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.
Countries of the Southeast Europe (SEE) region have witnessed significant economic improvement since the beginning of their transition to market economies in the early 1990s. Growth has been ...particularly strong in the past six years, but still lower than in other fast growing countries in the East Asia and Baltic regions, or some of the other new member states of the European Union (EU). The purpose of this study is twofold: (i) to present recent trends in intra regional trade in SEE, in particular following the implementation of Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA); and (ii) to bring the attention of policy makers to some of the remaining impediments to enhanced intra regional trade. The rest of the study is organized as follows. Chapter two describes intraregional trade patterns, both prior and after the entry of CEFTA into force, including more detailed analysis of trade structure. Chapter three emphasizes the role of nontariff barriers (NTBs), such as technical regulations and standards, and their potential impact on trade enhancement, as well as the importance of the trade related environment drawing on global surveys and reports (doing business, Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), logistics performance indicator, and the enabling trade index). It also looks at rules of origin and their role in trade creation. Chapter four aims to present the view of the private sector on CEFTA and on trade related reforms in general through two case studies of regional firms. Finally, chapter five concludes by summarizing the key recommendations of the study.
The Evolution of the Trade Regimeoffers a comprehensive political-economic history of the development of the world's multilateral trade institutions, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) ...and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO). While other books confine themselves to describing contemporary GATT/WTO legal rules or analyzing their economic logic, this is the first to explain the logic and development behind these rules.
The book begins by examining the institutions' rules, principles, practices, and norms from their genesis in the early postwar period to the present. It evaluates the extent to which changes in these institutional attributes have helped maintain or rebuild domestic constituencies for open markets.
The book considers these questions by looking at the political, legal, and economic foundations of the trade regime from many angles. The authors conclude that throughout most of GATT/WTO history, power politics fundamentally shaped the creation and evolution of the GATT/WTO system. Yet in recent years, many aspects of the trade regime have failed to keep pace with shifts in underlying material interests and ideas, and the challenges presented by expanding membership and preferential trade agreements.
This book shines a critical light on preferential trade agreements (PTAs), revealing how the rapid spread of PTAs endangers the world trading system. Numbering by now well over 300, and rapidly ...increasing, these preferential trade agreements, many taking the form of free trade agreements, have re-created the unhappy situation of the 1930s, when world trade was undermined by discriminatory practices. Whereas this was the result of protectionism in those days, ironically it is a result of misdirected pursuit of free trade via PTAs today. The world trading system is at risk again, the author argues, and the danger is palpable. Writing with his customary wit, panache and elegance, the author documents the growth of these PTAs, the reasons for their proliferation, and their deplorable consequences which include the near-destruction of the non-discrimination which was at the heart of the postwar trade architecture and its replacement by what he has called the spaghetti bowl of a maze of preferences. The author also documents how PTAs have undermined the prospects for multilateral freeing of trade, serving as stumbling blocks, instead of building blocks, for the objective of reaching multilateral free trade. In short, the author cogently demonstrates why PTAs are “Termites in the Trading System.”
Sustaining trade reform Baracat, Elías A; Finger, J. Michael; León Thorne, Raúl ...
2013., 2013, 07-11-2013
eBook, Book
Open access
Trade reform in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s was in significant part a reform of policy-making institutions. The institutions that existed when the reforms began had been created in response ...to particular protectionist pressures at particular times, and afterward they were controlled by the interests on whose behalf they had been created. This book was prompted by preliminary evidence suggesting that the reforms have been better sustained in Peru than in Argentina. Peru has continued its liberalization whereas Argentina has imposed a number of new trade restrictions. Moreover, decisions on many of Argentina's restrictions have not gone through the new mechanisms. The objective of this book is to draw lessons from Peruvian and Argentine experience that will be useful to governments that want to maintain an open trade regime. From a positive perspective, the authors want to identify what the Peruvian government has done that has kept its liberalization moving forward. The Peru study focuses on how reform leaders in that country have reinforced the evolution of a new management culture and how they have disseminated widely in Peruvian society a positive vision of Peru in the international economy.
Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries presents research findings based on a series of commodity studies of significant economic importance to developing countries. First, the book sets ...the stage with background chapters and investigations of cross-cutting issues. Trade and domestic policy regimes affecting agricultural and food markets are described, and the resulting patterns of production and trade are assessed. The book follows with an analysis of product standards and costs of compliance and their effects on agricultural and food trade. An investigation of the impact of preferences given to selected countries and their effectiveness is next. The evidence on the attempts to decouple agricultural support from agricultural output is then reviewed. The last background chapter explores the robustness of the global gains of multilateral agricultural and food trade liberalization. Given this context, the book presents detailed commodity studies for coffee, cotton, dairy, fruits and vegetables, groundnuts, rice, seafood products, sugar, and wheat. These markets feature distorted policy regimes among industrial or middle-income countries. The studies analyze current policy regimes in key producing and consuming countries document the magnitude of these distortions and estimates the distributional impactswinners and losers-of trade and domestic policy reforms. By bringing the key issues and findings together in one place, Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries aids policy makers and researchers, both in their approach to global negotiations and in evaluating their domestic policies on agriculture. This book also complements the recently published Agriculture and the WTO that focuses primarily on the agricultural issues within the context of the WTO negotiations.
Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa Prepared by the Policy Wing of the IMF African Department, this first, annual issue of Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa analyzes economic, ...trade, and institutional issues in 2004, and prospects in 2005, for the 42 countries covered by the Department (for data reasons, Eritrea and Liberia are excluded). Topics examined include responses to exogenous shocks, growth performance and growth-enhancing policies, and the effectiveness of regional trade arrangements. Detailed aggregate and country data (as of February 24, 2005) are provided in an appendix and a statistical appendix, and a list of relevant publications by the African Department is included.
The estimated coefficient of distance on the volume of trade is generally found to increase rather than decrease through time using the traditional gravity model of trade. This distance puzzle proved ...robust to several ad hoc versions of the model using data for 1962-96 for a large sample of 130 countries. The introduction of an "augmented" barrier to trade function removes the paradox, yielding a decline in the estimate of the elasticity of trade to distance of about 11 percent over the 35-year period for the whole sample. However, the "death of distance" is shown to be largely confined to bilateral trade between rich countries, with poor countries becoming marginalized.
The World Bank's 'World Trade Indicators' (WTI) database on the CD-ROM in this volume provides more than 300 performance indicators measuring at-the-border and behind-the-border country trade policy, ...institutions, and outcomes from 1995 to 2007. The database allows each country to be ranked by any policy or performance dimension relative to others. Trade-at-a-Glance tables for the 210 countries in the database facilitate comparisons among countries in key areas. Complementing the rich database are Trade Briefs for 142 developing countries summarizing insights from the data and the main findings of analytical work conducted by the Word Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization for individual countries.The companion volume to the 'World Trade Indicators 2008' highlights the main patterns in policy and performance revealed by the database grouping countries by region or income. The 20 best and 20 worst country rankings for a number of indicators are shown. For country policy makers, trade negotiators, and advisors, this volume provides the rich context within which to interpret a single country's standing on various dimensions. Business people will gain new insights about the countries in which they and their competitors operate. Trade researchers will find tantalizing country stories on trade policy and institutional dimensions and trade outcomes.Country performance is benchmarked in five key areas: ? Border protection, such as tariffs and nontariff barriers on imports of goods and services ? Market access barriers in the rest of the world to exports of goods ? Overall business and institutional environment ? Trade facilitation ? Trade outcomes, such as trade growth, integration, and diversification.
PDF
