions launched in recent years is not yet adequately captured in the INDCs. Finally, we discuss decarbonization, which has happened faster in some sectors than expected, giving hope that such a transition can also be accomplished in other sectors. Taken together, there is reason to be optimistic that eventually national action to reduce emissions will be more consistent with the agreed global temperature limits.
Policy relevance
The next step for the global response to climate change is not only implementation, but also strengthening, of the Paris Agreement. To this end, national governments must formulate and implement policies to meet their INDC pledges, and at the same time consider how to raise their level of ambition. For many developing countries, implementation and tougher targets will require financial, technological and other forms of support. The findings of this article are highly relevant for both national governments and support organizations in helping them to set their implementation priorities. Its findings also put existing INDCs in the context of the Paris Agreement's global goals, indicating the extent to which current national commitments need to be strengthened, and possible ways in which this could be done.
Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen ...countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. InForced to Be Good, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.
How and why do global norms for social justice become international regulations linked to seemingly unrelated issues, such as trade? Hafner-Burton finds that the process has been unconventional. Efforts by human rights advocates and labor unions to spread human rights ideals, for example, do not explain why American and European governments employ preferential trade agreements to protect human rights. Instead, most of the regulations protecting human rights are codified in global moral principles and laws only because they serve policymakers' interests in accumulating power or resources or solving other problems. Otherwise, demands by moral advocates are tossed aside. And, as Hafner-Burton shows, even the inclusion of human rights protections in trade agreements is no guarantee of real change, because many of the governments that sign on to fair trade regulations oppose such protections and do not intend to force their implementation.
Ultimately, Hafner-Burton finds that, despite the difficulty of enforcing good regulations and the less-than-noble motives for including them, trade agreements that include human rights provisions have made a positive difference in the lives of some of the people they are intended-on paper, at least-to protect.
When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed by 23 nations in 1947, the goal was to establish a rules-based world trading system and to facilitate mutually advantageous trade ...liberalization. As the GATT evolved over time and morphed into the World Trade Organization in 1993, both goals have largely been achieved. The WTO presides over a rule-based trading system based on norms that are almost universally accepted and respected by its 163 members. Tariffs today are below 5 percent on most trade, and zero for a very large share of imports. Despite its manifest success, the WTO is widely regarded as suffering from a deep malaise. The main reason is that the latest WTO negotiation, the Doha Round, has staggered between failures, flops, and false dawns since it was launched in 2001. But the Doha logjam has not inhibited tariff liberalization—far from it. During the last 15 years, most WTO members have massively lowered barriers to trade, investment, and services bilaterally, regionally, and unilaterally—indeed, everywhere except through the WTO. For today's offshoring-linked international commerce, the trade rules that matter are less about tariffs and more about protection of investments and intellectual property, along with legal and regulatory steps to assure that the two-way flows of goods, services, investment, and people will not be impeded. It’s possible to imagine a hypothetical WTO that would incorporate these rules. But the most likely outcome for the future governance of international trade is a two-pillar structure in which the WTO continues to govern with its 1994-era rules while the new rules for international production networks are set by a decentralized process of sometimes overlapping and inconsistent mega-regional agreements.
In 1991, the Agreements on the Comprehensive Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict, also known as the Paris Peace Agreements, were concluded with the cooperation of the international community.
This article develops an empirical framework for analysing the timing of international treaties. A treaty is modelled as a dynamic game among governments that decide on participation in every period. ...The net benefit of treaty membership increases over time. Spillovers among members and non-members accelerate or delay treaty formation by transforming participation into a strategic complement or substitute, respectively. The predictions of the model inform the estimation of the structural parameters, based on a cross section of treaty ratification dates. With this approach, I estimate the sign and magnitude of strategic interaction in the ratification of the Montreal Protocol, in the formation of Europe's preferential trade agreements, and in the growth of Germany's network of bilateral investment treaties. Through a series of counterfactual experiments, I explore different mechanisms that give rise to strategic interaction in the formation of these treaties.
In this textbook designed for courses on aviation labor relations, the authors-experts with many years of experience in these sectors-examine and evaluate the labor process for all aspects of the ...aviation and aerospace industries, including aerospace manufacturing, airlines, general aviation, federal and state administrative agencies, and public airports. Divided into three parts-Public Policy and Labor Law; Principles, Practices and Procedures in Collective Bargaining and Dispute Resolution; and the Changing Labor Relations Environment-the book provides an overview of the industries and the development of US labor law and policy, then explores the statutory, regulatory, and case laws applicable to each industry segment before concluding with an examination of current and developing issues and trends. The authors present the evolution of aviation and aerospace labor laws, going as far back as the early nineteenth century to lay the historical foundation, and cover the development and main features of the principal statutes governing labor relations in the United States today, the Railway Labor Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Civil Service Reform Act. They also investigate the growth of the industries and their impact on labor relations, as well as the current issues and challenges facing management and labor in each segment of this dynamic, sometimes volatile, business and their implications for collective bargaining. Twenty case studies not only illuminate practical applications of such fundamental concepts as unfair labor practices and unions' duty of fair representation but also enliven the subject, preparing the reader to use the concepts in real-world decision making.  A study guide with review questions, online assignments, supplemental readings, and exercises is available for students. For those teachers using the textbook in their courses, there is an instructor's manual with additional resources for developing courses in the classroom, online, or by blended learning, as well as a variety of assignments and materials to enhance and vary the mock negotiation exercise.  A revision and expansion of Robert W. Kaps's Air Transport Labor Relations, this outstanding new volume provides students and teachers with valuable information and perspectives on industries that are highly dependent on technologically skilled labor. Labor Relations in the Aviation and Aerospace Industries offers a sweeping and thorough treatment of labor relations, public policy, law, and practice and is the definitive work on the labor process in the aviation and aerospace sectors.
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