Trends in international commodity prices: Panel unit root analysis

The purpose of this paper is to examine the behavior of international commodity prices within the context of the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis. To this end, I utilize a panel unit root approach which is able to account for multiple structural breaks and cross-section dependency. The unit root analysis for 24 international commodity prices during the period 1900–2003 shows evidence in favor of the trend stationary process in the commodity prices. The results thereby imply that shocks to commodity prices are temporary in nature and tend to be corrected over time. The estimation of the trend stationary models indicates that the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis is not a universal phenomenon.     

America's technology slip — A new political issue

A declining rate of technological innovation in the United States is postulated based on measurements of relative productivity, and balances of trade (especially in manufactured goods). Reasons given for this decline include slowing of t areas, shifts of the national R&D effort to less productive areas, low capital investment compared to other nations, a decline in the rate of formation of technology-based corporations, increased regulatory barriers and other factors. Development of synthetic fuels based on plentiful U.S. reserves of coal is given as an example of technological need and opportunity which could be exploited to reverse the technology slip. Political and governmental considerations and options are discussed in terms of roles and policies vis-à-vis the private sector and the voting public.     

Understanding locals' compensation fairness vis-à-vis foreign expatriates: the role of perceived equity

We examined antecedents and consequences of compensation fairness vis-à-vis foreign expatriates as perceived by locals of multinationals in Kenya. We found that compensation disparity vis-à-vis expatriates negatively effected locals' perceived compensation fairness vis-à-vis expatriates but compensation advantage vis-à-vis other locals positively effected it. The effects of both disparity and advantage were mediated through perceived equity. Expatriate interpersonal sensitivity towards locals reduced the negative effect of disparity but enhanced the positive effect of advantage on compensation fairness vis-à-vis expatriates. Compensation fairness vis-à-vis expatriates was positively related to job satisfaction but negatively related to turnover intention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

EMBODIED CARBON IN TRADE: A SURVEY OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

This paper critically reviews the literature on embodied carbon in trade and evaluates our present empirical understanding of these flows. A careful comparison of quantitative results from this literature exposes significant inconsistencies. For instance, estimates for emission embodied in world trade in 2004 range between 4.4 Gt and 6.2 Gt CO2, the difference corresponding to around half of Europe's annual emissions. A few consistent themes do nevertheless emerge from the literature. Most importantly, emissions in trade constitute a large and growing share of global emissions. Uncertainty about country‐level embodied emissions remains large, however, which presents severe limitations for the practical application of embodied carbon principles in climate policy.     

Periodic inspection plans: The case of Weibull distribution

In estimating the lifetime distribution of a product, the efficiency of a periodic inspection plan vis-á-vis with the continuous inspection plan is discussed. The periodic inspection plan envisages inspecting the units in the sample periodically at m successive equi-distant time points, for a given choice of m. The issue of choosing the value of m is also discussed. The discussions are carried out when the underlying lifetime distribution is Weibull.     

U.S. Strategic Trade Policy and the Competitiveness of the U.S. Construction Industry in Developing Country Markets

SUMMARY

U.S. government trade policy increasingly reflects “strategic trade” beliefs that, because competition in markets is imperfect, governments can act strategically to affect trade flows and enhance national welfare. The U.S. National Export Strategy targets the infrastructure sector in twelve developing countries as a strategic opportunity for U.S. construction firms. This paper examines whether U.S. government export promotion initiatives effectively implement strategic trade policy by providing appropriate support to these firms in that target market. It concludes that, within limits, they do.     

The impact of the US on Latin American business cycles: A new approach

Business cycles in Latin America have tended to be more volatile than those in wealthier nations such as the US. Accordingly, much research has been conducted on Latin business cycles, as well as the impact of the US on such fluctuations. Some research seeks to find how “integrated” cycles are in the US and Latin America, yielding conflicting results. We apply a new method to the question of business cycle synchronization between the US and nine Latin nations. We find that in the majority of cases integration has been rising in recent years. We also find, contrary to some previous studies, that integration does not appear to be affected by either the level of trade or of capital account openness. Finally, we find that the two countries that are dollarized – Ecuador and El Salvador – appear least integrated with the US. This last finding has potentially troubling implications in terms of the ability of these nations to adjust to asymmetric shocks vis-à-vis the US.     

PROCESSING TRADE BIASES THE MEASUREMENT OF VERTICAL SPECIALIZATION IN CHINA

Vertical specialization (VS) is often measured by the import contents of the exports, using an input–output (I–O) framework. Half of China's exports are processing exports, which largely depend on imported intermediate inputs and tie up upstream as well as downstream trade partners. Thus, one would expect to find strong VS for China. Using the ‘ordinary’ I–O tables, however, this is not the case. Because the production of processing exports is only a small part of total production, the average input structure in the I–O table hides the typical features of processing exports. Using adapted, tripartite I–O tables (for 2002 and 2007) in which the processing exports have been singled out, indeed reveals the expected strong VS in China.     

Lawyers,gender and grievance arbitration outcomes

Why should the grievant’s gender or the presence of legal representation affect arbitration outcomes? The “chivalry hypothesis” holds that male arbitrators will tend to favor female grievants; its theoretical mirror image, the “evil woman” hypothesis, suggests that female grievants suffer a comparative disadvantage vis-à-vis similarly situated males. However, neither hypothesis (both drawn from criminologists’ studies of judicial sentencing patterns) applies all that well to the grievance arbitration process where, unlike in the court system, the parties themselves select their decision-maker. This is not to say that the grievance arbitration process is free of gender discrimination, only that arbitrators are probably not the source of any pro- or anti-female bias which may be uncovered.     

Threshold cointegration in international exchange rates:A Bayesian approach

This paper considers Bayesian estimation of the threshold vector error correction (TVECM) model in moderate to large dimensions. Using the lagged cointegrating error as a threshold variable gives rise to additional difficulties that typically are solved by utilizing large sample approximations. By relying on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, we are enabled to circumvent these issues and avoid computationally-prohibitive estimation strategies like the grid search. Due to the proliferation of parameters, we use novel global-local shrinkage priors in the spirit of Griffin and Brown (2010). We illustrate the merits of our approach in an application to five exchange rates vis-á-vis the US dollar by means of a forecasting comparison. Our findings indicate that adopting a non-linear modeling approach improves the predictive accuracy for most currencies relative to a set of simpler benchmark models and the random walk.     

Bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh: A general equilibrium approach

India and Bangladesh have pursued policies of trade liberalization since the early 1990s. However, owing to the differential speeds of opening up, Bangladesh's bilateral trade deficit with India widened substantially over the years. This aggravated the economic and the political tensions between the economies. It has been held that promotion of free trade between the two economies may enhance the trade and hence economic cooperation between them. Against this backdrop the present paper proposes a theoretical framework that provides a general equilibrium determination of the commodity pattern of trade and hence locates the comparative advantages of the economies. The empirical implementation of the model considers trade in 25 sectors comparable in the input–output tables of the economies. The study isolates the gains from free trade accruing to either economy. The paper also explores the pattern of bilateral trade when each economy produces goods by utilizing their own as well as the other country's technology. The gains from this trading arrangement are also isolated.     

中国工业制成品出口价格贸易条件变化的影响因素

中国经济增长主要得益于对外贸易的福利,但贸易条件是否出现恶化呢?文章利用相关指数计算了2002年～2010年中国整体和部分行业的贸易条件,发现中国出口产品的价格贸易条件呈现先下降再逐步上升的态势,机电产品的表现更加明显;研究了价格贸易条件变化的影响因素,提出了改善中国贸易条件的对策。     

以商流提质为新增长点整体推进流通改革

内外贸一体化作为国策提出十年来，流通领域的一体化进程缓慢，内外贸分割的局面没有得到根本扭转，内外贸企业的发展都受到制约。在内外贸相互贯通的矛盾统一体中，内贸企业是矛盾产生的主要方面，需要按照国际商业模式进行改革。以此为重点，以贸易术语的引进消化移植为突破口，以此撬开横隔在内外贸企业间的“玻璃天花板”，使各种资源在市场支配作用下自由流动，通过帕累托改进，释放企业活力，历练内力，提高竞争能力。在此过程中，贸易术语与市场营销定价理论相结合，《通则》与合同法并用，解决一体化研究成果落地的工具和运作方法问题，充分调动企业参与内外贸一体化系统工程的积极性。     

改革开放以来我国贸易条件的变动分析与预测

随着我国近几年来经济高速增长,产业结构的不断优化升级,在国际贸易问题上也遇到了许多新的问题。本文将以我国近年来我国制成品贸易以及我国商品贸易条件为研究对象,分析现阶段我国制成品贸易受商品贸易条件恶化和收入贸易条件变化改善的影响,同时对未来两年的商品贸易条件和收入贸易条件以及制成品的出口变动情况进行分析与预测。     

The Pollution Terms of Trade

This paper introduces the concept of a ‘pollution terms of trade’ index. It measures the environmental gains or losses that a country sustains from engaging in international trade. The index distinguishes between the trade composition effect and the environmental technology effect. Calculations of the trade composition effect reveal a gap between developed and developing nations.     

中国对美国的贸易成本变动及影响因素研究

作为影响国际交换能否发生的重要因素,贸易成本已成为国际贸易研究的重要领域。在采用Novy模型就1995年至2012年中国对美国的贸易成本进行有效测度的基础上,对影响贸易成本变动的多种因素进行分析,结果显示：中国对美国贸易成本总体上呈现波浪式下降趋势;人民币过快升值会对贸易成本的降低产生不利影响;中国商业环境改善、进口关税水平降低等因素有助于降低贸易成本;原油价格变动对贸易成本的影响不大;FDI、美国进口关税水平与中美贸易成本之间不存在长期均衡关系。基于进一步分析发现,中国对美国贸易成本还有下降的空间,中国应充分挖掘贸易成本下降的途径,以进一步提高出口商品的竞争力。     

A world trade model with bilateral trade based on comparative advantage

This paper describes an extension of Duchin's world trade model to include the explicit representation of transportation costs, permitting the endogenous determination of bilateral trade flows and region-specific prices. The original model is a linear program that, based on comparative advantage and the minimization of factor use, determines regional production and trade flows as well as world prices and scarcity rents for m regions, n good, and k factors. The new world trade model with bilateral trade achieves its objectives by introducing transportation services and geographically dependent transportation requirements for each traded good and each pair of potential trade partners. The formulation of this model and its major properties are presented, and results from a preliminary analysis with 11 regions, eight goods, four transportation sectors, and six factors of production are reported and compared with corresponding results from the world trade model. On the basis of this comparison, we conclude that transportation costs have little impact on a region's total imports or exports of a given commodity.     

Inequality in Exchange: The Use of a World Trade Flow Table for Analyzing the International Economy

Whether or not the terms of trade between two countries may be unequal is a controversial question in the theory of international economics. In practice, the issue is resolved through statistical observation of the terms of trade. This measurement of the terms of trade follows a long tradition and produces impressive detail. It is, however, restricted in scope, because the first derivative, the change of the terms over time is observed only. Absolute levels depend on which year is chosen as the base year, a choice that is rather arbitrary and carries no theoretical meaning. Equality in the levels of terms of trade remains thus undefined. More precisely, it is always assumed to exist implicitly for whichever base year is being nominated. The paper proposes an answer to this ambiguity based on the relatively new statistical tool of international purchasing power compilation. The terms of trade are crucially dependent on the rate of foreign exchange (for which exports are traded against imports), which is predominantly governed by financial rather than commodity markets. Hence, the paper proposes to separate the two factors of influence and to call terms of trade ‘equal’ if the effective real exchange rate (as derived from the nominal exchange rate by means of purchasing power parities) equals one. On that basis a world trade flow table is constructed, putting the compiled equalities and inequalities in trade into a coherent, global perspective.     

IN THE SHADOW OF ‘THE CITY’ YET TO COME: Auroville,Developmentalism and the Social Effects of Cityness

This article focuses on the planned community of Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India, founded in 1968. Building on critical readings of the settlement that have drawn attention to the power imbalance in its relationships with surrounding villages, the article delineates the ways that a geographical imagination of cityness has been a key component of the settlement's development and the forms of neo-coloniality in which it has been implicated. Drawing on archival and published sources as well as ethnographic research, the article discusses three ways in which the settlement performs a sense of its own ‘cityness-to-come’: first, the architectural discourse and planning rationality central to Auroville's identity; second, its agonistic public sphere vis-à-vis architecture and planning, and third, its ethos of learning and evolution, and the settlement's developmental teleology. In so doing, the article shows how ‘the city’ conceived as a textual and spatial promise, as well as a utopian aspiration, works ideologically to constitute the settlement itself, but also to precipitate social effects and uneven power relationships with village communities in this region. To sum up, this article develops an argument about the neo-colonial social work done by ‘the city’ conceived as text.     

SUPPLY-USE FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ANALYSIS

The technical variation between countries in the production of goods and services, in terms of not only input coefficients, but also emission coefficients, creates scope for international trade to reduce environmental pressures. For this purpose we extend the theory of trade and the environment as to accommodate technical variation between countries in production and emissions. We use and steer close to the extended input and output tables, which include emission data. By treating environmental standards analogous to capital and labor capacity constraints, the aggregation problem for economic and environmental measures gets the same format as the well-understood aggregation problem for labor and capital. In a pilot application we determine the gains to free trade in products and emission permits.