Third‐country Effects of Regional Trade Agreements

Does regionalism negatively impact non‐members? To answer this question, we examine the effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) on imports from non‐members and the tariffs that they face. Using data from six RTAs in Latin America and Europe, we do not find evidence that implementation of the regional agreements is associated with trade diversion from third countries to regional members. Using detailed industry data on preference margins and most‐favoured nation (MFN) tariffs for three trade agreements in Latin America over 12 years, we find that greater preference margins do not significantly reduce imports from third countries. We also look at the effect of preferences on external tariffs. We find evidence that preferential tariff reduction tends to precede the reduction of external MFN tariffs in a given sector, offering evidence of tariff complementarity. Overall, the results suggest that regionalism does not significantly harm non‐members.     

浅析非洲经济一体化的贸易创造与贸易转移效应

在概述战后非洲一体化发展总体状况的基础上,通过构建理论模型,利用实证分析方法,选择南部非洲发展共同体为研究对象对南部非洲发展共同体的贸易创造和贸易转移问题进行探讨,从而为客观评估非洲经济一体化进程中的静态福利效应提供一种参考。研究结果表明,南部非洲发展共同体并没有发生明显的贸易创造及贸易转移效应,成员国从一体化中获得的福利收益是有限的。     

Sequencing Regional Trade Integration and Cooperation Agreements

Trade integration agreements and other international cooperation agreements have proliferated in recent years around the world. Rather than being spurred by exogenous forces alone, the two phenomena are likely to be both path‐dependent and endogenous to one another. However, the theoretical and empirical understanding of the relationships between agreements forged in different domains of cooperation remains nascent. The purpose of this paper is to describe a new, extensive dataset on international agreements that can be employed to start mending the gaps in the literature, and to develop ‘best practices’ of sequencing international agreements to obtain higher pay‐offs from cooperation. Of particular interest here is the relationship between trade integration and other cooperation agreements; the data provide preliminary grounds for hypothesising that trade integration agreements can be a particularly likely catalyst for further cooperation between states.     

区域贸易协定及其新近发展的多维解析

新近区域贸易协定正在经历重大变革。“区域”不再拘泥于传统物理的、政治的和经济的范畴,而延伸至更广阔的领域。“贸易协定”的内容早已跨越“贸易”领域,而广泛涉及到投资、金融、环境、劳工等经济领域和社会领域。本文运用政治、经济和法律等多元开放的研究视角,探寻区域贸易协定蓬勃发展的原因,并对其新近发展趋势作出了合理预测。     

区域自由贸易协议与多边贸易体制的发展

区域自由贸易协议作为一种对多边贸易体制产生影响的重要因素,它的发展在GATT时期就已经受到缔约方全体的规制。随着WTO多哈回合谈判议程的停滞,区域自由贸易安排开始活跃。这种区域自由贸易安排,根据其发展的特点,对多边贸易体制的影响存在两面性:在短期内可能会为多边贸易谈判提供协调意见的平台,但是这种区域自由贸易协议的长期运行也会割裂多边贸易体制的统一性,加深经济社会发展不平衡的状况。控制区域自由贸易的消极影响,必须调整WTO的区域自由贸易规则,使区域自由贸易安排能够在多边贸易体制的框架内运行。     

Regional Trade Agreements versus Global Trade Liberalisation: Implications for a Small Island Developing State

This study undertakes an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of two forms of regional trade agreements vis‐à‐vis global trade liberalisation on a small island country, using Fiji as a case study. In order to capture the feedback effects of such a complex set of policies, we employ a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the Fijian economy to investigate (i) the impact of the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), (ii) the impact of PICTA, the Pacific Agreement for Closer Economic Relations (PACER), and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), (iii) the impact of full tariff liberalisation (i.e. tariff removal only), and (iv) the impact of full trade liberalisation, with removal of both tariff and non‐tariff barriers. While PICTA consistently provides the least benefits across a range of macroeconomic indicators including real output, welfare, trade volumes and employment, full trade liberalisation involving the removal of tariff and non‐tariff barriers provides the greatest benefits compared to the other scenarios in terms of real output. However, the latter scenario is outperformed by PICTA, PACER, the EPAs and full tariff liberalisation in terms of welfare effects, trade volumes and employment. The policy implications hold important lessons for developing countries considering trade liberalisation.     

区域贸易协定中透明度机制对出口贸易的影响

本文利用39个经济体(34个OECD国家和5个主要新兴经济体)与59个贸易伙伴之间签署的50份区域贸易协定,检验区域贸易协定中透明度条款设定对双边贸易的影响,结果表明:区域贸易协定中透明度条款的设定对双边贸易增加值有异质性影响;制度质量的改善能够显著增加双边出口贸易增加值,而且制度质量的提高还会提升透明度对双边贸易增加值的促进作用;在透明度承诺较高的状况下,政府施政有效性才能够发挥对双边贸易增加值的促进作用。     

Productivity and Learning‐by‐exporting: A Firm‐level Analysis of Indian Manufacturing

In this paper, we examine whether firms become productive by learning through exporting. To this end, we estimate the production function using microdata of Indian manufacturing firms operating in the period 1991–2001. In contrast to studies on developed countries, our results provide evidence that Indian manufacturing firms are experiencing a rise in productivity through entering export markets and thus experience the learning effect. We also find that there is a productivity rise prior to exporting. Therefore, our results also support the self‐selection mechanism for exporting.     

In Search of Optimised Regional Trade Agreements and Applications to East Asia

We quantitatively analyse the trade effects of enhanced trade facilitation with extended gravity equations. Our findings confirm that RTAs comprised of countries equipped with better trade facilitation are more likely to be trade‐creating, less likely to be trade‐diverting, and are thus more likely to lead the world economy toward global free trade. We also find that (i) the traditional gains from shallow integration through eliminating tariff barriers will be greater for South‐South RTAs in East Asia such as an ASEAN‐China RTA, provided that the tariff‐reducing schedule is strictly fulfilled, (ii) the gains from deeper integration through enhancing trade facilitation will be greater for North‐North RTAs in East Asia such as a Japan‐Korea RTA, and (iii) the gains from a combined trade liberalisation strategy through tariff reductions and enhanced trade facilitation will be greater for North‐South RTAs in East Asia such as a China‐Korea and an ASEAN+3 RTA.     

Liberalisation and Protection under Overlapping Free Trade Agreements: Dynamic Interplay between Free Trade Agreements and Investment

Two decades into the most recent wave of regionalism many of its implications remain to be fully understood. A vast literature has explored the impacts of free trade agreements (FTAs) on investment flows, but less attention has been given to how existing patterns of investment alter FTA liberalisation. It is contended here that the dynamic interplay between overlapping FTA areas and the investment sunk in them shapes governments' and firms' positions regarding further FTA liberalisation. During trade negotiations, a country may decide to exclude a sector from FTA liberalisation to prevent (concession prevention) future FTA partners from making similar demands. Concession prevention could also occur when a foreign firm, holding a dominant market position in a host country, relinquishes liberalisation demands in an FTA between host and home countries to prevent its current position being eroded if the host country grants similar (or better) concessions to competing firms from other countries in future FTAs. Conversely, investment sunk into a country's sensitive sector in the territory of partners from previous FTAs could pre‐empt (concession pre‐emption) the protectionist position of that country when it subsequently negotiates FTAs with the investment‐source countries. These arguments were tested in the negotiations around the liberalisation of the automotive industry that Thailand and Malaysia had with Japan in their respective bilateral FTAs. The distinct interaction between investment and the FTAs in which these countries participate resulted either in entrenchment of protectionism in the sector or its liberalisation across subsequent FTAs.     

欧盟对华反倾销的贸易转移效应:基于产品角度的经验分析

本文从欧盟对华反倾销的产品类别出发,分析得出化工产品、钢铁及其制品和矿产品遭受欧盟反倾销强度较大,而电气设备和纺织品反倾销强度较小;并在此基础上分析了反倾销的贸易转移效应,结果表明除矿产品外的其余产品的贸易转移效应均与反倾销强度表现出不一致性;其原因大致包含:产品竞争力、出口增速、与欧盟产品价差、该产品出口对欧依赖程度、欧盟对中国进口依赖程度、进口替代国多少等因素。最后,本文指出应对欧盟对华反倾销的政策措施应基于其反倾销强度和贸易转移效应并因产品而异。     

Exporting and Environmental Performance: A Firm‐level Productivity Analysis

The objective of this paper is to study empirically the relationship between export orientation and firms’ environmental performance from different perspectives of trade theory. On the one hand, productivity heterogeneity is analysed within the new trade‐theoretical framework. The approach followed is to determine firm‐level productivity components, including an environmental productivity indicator (as a performance measure) and taking as reference the Spanish food industry. On the other hand, from the traditional comparative advantage perspective, this study also develops an export performance model to evaluate the effect of technology, environmental variables and factor endowment on exporting. The results show greater environmental productivity and corporate efficiency for export‐oriented firms. Our findings also determine the positive effect on firms’ export intensity of environmental performance as a factor of specialisation and technology proficiency.     

Trade Liberalisation: The Effects of Free Trade Agreements on the Competitiveness of the Dairy Sector

In recent years, preferential trade agreements (PTAs), free trade agreements (FTAs) in particular, have proliferated while WTO negotiations have stagnated. This paper contributes to the literature on trade liberalisation and the agricultural sector by analysing the effects of FTAs on the competitiveness of the dairy sector across 76 countries and over a 20‐year period from 1990 to 2009. With a longitudinal econometric model, the results demonstrate that when a country has a revealed comparative advantage in the dairy sector, FTAs positively influence several indicators of competitiveness in the dairy sector, such as production, market share and trade balance. The results also indicate that multilateral FTAs are more beneficial than bilateral FTAs. There is strong empirical evidence that FTAs are more beneficial to developed countries than to developing countries. There is no statistical evidence to support the hypothesis about a relationship between FTAs and farm‐gate price.     

Free Trade Agreements In the Americas: Are the Trade Effects Larger than Anticipated?

This paper argues that the ‘competitive liberalisation’ of national governments of the past several decades reflects national governments’ expectations of larger trade impacts from regional economic integration agreements (EIAs) than typical ex ante economic models have suggested. Moreover, we show that previous (typically cross‐section) ex post empirical evaluations of the effects of EIAs on trade have seriously over‐ or underestimated the effects, partly due to ignoring the (endogenous) self‐selection bias of country pairs into EIAs. Accounting for this bias, we find that economic integration agreements in the Americas have had much larger impacts on trade over the period 1960–2000 than previously found and the ex post estimates are less fragile than those in earlier cross‐section analyses. The results shed further light on understanding the causes and consequences of the growth of regionalism in the world.     

Trade Diversion as Firm Adjustment to Trade Policy: Evidence from EU Anti‐dumping Duties on Vietnamese Footwear

This paper evaluates the impact of the 2006 European Union anti‐dumping (AD) action on Vietnamese footwear in three markets: imports to the EU, footwear producers in Vietnam, and the trade diversionary adjustment of Vietnamese firms in the US market. We find that the AD action reduced Vietnamese imports to the EU by as much as 65 per cent. Given that the EU makes up almost two‐thirds of Vietnam's footwear exports and footwear is among the top four export industries for Vietnam, this reduction is economically significant. Consistent with predictions of our model, we find evidence of trade diversion by Vietnamese producers from the EU to the US market. Our difference‐in‐difference estimates of the AD actions on the value of Vietnamese footwear imports to the United States ranged from 69 to 71 per cent over the period 2004–07 and 69 to 72 per cent in terms of quantity. These results highlight the spillover effects of trade policy in third markets when firms adjust to trade barriers. Our results are robust to triple‐difference specifications where we adjust for trend differences and a series of placebo specifications.     

区域服务贸易自由化的新趋向——基于GATS和NAFTA类型协定的比较

区域贸易协定主要有GATS和NAFTA类型两大基本类型。虽然GATS类型的协定并没有减少,但是NAFTA类型的协定发展更快。这主要是因为负面清单"不列入即开放"的性质决定了NAFTA类型协定的自由化程度更高。区域贸易协定特别是NAFTA类型的协定,将议题延伸至与国内监管制度密切相关的"21世纪新议题",表明发达经济体关注的焦点已经由寻求市场开放转向协调监管制度,即向发展中国家输出其监管制度,以此进一步推动服务贸易自由化。     

全球主要区域一体化安排下贸易效应的实证分析:1993-2003年

近10年来,区域一体化安排得到快速发展。这些区域一体化安排是全球一体化的铺路石还是绊脚石?本文通过对1993-2003年欧盟(EU)、北美自由贸易区(NAFTA)、东南亚国家联盟(ASEAN)、南方共同市场(MERCOSUR)和安第斯共同体(ANDEAN)5大区域一体化安排下贸易发展的特征及原因进行全面分析,在此基础上提出我国未来区域一体化安排的几点启示。     

Economic Partnership Agreements Between Sub‐Saharan Africa and the EU: A Development Perspective

This paper draws on Hinkle and Schiff (2003). It analyses the planned Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) from a development perspective. It does not take a position on whether SSA should enter into EPAs with the EU. Rather, it starts from the notion that the process of forming EPAs is unlikely to be reversed and examines the conditions that will maximise SSA's benefits from the EPAs. If this notion is correct, then the analysis presented in the paper applies. On the other hand, Pascal Lamy, the EU Trade Commissioner, made a proposal at the May 2004 G‐90 summit in Dakar that might lead to a change in the EPA process. He proposed that the G‐90, a group consisting of ACP and non‐ACP LDC countries, should not have to make concessions at the WTO Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, i.e., he proposed a ‘free round’ for the G‐90. This proposal opens the door to the possibility that the same might apply to the ACP countries in the EU‐ACP negotiations and that the EPA process might be reversed. The paper considers the key issues raised by the planned EPAs, their relationship to the WTO's Doha Round and the EU's Everything‐but‐Arms Initiative, the changes needed to make the EPAs internally consistent, the domestic reforms in SSA that would need to accompany trade liberalisation in both goods and services, and the potential effects of the EPAs on regional integration in SSA. The EPAs will pose a number of policy challenges for SSA countries, including: restructuring of indirect tax systems, reduction of MFN tariffs, liberalisation of service imports on an MFN basis and related regulatory reforms in the services sector, and liberalisation of trade in both goods and services within the regional trading blocs in SSA. The paper also finds that the EPAs provide an opportunity to accelerate regional and global trade integration in SSA. To realise the potential development benefits of the planned EPAs, two steps are essential. First, the EU must, as it has stated, truly treat the EPAs as instruments of development, subordinating its commercial interests in the agreements to the development needs of SSA. Second, the SSA countries need to implement a number of EPA‐related trade policy reforms. However, the latter is far from certain, given the lack of reform momentum in SSA.     

简析WTO协定下贸易权的绝对性与相对性

为应对由全球经济衰退带来的国内经济社会问题,某些成员常把WTO协定下的贸易权作为其调整和推进对外贸易的政策工具和法律盾牌,致使WTO成员间由来已久的贸易权纠纷雪上加霜。对WTO协定下的贸易权进行性质定位,并据此分析其绝对性和相对性,有助于明晰成员享有贸易权的限度和范围,有助于理解程序性质的贸易权和实体性质的贸易权,由此期望为解决成员间的贸易权争端提供新思路或新方法。