Aid for trade and export diversification in recipient‐countries

The Aid‐for‐Trade (AfT) Initiative was launched by the Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a view to helping developing countries and the least‐developed countries (LDCs) expand their trade. The current paper contributes to the literature on AfT effectiveness by examining how AfT affects recipient‐countries' export product diversification. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 104 AfT recipient‐countries over the period 2002–2015 and uses the two‐step system generalised methods of moments (GMM) approach. Results show that AfT flows are conducive to export product diversification in recipient‐countries. In addition, the analysis has shown a positive impact of the cumulative AfT flows on the export product diversification path of these countries. These results apply as well to the subsamples of LDCs and other developing countries. One policy implication of these results is that a scale‐up of AfT would help recipient‐countries to diversify their export products baskets and hence facilitate their greater integration into the global trading system.     

The great trade collapse and the Spanish export miracle: Firm‐level evidence from the crisis

We provide novel evidence on the microstructure of international trade during the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent global recession by exploring a rich firm‐level data set from Spain. The focus of our analysis is on changes at the extensive and intensive firm‐level margins of trade, as well as on performance differences (jobs, productivity and firm survival) across firms that differ in their export status. We find no adverse effects of the financial crisis on foreign market entry or exit, but a considerable increase in the export intensity of firms after the financial crisis. Moreover, we find that exporters were more resilient to the crisis than non‐exporters. Finally, while exporters showed a significantly more favourable development of total factor productivity after 2009 than non‐exporters, aggregate productivity declined substantially in a large number of industries in Spanish manufacturing. We also briefly explore two factors that might help explain the surprisingly strong export performance of Spain in the aftermath of the great trade collapse: improved aggregate competitiveness due to internal and external devaluation and a substitutive relationship between domestic and foreign sales at the firm level.     

Business cycle synchronisation in East Asia: The role of value‐added trade

We empirically investigate the relationship between business cycle synchronisation and the role of value‐added trade focusing on a panel of 12 Asian countries from 1995 to 2011. In addition, we propose the inclusion of two novel determinants, for example external value‐added trade intensity and exchange rate volatility and also saturate our empirical model with other common determinants found in the literature. Our findings first confirm that value‐added trade intensity, rather than gross trade intensity, has a sizable, positive and statistically significant impact on synchronisation among East Asian countries. Second, the exchange rate volatility has a significant negative effect on the business cycle synchronisation, which verifies that the exchange rate volatility is another important determinant of business cycle synchronisation. Our findings have important implications for the monetary cooperation in the region: strengthening trade linkage could reduce the costs of monetary cooperation by increasing the incidence of symmetric shocks.     

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.     

US immigration policies and dynamics of cross‐border workforce in agriculture

Given the contentious debate on immigration, this study develops a dynamic model to analyse the effects of stricter border and domestic enforcement and streamlining the guest‐worker programme on cross‐border migration from Mexico, employment and production in US labour‐intensive and Mexican agriculture and the US and Mexican wage rates. The model incorporates labour‐leisure decisions of Mexican workers and labour market dynamics and linkages. The findings show stricter border and domestic controls exacerbate the labour‐shortage problems and reduce the US agricultural production. Streamlining the guest‐worker programme provides a steady supply of farm workers and has negligible impact on the US wage.     

Investigating first‐stage exchange rate pass‐through: Sectoral and macro evidence from euro area countries

In this paper, we evaluate the first‐stage pass‐through, namely the responsiveness of import prices to the exchange rate changes, for a sample of euro area (EA) countries. Our study aimed to shed further light on the role of microeconomic factors versus macroeconomic factors in influencing the extent of the exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT). As a first step, we conduct a sectoral analysis using disaggregated import prices data. We find a much higher degree of pass‐through for more homogeneous goods and commodities, such as oil and raw materials, than for highly differentiated manufactured products, such as machinery and transport equipment. Our results confirm that cross‐country differences in pass‐through rates may be due to divergences in the product composition of imports. The higher share of imports from sectors with lower degrees of pass‐through, the lower ERPT for an economy will be. In a next step, we investigate for the impact of some macroeconomics factors or common events experienced by EA members on the extent of pass‐through. Using the system generalised method of moments within a dynamic panel‐data model, our estimates indicate that decline of import‐price sensitivity to the exchange rate is not significant since the introduction of the single currency. Our findings suggest instead that the weakness of the euro during the first 3 years of the monetary union significantly raised the extent of the ERPT. This outcome could explain why the sensitivity of import prices has not fallen since 1999. We also point out a significant role played by the inflation in the Eurozone, as the responsiveness of import prices to exchange rate fluctuations tends to decline in a low and more stable inflation environment. Overall, our findings support the view that the extent of pass‐through is comprised of both macro‐ and microeconomic aspects that policymakers should take into account.     

Milk yields,physico‐chemical properties and composition of milk from indigenous Malawi goats and their Saanen half‐breds

A study to compare milk yield, some physico‐chemical properties and the chemical composition of milk from 23 indigenous Malawi goats and 10 Malawi local × Saanen crosses was carried out from January to March 2000. The results showed that the average milk yield from the crosses (102.0 ± 11.21 kg) was higher (P < 0.01) than that from the indigenous goats (37.1 ± 4.79 kg). However, the pH and specific gravity of both milk samples did not differ significantly from each other. The latter was attributed to the fat and total solids contents, which did not differ significantly in the two milk samples. Although the crude protein content was not significantly different, lactose and minerals, namely calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium and chloride, were higher (P < 0.01) in milk from the crosses than in milk from the indigenous goat. The results have shown that the levels of nutrients in goat milk are high, and this is indicative of its potential to improve the diets of rural Malawians. Also, as smallholder farmers sell raw unheated milk to the processing plants, such milk should not be kept for> 33 h in the cool dry season and for not> 20 h in the hot dry season. Farmers can also adopt a charcoal cooler to save the milk for an even longer time than they can at room temperature. In this case, the raw milk can only be stored for not> 20 h in the cool dry season and not> 16 h in the hot dry season.     

Dependence between the global gold market and emerging stock markets (E7+1): Evidence from Granger causality using quantile and quantile‐on‐quantile regression methods

This study examined the dependence between gold and stocks during 2002–18 in seven emerging countries. The study combined the bivariate cross‐quantilogram introduced recently with quantile‐on‐quantile regression (QQR) approaches to conduct comprehensive and complementary analyses. The QQR results for the full sample revealed a weak positive dependence in all the quantiles of gold and stock returns across all the countries selected during mild market conditions. The results for pre and post‐crisis periods largely were consistent with those obtained for the full sample, except for Turkey (pre‐crisis), and China and Indonesia (post‐crisis). The results of the causality test‐in‐mean (return) and that of the causality test‐in‐variance revealed no causal relation between stock and gold in the pre‐crisis period, while causality ran only from gold to some stocks in the post‐crisis period. Further, while there was volatility causality running only from gold to stocks during the pre‐crisis period, the volatility causality between the two markets was very high during the post‐crisis period. Therefore, we suggest that gold may have been a hedge for stocks during the pre‐crisis compared to the post‐crisis period. Further, international risk factors should be considered in optimal investment decisions between domestic and global markets' assets (stocks and gold).     

E‐commerce: consumer protection issues and implications for research and education

The impact of e‐commerce on consumers, public policy, business and education is examined. It behoves academics and students alike to keep abreast of new developments in this field and to contribute to the public debate on the widespread effects of e‐commerce. A discussion of public policy initiatives, research questions and ideas for future research are given.