Although the number of regional trade arrangements (RTAs) among the lowest-income developing countries is surging, the literature on their welfare effects is still scarce, and the few that exist fail ...to provide conclusive results. Furthermore, these RTAs are dominated by countries with a small share of total exports destined for intraregional trade flows. Our study focuses on the welfare effects of RTAs (pertaining to trade creation and trade diversion) among this group of countries. We use a theoretically justified gravity model to estimate welfare effects, focusing on trade creation and trade diversion and deviating from the norm in related studies, accounting for heterogeneity in third countries. Using ECOWAS as a sample, we estimate welfare effects on 1992-2012 annual bilateral imports for 14 countries from 169 countries. Contrary to conventional expectations in the literature, we find that economic integration among small and relatively low-income countries that have a small share of total trade with each other is welfare-improving for the members as a group, for the majority of the individual member countries, and for some third countries. Accounting for heterogeneity in third countries reveals that an RTA among low-income countries has a particularly robust trade-creation effect.
This paper optimises the definition and measurement method of export stability and analyses the impact of export structure on export stability. The main results show that (1) an increase in the ...export share appears to reduce the export stability of goods, by changing the importer's elasticity of import demand; (2) exporters can reduce the impact of export structure on the export stability of goods by increasing the technical complexity of export products, improving the trade freedom level and signing free trade agreements (FTA) with importers; (3) export share has a negative impact on the export stability of services; and (4) the development of intra‐industry trade (IIT) in services and the digitisation of services can reduce the impact of export structure on the export stability of services. The results can provide a reference for the management of export instability against the background of export specialisation.
Endogenous demand composition across sectors due to income elasticity differences, or Engel's Law for brevity, affects (i) sectoral compositions in employment and in value-added, (ii) variations in ...innovation rates and in productivity change across sectors, (iii) intersectoral patterns of trade across countries, and (iv) product cycles from rich to poor countries. Using a two-country model of directed technical change with a continuum of sectors under nonhomothetic preferences, which is rich enough to capture all these effects as well as their interactions, this paper offers a unifying perspective on how economic growth and globalization affect the patterns of structural change, innovation, and trade across countries and across sectors in the presence of Engel's Law. Among the main messages is that globalization amplifies, instead of reducing, the power of endogenous domestic demand composition differences as a driver of structural change.
The expansion of FTA rules from the border to the "depth" within the border can promote the reduction of trade barriers between member countries. Yet, this can also increase the cost of compliance. ...Hence, this research examines the impact of FTA deepening on China's import and export trade based on the trade data between China and 21FTA partner countries over the period of 2005-2018. This paper introduces the FTA deepening index, constructs a structural gravity model, and empirically applies PPML estimation and instrumental variable methods. The results show that FTA deepening promotes the growth of China's international trade, and the effect on promoting imports is greater than that of export promotion. Additionally, a heterogeneity test between countries and products is carried out. Based on this, our results reveal that FTA deepening has a more significant promoting effect on China's trade imports from developed countries and has a more significant restraining effect on China's exports to developed countries. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the depth of FTA has a less positive impact on China's agricultural trade than on industrial products.
Just Trade Hernández-Truyol, Berta Esperanza; Powell, Stephen Joseph
01/2009
eBook
Documents Annex: http://www.nyupress.org/justtradeannex/index.htmlWhile modern trade law and human rights law constitute two of the most active spheres in international law, follow similar ...intellectual trajectories, and often feature the same key actors and arenas, neither field has actively engaged with the other. They co-exist in relative isolation at best, peppered by occasional hostile debates. It has come to be a given that pro-trade laws are not good for human rights, and legislation that protects human rights hampers vibrant international trade.In a bold departure from this canon, Just Trade makes a case for reaching a middle-ground between these two fields, acknowledging their co-existence and the significant points at which they overlap. Using examples from many of the 35 nations of the Western Hemisphere, Berta Esperanza Hernndez-Truyol and Stephen J. Powell combine their expertise to examine human rights policies involving conscripted child labor, sustainable development, promotion of health, equality of women, human trafficking, indigenous peoples, poverty, citizenship, and economic sanctions, never overlooking the very real human rights problems that arise from international trade. However, instead of viewing the two kinds of law as polar and sometimes hostile opposites, the authors make powerful suggestions for how these intersections may be navigated to promote an international marketplace that embraces both liberal trade and liberal protection of human rights.
Poverty and the WTO Winters, L. Alan; Hertel, Thomas W
2005, 12-15-2005, 2006
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
Poverty reduction is deemed to be a centerpiece of the Doha Development Agenda currently being negotiated under the auspices of the WTO. Yet there is considerable debate about the poverty impacts of ...such an agreement. Some are convinced it will increase poverty, while others are equally convinced that it will lead to poverty reduction. This book brings the best scientific methods to bear on this question, taking into account the specific characteristics embodied in the Doha Development Agenda.
Using monthly transaction data covering all Chinese exporters over the 2000–2006 period, we investigate how Chinese exporters respond to U.S. antidumping investigations. We find that antidumping ...investigations cause a substantial decrease in the total export volume at the HS-6 digit product level, and that this trade-dampening effect is due to a significant decrease in the number of exporters, yet a modest decrease in the export volume per surviving exporter. We also find that the bulk of the decrease in the number of exporters is exerted by less productive exporters, by direct exporters as opposed to trade intermediaries, and by single-product direct exporters as opposed to their multi-product counterparts. Combined with the existing studies on the effects that antidumping investigations have on protected firms, our study helps piece together a complete picture of the effects of antidumping investigations.
•We investigate how Chinese exporters respond to U.S. antidumping investigations.•We uncover different responses across different products.•We find different responses across firms within the same product categories.
Economic theory suggests including domestic trade flows when estimating structural gravity models. The inclusion of domestic trade flows helps to identify parameters that cannot be estimated with ...international trade flows alone. The complication is that domestic trade flows can be measured empirically in different ways. Does it matter which one is used? We compare the three most common approaches to measuring domestic trade and show that they lead to very similar estimates of the parameters that are usually estimated within a structural gravity framework.
•Economic theory suggests including domestic trade when estimating structural gravity models.•Domestic trade can be measured empirically using different methods.•All methods lead to similar estimates of the impact of trade agreements.
The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) deviates from the poor track record of 'trade and sustainable development' chapters in EU FTAs. Ahead of ratification, Vietnam embarked upon pathbreaking ...reforms, culminating in a new labor code and accession to outstanding ILO core conventions. This article assesses the role of the EVFTA in these reforms. Building on literatures on the trade-labor nexus and externalization of EU governance, we call for a more comprehensive analysis of power dynamics in partner countries and address this lacunae by embedding FTAs and labor reforms in a strategic-relational conceptualization of states. We argue that the 'success' of the EVFTA was the outcome of specific conjunctures of social forces in, and outside of, state institutions in the EU and Vietnam, and their mediation at the transnational level. Amid free trade skepticism in the EU, particular members of the Parliament and the Council wielded their veto powers to negotiate with Vietnam and pull the Commission into a stronger position. In Vietnam, the external pressure resonated with internal struggles and empowered reformists to drive forward labor reforms. Implementation, however, remains uncertain; and, context-dependent as it was, the EVFTA pre-ratification impact does not easily lend itself to replication in other FTAs.
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.
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