Did APEC's Trade Facilitation Action Plans deliver the goods?

This paper uses new data to examine whether APEC achieved its aim of reducing trade transaction costs by 10% over the 2002–2010 period. An inversion of the familiar gravity model makes it possible to infer trade costs based on the observed pattern of trade and production across economies. Analysis of trade costs calculated in this way shows that although intra- and extra-APEC trade costs fell during the sample period, they did not do so substantially more quickly than elsewhere in the world. Indeed, the region taken as a whole did not meet the 10% reduction goal. However, a considerable number of individual economies not only met the goal, they greatly exceeded it. Consistent with their outward oriented development strategies and leverage of global and regional value chains, some APEC economies saw very rapid falls in their trade costs over the 2002–2010 period, Viet Nam being a standout performer. Overall, about one third of the forum's membership for which consistent data are available met or exceeded the 10% reduction goal. APEC's two Trade Facilitation Action Plans can therefore be seen as having had mixed records of success.     

黑龙江省大豆比较优势分析

黑龙江省是世界大豆的原产地,中国大豆的主产区。加入世界贸易组织后,在国外转基因大豆的冲击和跨国粮商的操控下,大豆已经由黑龙江省的比较优势产品转化为比较劣势产品。要振兴大豆产业,必需采取多项措施提升非转基因大豆和大豆加工企业的竞争力。     

Trade credit and the joint effects of supplier and customer financial characteristics

We examine how access to bank credit affects trade credit in the supplier–customer relationships of U.S. public firms. For identification, we use exogenous liquidity shocks to supplier firms in the form of staggered changes to interstate bank branching laws. Using a variety of tests, we show that supplier firms with greater access to banking liquidity offer more trade credit to their customers. We also show that when bank branching restrictions are relaxed in the supplier’s state, the supplier–customer relationship is more likely to survive.     

基于自贸区的上海国际航运中心功能优化研究

上海国际航运中心建设过程中,"软实力"发展相对进展缓慢,而自贸区设立为上海国际航运中心提升"软实力"提供了良好契机。以上海国际航运中心的功能优化为研究对象,从航运主业、辅业与衍生服务业3个方面,分析了自贸区相关政策和措施给上海国际航运中心建设带来的"红利",通过与伦敦、香港、鹿特丹和新加坡等世界知名国际航运中心的功能比较与经营借鉴,提出在自贸区条件下,上海国际航运中心应重点发展和优化航运辅助业和航运衍生服务业,系统布局航运服务网络,提升航运服务业水平,持续完善航运金融、仲裁和信息平台发展,不断加强航运教育与培训。     

服务贸易:新常态下创新路径

服务业开放水平不高和贸易监管制度不健全已成为我国服务贸易发展的制约。在我国经济新常态下,应充分利用上海自由贸易试验区建设机遇,加快开放以计算机服务为重点的跨境交付、以专业服务业为主的商业存在和以职业资质互认为重点的自然人移动等领域,培育本土供应商和打造公共服务平台,完善服务贸易监管制度、促进制度和统计制度,推进区域拓展和主体拓展,实现我国服务贸易整体创新。     

LACK OF RIGOUR IN DEFENDING FAIRTRADE: A REJOINDER TO ALISTAIR SMITH

Smith (2010 ) does not deny that he made errors in economic theory, logic and fact, and that he had misused evidence. He says that I misrepresented a large body of theory, that I distorted what he said in four places and that I was wrong in one sentence. These statements are false.     

Implications of domestic price insulation for global food price behavior

Rapid changes in global food prices in recent years are widely viewed as a serious threat to global development. While various sources of price instability in agriculture have been identified, little attention appears to have been given to the importance of changes in trade policies that insulate domestic prices from world markets as a source of volatility in world prices. A contribution of this paper is to show that these interventions are dynamically more complex than simple proportional insulation. Insulation against an initial price increase in world prices increases the magnitude of that increase, while subsequent adjustments to the level of protection change the fundamental nature of price volatility. We find such policies are widespread and increase the volatility of world prices while not reducing the volatility of domestic prices because of the collective action problem involved in this form of policy intervention.     

Visual complexity of eco-labels and product evaluations in online setting: Is simple always better?

Noticeable and comprehensible eco-labels are needed to promote sustainable products. So far, researchers have mostly studied consumers' evaluations of eco-labels, without analyzing eco-label's visual complexity. Through two experimental studies this paper proposes that consumers' evaluations of sustainable products increase when zoom-in feature provided in online stores, and they are labelled through eco-labels that have high design and low feature complexity due to increased perceptual fluency. The findings demonstrate that while design complexity increases consumer product evaluations due to increased perceptual fluency, feature complexity increases - instead of decreases – consumers' evaluations due to conceptual – and not perceptual – fluency. Consequently, it is advised to design and adapt eco-labels easy-to-understand, visually eye-catching and highly visible (i.e., in large size) to enhance ease of processing and increase product evaluations.     

“合规性”贸易壁垒影响产业国际竞争力的效应分析

“合规性”贸易壁垒的应用已成为当今贸易保护的最明显特征。本文首先简要讨论了产业国际竞争力的内涵及其评价方法,进而说明产业国际竞争力受“合规性”贸易壁垒影响的作用机理,并分别就“合规性”贸易壁垒对实施国及对象国的产业国际竞争力的影响效应进行了具体分析。     

服务业对外开放与服务贸易政策体系构筑

一国在制定服务贸易政策时会遇到比货物贸易政策更加复杂的问题,如政策工具的选择与各部门(政策)之间的相互影响、利益集团游说、政府的贸易政策不一定是有效的、我们应该加入GATS还是参与区域自由化等。因此,如何归纳总结出这些影响因素并从中挑选出较好的政策工具,对于一国在服务业开放进程中增加福利及掌握主动权至关重要。