Standards,trade margins and product quality: Firm-level evidence from Peru

The ongoing debate on whether agri-food (public) regulatory standards are barriers or catalysts to trade is particularly pertinent for developing countries who are often standard-takers. Current evidence on the trade effects of regulatory standards is ambiguous. In this paper, we give a contribution focusing on the firm heterogeneity trade effects of (different) types of agri-food standards, considering firm-level exports from Peru. Particular emphasis is given to standards with different degree of restrictiveness, such as specific trade concerns (STCs) raised on the most stringent NTMs, and to product-quality upgrading. Results show that only the most restrictive NTMs significantly limit agri-food exports for Peruvian firms, affecting the probability to trade, firms’ exit and the export volume. Regular SPSs are found to enhance trade. Importantly, we uncovered relevant heterogonous effects of NTMs on firms of different size, showing that only the most stringent standards result in product quality upgrading.     

Consumer information,labelling and international trade in agri-food products

The focus of the World Trade Organization is establishing limits on governments’ ability to impose trade barriers in response to producers’ requests for protection. In recent years, however, requests for protection from imports has increasingly come from consumers over issues ranging from animal welfare concerns, employment of child labour, the use of growth hormones, differing environmental standards and GM foods. The current international trade regime is ill-suited to deal with consumer-based protectionism. This paper develops a model that explicitly incorporates consumer concerns into an international trade model and compares the result with the standard treatment. Further, using the model incorporating consumer concerns, a labelling policy for imports is compared to an import embargo. The labelling policy is found to be superior to an embargo. Implications are drawn for future trade negotiations pertaining to sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade.     

金融危机下贸易保护主义的新趋势与中国的对策

金融危机在全球蔓延,世界经济陷入低迷,新一轮贸易保护主义顺势抬头,各国贸易保护壁垒重新筑起,中国的国际贸易环境面临恶化的危险。文章探讨了此次金融危机下贸易保护主义的新趋势,分析了中国对外贸易面临的挑战,并根据中国的实际情况提出了相应的措施。     

Reducing transatlantic barriers on U.S.-EU agri-food trade: What are the possible gains?

In recent years, the EU and the U.S. have engaged in discussions to lower trade and investment barriers and strengthen transatlantic integration. For food and agricultural trade, non-tariff measures (NTMs) such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) stand out as significant barriers. This study combines sector-level econometric modeling with an agriculture-focused computable generable equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate various transatlantic liberalization scenarios on U.S.-EU agri-food trade. The simulations quantify the effect from tariff removal and addressing NTMs. The magnitude of the gains depend upon the level of tariff liberalization, the depth of integration, and possible consumer demand changes.     

美国量化宽松政策的原因及其影响

美国在财政政策和传统货币政策空间有限、国会的贸易保护主义环境和政党竞争激烈的情况下,为了刺激本国经济复苏,采取了量化宽松政策。短期来看对刺激美国经济有一定的作用,但是由于美元在国际货币体系中的中心地位,该政策会加大全球通货膨胀压力、助推大宗商品价格上涨、引起货币竞相贬值和更广泛的贸易保护主义。长期来看该政策增加的流动性大量外流,对美国经济刺激作用有限,并影响美元的地位。因此需要国际社会广泛合作审慎应对该政策的影响。     

贸易便利化对我国汽车行业出口的影响及贸易潜力研究——基于跨国面板数据模型的实证分析

在国际贸易繁荣的景象下时有贸易保护主义的存在，推动贸易便利化成为大势所趋。本文利用与我国汽车行业贸易最密切的47个国家为样本实证研究得出，贸易便利化4个一级指标对我国汽车行业出口的影响从大到小依次为电子商务、口岸效率、海关环境、规制环境。然后利用跨国面板数据进行实证研究表明贸易便利化对我国汽车行业出口贸易有显著影响，并且通过提高贸易便利化来推动贸易只在“出口不足”的国家有效。     

标准在企业走向国际市场中的作用

阐述了标准在企业生产经营活动中的作用，通过对国际标准、WTO、WTO/TBT协议的情况介绍，分析了标准对于开展国际贸易的重要性，明确了国际标准是WTO协议的技术基础，是消除贸易技术壁垒的有效手段；明晰了标准在企业走向国际市场中的作用即在新的经济形势下，标准不仅一如既往的在企业的生产和经营中发挥着重要的作用，而且在企业走向国际市场的过程中，又架起了通向国际市场的桥梁。     

Direct intervention or indirect support? The effects of cooperative control measures on farmers’ implementation of quality and safety standards

In recent years, labor-intensive agricultural products from developing countries have exhibited inferior performance in international trade due to quality and safety incidents, among which pesticide residue is a major issue. Aiming to improve food quality and safety in the context of cooperatives, we introduced three categories of control measures: outcome control, process control and social control. Based on the Pre-Harvest Interval Standard (PHIS), we selected three indices, farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance to PHIS and relative distance to PHIS, to evaluate appropriateness of pesticides use, reduction of pesticide residue and safety improvements of agricultural products. By using random sampling survey data, we empirically analyzed the marginal effects of control measures and their combinations on food quality and safety standards. The empirical results show that implementing process control, namely, unified production standards or supply of unified agricultural inputs, can comprehensively improve farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance and relative distance to PHIS respectively by 34.9%, 3.2 days and 46.0% on average. While the effects of outcome control (safety inspection) and social control (bonus-penalty incentive or training) are restricted to other measures. Therefore, we suggest cooperatives should take farmers’ features, implementation conditions and the effects of control measures into consideration in order to make a sustainable management plan for improving food quality and safety and enhancing competitiveness in international markets.     

Does Temporal Aggregation Explain the Persistence of the S&P/Case‐Shiller Indices? Evidence from a Longitudinal Specification

Temporal aggregation is a repeat sale index construction methodology that consists of aggregating paired‐transactions in a moving‐average window. In particular, the methodology is used to calculate the popular S&P/Case‐Shiller home price indices. In this article, I focus the insights of the literature on measurement error to demonstrate that temporal aggregation produces idiosyncratic biases in predictive regression slopes. I further estimate a dynamic instrumental variable (IV) panel for the 20 S&P/Case‐Shiller metro areas. The main empirical finding is that temporal aggregation is a short‐lived statistical disturbance that does not explain the homogenous robust persistence of the indices.     

Indicators of development or dependency in disguise? Assessing domestic inventive capacity in South Korean and Chinese infrastructural ICT standards

Domestic infrastructural information and communication technology (ICT) standards can be items of assertion for newly industrialised countries as they signal a capacity for breaking dependence on foreign technology and potentially drawing revenue from international export. This paper asks, with an in-depth study of a selection of recent South Korean and Chinese infrastructural ICT standards, to what degree it is warranted to correlate the production of standards with dependency-breaking technological capacity. A composite picture is found. On one side, a large portion of promoted domestic standards are creative imitations of foreign technologies with limited, if any, proportions of embedded domestic patents. This indicates a lack of capacity for challenging technological dependence. On the other side, several of the technologies studied signal emerging South Korean and Chinese capacity for embedding cutting-edge patents in infrastructural ICT standards when participating in global standardisation consortiums.     

Temporal Aggregation in Real Estate Return Indices

Temporal aggregation is defined as the use of spot valuations of properties occuring over an interval of time to impute the spot value of a property or of a real estate value index as of a single point in time. Temporal aggregation may characterize not only appraisal-based indices but also indices based directly on transaction prices, such as the National Real Estate Index (NREI) and regression-based indices such as hedonic or repeat-sales indices. This paper analyzes the effect of temporal aggregation on the smoothing of the time series second moments in the resulting real estate return index. Assuming true spot returns are uncorrelated, temporal aggregation-induced smoothing will cause the empirically observed real estate index to understate the own-variance by one-third and the beta by one-half. This amount of bias in the second moments can have major implications for the real estate share in an optimal portfolio. Thus, empirical-based investment analysis could be led astray by smoothing even if the real estate return index is "transaction-based" rather than "appraisal-based."     

Models of International Labor Standards

This article examines existing models of the regulation of international labor standards in the context of international trade. The article first focuses on conceptual and theoretical notions of the international regulation of labor standards. Four existing models of international labor regulations are then examined: the legislative model, the trade sanctions model, the multilateral enforcement model, and the voluntary standards model. The theoretical issues raised and the characteristics of the four models are then used to develop a suggested structure for the international regulation of labor standards in a world of free trade.     

The latecomer strategy for global ICT standardization: Indigenous innovation and its dilemma

This article reviews China׳s changing standardization strategies amidst the standards competitions that take place both domestically in China and globally. The relevant policies in China now support indigenous innovation, particularly in the information and communication technologies (ICT) industry by using standards, encourage domestic firms to patent their standard-related technologies, and promote innovation-oriented inter-firm alliances. The three cases examined illustrate the challenges that the Chinese government faces in implementing the policies. Most of all, while the government has actively promoted indigenous innovation as a latecomer strategy for global standardization, there are possibilities of clash with the international norms for free competition and economic liberalization which China is supposed to comply with. There are also oppositions from those domestic firms that mainly export products compliant with the international standards set by advanced countries, and from local authorities that support those firms. The demands for international compliance are often strengthened by multinationals importing products compliant with the international standards. These clashes and oppositions give a dilemma to the policy makers who want to push the standardization strategy based on indigenous innovation.     

Intellectual property rights and standardization: the case of GSM

This paper investigates the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the process of standardization in the telecommunications industry. We take the global system for mobile communications (GSM) case as a highly relevant example, being part of a high-tech industry in which standards play a large role. In the process of designing the GSM standard, a lot of attention has been given to IPRs, mainly to avoid a situation in which a single IPR holder could hamper or even totally block the development of the standard. Nevertheless, the ultimate GSM standard contains a large amount of so-called ‘essential IPRs’, i.e., IPRs without which the implementation of GSM products is impossible.The paper provides a general discussion of the development of GSM and presents a database on the essential IPRs in the GSM standard. This database has been compiled on the basis of international patent statistics, and the data that manufacturers have supplied to European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the European standardization body responsible for defining the GSM standard. We use this database to assess the dynamic IPR position of firms in the original GSM standard and its subsequent development.We use the GSM case to underline the importance of a general European policy with regard to IPRs and standardization, and derive several concrete recommendations for such a policy.     

Growth of agricultural protection in East Asia

Japan is well known for its restrictions on food imports. Less well known is the fact that South Korea and Taiwan are also protective of their agricultural sectors. This protectionism began early this century when all three countries were part of the Japanese Empire, and it has increased rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, food prices in East Asia average two or three times higher than in international markets, reflecting levels of protection that rival those in Western Europe.     

Regulating Labour Standards via Supply Chains: Combining Public/Private Interventions to Improve Workplace Compliance

Concern over global labour standards has led to a profusion of non‐governmental forms of regulation. Systematic evaluation of these systems has been very limited to date. This article empirically explores an innovative system to regulate labour standards in the US garment industry combining public enforcement power and private monitoring, thereby drawing on different elements of global labour standards systems. We examine the impact of this system over time and in two distinct markets on employer compliance with minimum wage laws and find that these initiatives are associated with substantial reductions in minimum wage violations. The system therefore offers a useful model for international labour standards regulatory systems.     

Uneven Development,Uneven Response: The Relentless Search for Meaningful Regulation of GVCs

The regulation of employment in global value chains (GVCs) is a story of the interaction of corporation and state in transnational space, where uneven international development has allowed the commodification and exploitation of international labour. Global standards are well articulated by bodies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UN. We know what ‘decent work’ should look like as well as what all workers should enjoy as basic employment and human rights. Yet, internationally, the different mechanisms of private and public regulation fail at the point of implementation and across the world we see no fundamental shift in the condition of labour in terms of its capacity for social or economic upgrading. This article examines the regulatory mechanisms, and outcomes of regulation, of industrial relations in GVCs. It commends a future research agenda to illuminate the interaction between different sources of standards and rules and the complexities of intersecting private and public regulation, in the pursuit of enforceable, meaningful regulation of work and employment in international supply chains.     

Pesticide residues and trade,the apple of discord?

In this paper we study the impact of the regulations on Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) of pesticides on the trade of apples and pears and related processed products with the aim of understanding how their similarity (or dissimilarity) affect trade. Most studies investigate the impact of sanitary regulations introducing directly in the analysis the MRL put in force in the importing country. They introduce in the analysis the level of the regulation in the importing country without taking into account the rule in force in the exporting country. Rather than focusing on a particular pesticide we take into account the entire list of substances set out by the various regulations. We then build a similarity index and introduce it into a gravity equation to assess the impact of the differences in MRL of pesticides on trade. Results suggest that the differences between regulations matter and may, in some case, hinder trade.     

汽、柴油质量标准的提高对炼油企业效益的影响

介绍了国内汽,柴油质量标准的演变及将要执行的“世界燃油规范”Ⅱ,Ⅲ类标准,以沿海某千万吨级炼油厂为例,定量分析了新的汽,柴油质量标准对炼油企业效益的影响程度,得出了相关结论,并给出分析意见及建议。     

加速我国石油工业采用国际通用标准的步伐

本文根据我们参加国际标准化活动的经验和体会,对照我国石油行业标准与国际标准和国外先进标准的差异进行分析,最终表明:目前为加速我国石油工业采用通用的国际标准和国外先进标准的步伐,我们有必要加大参加国际标准化活动的力度,加强国际标准化动态的跟踪研究,注重国内归口单位与各专标委的密切合作,努力建立起多方信息交流渠道,使采标与行业标准化工作融为一体,共同促进石油行业标准化的发展,为石油天然气总公司国际化战略服务.