Restaurant Espionage: When recipes are not trade secrets

A restaurant's trade dress is protected by trademark laws. But are its recipes and cooking methods similarly protected? Not necessarily…     

Avoid meetings or make them work

How often have you been forced to neglect your real work in order to attend a meeting at which the irrelevant—even absurd—points seem to go on, and on, and on, and on, and.…     

Impact of Trade Facilitation on Parts and Components Trade

This article utilizes data from seventy-seven countries over the period 2004–07 in a gravity trade model to examine the impact of four dimensions of trade facilitation—physical infrastructure, information and communication technology, business environment, and border efficiency—on parts and components and final goods trade for the machinery and transport equipment sector. The results show that the effect of importers’ overall trade facilitation measures is stronger for promoting parts and components than for final goods trade. Among the four dimensions, border efficiency has the largest impact on trade flows for this sector, and the effect of exporter and particularly importers’ border efficiency is important for parts and components, as compared to final goods trade.     

Trade Negotiations in the Americas and What They Mean for You

The United States is engaged in two huge trade negotiations—the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—that will have a profound impact on our economy and on the world trade system. These agreements can be an important template for new rules governing world trade, and they address some important new areas, such as regulatory issues. However, if they are to be a good template, U.S. negotiators have to alter some of their proposals, and these new agreements have to prohibit predatory trade practices, such as currency manipulation.     

Free trade's intertemporal Pareto-optimality

Emmanuel's thesis of ‘unequal exchange’ — that free trade at equalized profit rates and unequal wage rates (1) involves deadweight loss to the world, and (2) explains a one-way trend toward deterioration of poor country's wellbeing and double-factoral terms of trade — is found on analysis to be incorrect. Careful time-period analysis shows that such free trade is actually intertemporally Pareto optimal, despite misleading steady-state comparisons.     

Comparative cost advantage and trade performance: a panel data approach

This article examines the relationship of the components of labor cost—unit cost, productivity, compensation—to the structure of U.S. trade flows in manufacturing industries for the period 1967-1982. Earlier cross-sectional models do not account for differential trade barriers among industries while time series studies do not include changes in either trade barriers or exchange rates. This study addresses these problems by using a panel data model with fixed time effects. Because this model had limited success in estimating the labor compensation parameter, a panel data model with individual industry effects was also estimated.     

Non-Tariff barriers to trade

Over the past three decades the non-tariff barriers to trade have grown in importance inversely to the import duties which have been lowered under GATT auspices. In the current GATT negotiations — the Tokyo round in which the contracting parties have been at work since the autumn of 1973 to solve the acute trade-political problems — non-tariff trade barriers are for the first time playing a major role.     

浙江10地市的出口贸易为何如此不同——对浙江1997～2006年贸易发展影响因素的实证分析

2007～2008年爆发的美国金融危机对我国对外贸易大省浙江造成了严重影响,然而同为浙江模式的各地市的受影响程度却存在着巨大差别。本文通过针对浙江10个地市1997～2006年贸易发展影响因素的实证分析发现,决定浙江对外贸易发展的因素更多地表现为GDP产值、固定资产投资和工业投资,而较少地表现为对外资的严重依赖。这意味着,应对这次金融危机最好的办法不是提高对外资的依赖度,而更主要地应在于通过增加固定资产投资提高其工业的竞争力。     

US trade wars in the twenty‐first century with emerging countries: Make America and its partners lose again

In a context of rising protectionist rhetoric, this paper looks at the potential impact of trade wars initiated by a change in US trade policies. We use a static multicountry, multisector general equilibrium model to evaluate six modalities of three potential trade wars—for a total of 18 scenarios—between the USA and China, between the USA and Mexico, and a combination of the two previous conflicts. In each case, we evaluate various forms of trade retaliation by the US partner(s): the same level of import duty as the one imposed by the USA , an import duty that minimises welfare loss, a duty that minimises terms‐of‐trade deterioration, a duty that generates the same amount of collected revenue, and finally a Nash equilibrium. We conclude that there is no scenario in which the US government augments its domestic welfare or GDP . There may be sectoral gains in value added in the USA , but they are small and to the detriment of other sectors. While losses for China are relatively small, potential losses for the Mexican economy are significant. There are also free riders of these trade wars. Finally, the way in which trade retaliations are designed matters greatly.     

On the Ethics of Trade Credit: Understanding Good Payment Practice in the Supply Chain

In spite of its commercial importance and signs of clear concern in public policy arenas, trade credit has not been subjected to systematic, extended analysis in the business ethics literature, even where suppliers as a stakeholder group have been considered. This paper makes the case for serious consideration of the ethics of trade credit and explores the issues surrounding slow payment of debts. It discusses trade debt as a kind of promise, but—noting that not all promises are good ones—goes on to develop an analysis of the ethics of trade credit grounded in an understanding of its fundamental purpose. Making a distinction between “operating” trade credit and “financial” trade credit, the paper provides an account of the maximum period for which it is appropriate for one company to delay payment to another from which it has purchased goods or services. The concern of commentators and policy makers that companies should not take too long to pay their debts is affirmed, but the understanding of what timely payment means is significantly finessed, with one conclusion being that, if debts have not already been settled according to acceptable standard terms of trade, cash should pass quickly back along the supply chain once the customer in the final product market has paid. The analysis has implications not only for companies that take credit but also for external parties that seek to rate companies or set regulations according to speed of payment—an approach that is shown to be misleadingly simplistic, albeit well intentioned. A corresponding important responsibility for suppliers, not to extend excessive credit (and thus act as a quasi-bank), also follows from the analysis developed. Having provided a novel analysis of an important business problem, the paper then discusses some of the related practical issues and makes suggestions for further research.     

The DOHA Round of Multilateral Negotiations and the Embellishing Role of the Developing Economies

Despite unanswered questions about causality, trade expansion is associated with rapid real GDP growth in the developing economies. While the WTO's mandate is to liberalize multilateral trade and support its rule-based conduct, its operations have definite development relevance. After a history of non-participation in the multilateral trading system, the developing economies began to participate in it in almost an explosive manner. Several developing economies have not only emerged as important traders since the mid-1980s but as G-21 they have also made their presence felt in the on-going multilateral trade negotiations. They made decisive contributions to the July Framework Agreement of 2004. The role of the developing economies in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations has gone on steadily growing. It has been christened the Development Round. It deals with several areas of special interests to the developing economies—agriculture, non-agricultural market access and services being some of the more important ones—and eventually hopes to correct the imbalances in the multilateral trade regime. A successful Doha Round would indeed contribute favorably to growth, have a discernable favorable impact over the incidence of poverty and help in achieving the first MDG.     

The Niehans paradox,flexible exchange rates,and macroeconomic stability

This paper re-examines Dornbusch's suggestion that monetary expansion under a floating rate system will not cause a temporary decline in economic activity — the Niehans paradox — because households will cut their saving to maintain consumption spending on domestic goods. Despite this terms of trade effect on saving, it turns out that devaluation in the standard Keynesian model, in which trade flows, however, respond to the exchange rate with a simple distributed lag, produces a temporary decline in economic activity under certain plausible conditions. Consequently, the Niehans paradox still can arise if domestic expenditures respond sluggishly to lower interest rates.     

贸易与环境质量:基于面板数据的分析

贸易与环境问题一直是学术界广泛研究和争论的热点问题,目前国内现有相关文献多是将贸易的环境效应进行分析,测算我国部分经济要素对环境质量的影响,缺乏对主要经济要素的环境效应的系统分析。根据我国1990-2009年间(除西藏以外29个省及直辖市)的面板数据进行回归分析,试图揭示开放经济条件下我国主要经济要素与环境污染的关系。结果表明:对外贸易对不同污染物排放的影响效应不同;对外贸易对环境质量影响的规模-技术效应和结构效应均为正;由对外贸易而引致的经济结构有双重环境效应,即污染天堂动因的积极环境影响和要素禀赋动因的消极环境影响;技术进步和经济结构优化升级有利于我国环境质量的改善。     

中国加工贸易增值率影响因素的实证分析

基于新贸易和新增长理论构建模型,采用2000—2009年省际面板数据,并运用动态面板系统GMM方法对中国加工贸易增值率的影响因素进行实证分析。结果发现,加工贸易规模对加工贸易增值率的影响为负,第三产业发展滞后已成为制约中国加工贸易增值率提升的重要影响因素。另外,东部和中西部地区处于不同发展阶段,要素禀赋的相对稀缺程度不同,劳动力成本、资本深化、外商直接投资、研发能力和人力资本等因素对东部和中西部地区加工贸易增值率的影响存在差异。     

Putting Canada in the penalty box: Trade and welfare effects of eliminating North American Free Trade Agreement

Three years ago, very few economists would have imagined that one of the newest and fastest growing research areas in international trade is the use of quantitative trade models to estimate the economic welfare losses from dissolutions of major countries' economic integration agreements (EIAs). In 2016, "Brexit" was passed in a UK referendum. Moreover, in 2019, the existence of the entire North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is at risk if the US withdraws—a threat President Trump has made if the proposed US–Mexico–Canada Agreement is not passed by the US Congress. We use state‐of‐the‐art econometric methodology to estimate the partial (average treatment) effects on international trade flows of the six major types of EIAs. Armed with precise estimates of the average treatment effect for a free trade agreement, we examine the general equilibrium trade and welfare effects of the elimination of NAFTA (and for robustness US withdrawal only). Although all the member countries' standards of living fall, surprisingly the smallest economy, Mexico, is not the biggest loser; Canada is the biggest loser. Canada's welfare (per capita income) loss of 2.11% is nearly two times that of Mexico's loss of 1.15% and is nearly eight times the US' loss of 0.27%. The simulations will illustrate the important influence of trade costs—international and intranational—in contributing to the gains (or losses) from an EIA's formation (or elimination).     

贸易对中国环境影响的结构效应和总效应——基于1992—2009年省际面板数据的分析

利用1992—2009年中国省际面板数据,对贸易影响环境的结构效应和总效应进行实证分析,考察贸易对中国环境产生的影响是来自贸易自身的结构因素,还是来自贸易所引起的其他经济因素变化。结果显示:除工业固体废弃物外,贸易的结构效应和总效应均提高了污染物的排放量;不同地区贸易—环境结构效应的比较分析结果显示,相对收入较低地区贸易对环境影响的结构效应亦较小,贸易—环境结构效应较大的地区相对收入均较高。     

Mars or Mercury redux: The geopolitics of bilateral trade agreements

We analyse the role of economic and security considerations in bilateral trade agreements. We use the pre‐World War I period to test whether trade agreements are governed by standard gravity variables, or by instead—or in addition—geopolitical factors. While we like others find support for standard gravity variables, we also find that defence pacts boost the probability of trade agreements by as much as 20 percentage points. Our estimates imply that were the U.S. to alienate its geopolitical allies, the likelihood and benefits of successful bilateral agreements would fall significantly. Trade creation from an agreement between the U.S. and E.U. countries would decline by about 0.6 per cent of total U.S. exports.     

Real Exchange Rate Volatility on the Short- and Long-Run Trade Dynamics in Colombia

The short- and long-run implications of real exchange rate volatility on Colombian bilateral trade commodities and non-commodities with its major trade partners are analyzed from the perspectives of the Marshall-Lerner condition, a cointegration relation with other aggregate variables, and the J-curve hypothesis. Long-run equilibrium on the Colombian bilateral balance of trade with a country is more common when the trade volume is denominated in terms of one of the world's main currencies—as is the case of commodity trade and trade with a country whose national currency is one of these currencies. No evidence of the J-curve was found in any of the analyzed Colombian bilateral balances of trade. Opposite to the predictions of the J-curve hypothesis, more common are the scenarios of short-run improvements in the bilateral trade balances following a devaluation than are those with instantaneous declines. Improvements in the terms of trade are found to have a long-run deteriorating impact on the Colombian balance of trade, especially in the case of non-commodity trade. Policy makers should consider that continuous improvements in the Colombian terms of trade, as the ones recently observed, will ultimately be a detriment to the country's current balance of trade surplus.     

Gains from trade and the size of a country

Who gains more from trade—the small country or the large country? In the standard Ricardo–Mill two-country model the small country reaps all the gains from trade and the large country (the rest of the world) gains nothing. The present paper considers this question of the distribution of gains from trade between the large country and the small country in terms of a multicountry framework. In this altered setting it is shown that the distribution of gains will generally be independent of the size of the country so long as there is universal free trade. With trade restrictions the presumption, if there is any, would rather be in favour of the large country gaining more than the small country.     

Rhodesia—A beginning,not an end

An embargo is an old, but not always proved instrument of trade policy. In their original sense embargo measures served the prevention of deliveries of militarily important goods to belligerent countries, and thus had a passive and neutral character. Later on, however, they were increasingly used as an economic means of pressure for active prosecution of political objectives. So after World War II the USA e.g.—and under its influence other Western countries—for political reasons, applied embargo measures to restrain trade with East-bloc countries. The strict embargo policy, however, failed owing to the opposition of interested economic circles and the consequent expansion of East-West trade by the socialist countries. Today the further maintenance of embargo lists for deliberations predominantly in the field of defence policy is still disputed as regards its suitability. The embargo against Rhodesia recently decided on by the UN is the application of commercial discriminations as a political means of coercion on a worldwide basis. The following article deals with the impacts and long-term consequences of this massive embargo policy.