From protectionism to free trade fever? Recent reforms in developing countries

During the 1980s, increasing numbers of developing countries unilaterally liberalized their trade regimes. This paper presents an overview of this dramatic shift from protectionism toward freer trade. South Asia, Latin America, and East Asia have implemented extensive reforms, yet each region has shown a distinct difference in approach and in the degree of liberalization actually achieved. Latin America stands out as moving sharply toward the level of openness of the East Asian Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). Only in Africa is there little progress toward freer trade.     

中小出口企业不可忽视贸易壁垒新动向

随着关税壁垒以及许可证、配额等传统非关税壁垒的门槛逐步降低,形形色色的新贸易壁垒逐渐升级,SA8000社会责任标准就是一个典型的例子,并且已对我国农产品和劳动密集型企业的外贸出口产生了影响。所以,尽快认识贸易壁垒新动向,了解其特征和发展趋势,对我国众多劳动密集型中小企业的外贸业务发展有着重要的意义。     

Analysis of Chinese Cigarette Competition Modes in the Government Monopoly Environment

As a main tax resource, cigarette industry brings about 10% of Chinese annual income. China is by far the largest producer of tobacco products of the world. The nation＇s policy and management mechanism are important elements greatly influencing the competition structure of cigarette industry. Due to the double characters of tobacco, the country generally imposes a high tax and a limited total product output in order to intervene the cigarette market. Therefore, the price signal of cigarette market is distorted and to large extent the competition of the industry is far from a free one, Presently cigarette industry is under the administrative monopoly management in China and meanwhile the cigarette producing is in a multi-element competition style within the nation＇s planning scheme. In other words, administrative monopoly and over-competition exist simultaneously in China＇s cigarette industry. The country predetermines the output quota of each cigarette manufacturing enterprise and the actual production outputs of these enterprises could be adjusted through the quota trades among them. The competition in cigarette industry is mainly represented in 3 modes, i.e. production output competition based on quota trades, value-added competition in producing and selling, and the niche market competition based on product classification.     

比较优势与东北地区外贸发展

国际贸易理论认为比较优势是动态发展的。文章对东北地区外贸的发展滞后、在全国的份额下降、对区域经济的贡献减弱的现状进行了分析，指出造成这种状况的原因，主要是受资源、技术投入、投资经营环境与外部环境等因素的制约。最后探讨了如何立足动态比较优势，促进东北地区外贸发展的主要措施。     

安徽省农业外贸竞争优势的挖潜与培育研究

安徽农业产品出口增长较快,但目前面临着部分农产品出口下降,出口产品层次低、品种结构单一,出口市场较为集中等不利局面;农业产业、产品结构不合理,农民文化素质较低,科技对农业的贡献率低,农业标准化程度低,缺乏大型生产、贸易企业和国际品牌等因素制约了安徽农业的竞争优势     

Gross job flows in Ukraine

This paper documents and analyses gross job flows and their determinants in Ukraine using a dataset of more than 2200 Ukrainian firms operating in manufacturing and non‐manufacturing for the years 1998–2000. Job destruction dominates job creation in both 1999 and 2000. Another clear‐cut result of our analysis is the strong positive effect of new private firms on net employment growth. We also find an inverse relationship between job reallocation and size for both manufacturing and non‐manufacturing, while only in the latter sector is employment growth inversely related with size. The main focus of the paper is the effect of trade flows on employment adjustment in manufacturing. Our results show that both employment growth and job reallocation at the firm and two‐digit sector level are affected by strong exposure to import competition and product market competition in export markets. These effects are more pronounced when we consider trade flows to the world at large and to the EU than when the analysis is based on trade flows to the CIS. JEL Classifications: E24, F14, J63, P23.     

Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Incomes of Farmers and Intra-industry Trade of Agricultural Products

With the slashing reform towards liberalizing trade in the last two decades, the international trade of agricultural products between China and America is intra-industry trade in character. In this paper, we select two time series： incomes of farmers and Grubel-Lloyd index of intra-industry trade. Through cointegrating these two variables, we estimate an error correction model （ECM）. And it is found that increasing intra-industry trade of agricultural products can help raise incomes of farmers.     

Rent-seeking in a unionised monopoly

A unionised monopoly firm, benefitting from some kind of anti-competitive regulation, and its corresponding trade union have a common interest in spending resources to protect the monopoly rents created by the regulation. In the present paper, a situation in which the unionised monopoly is challenged by a consumer organisation fighting for deregulation is analysed as a standard Tullock rent-seeking contest. With unequal sharing of monopoly rents, the free-riding incentives among the rent-defending players turn out to be overwhelming, in the sense that the unique Nash equilibrium is characterised by zero effort contribution by the player with the lower valuation of the contested prize. This implies that being “strong”, in terms of bargaining strength, is not necessarily an advantage for neither player in a unionised monopoly that is threatened by deregulation. Received: June 2000 / accepted: January 2001     

上海石化外贸之路的探索

上海石化经过30年的发展，外贸工作取得了较大的成就，但就目前面临的机遇与挑战而言，仍存在着许多问题，建议上海石化应从加强和改善发展战略、确立全球性的营销观念、改进产品结构、逐步形成有上海石化特色和优势的拳头产品等方面着手，不断提高上海石化的市场竞争力。     

Explaining Trade Flows of Singapore

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, the development of the trade patterns of Singapore and particularly between Singapore and its South-East Asian partners will be outlined and interpreted against a backdrop of relevant trade policy measures, for example in the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Second, a simple model of the gravity type is applied in order to establish and quantify the role of various trade determinants. Despite the fact that Singapore has strived at being a 'global city', it remains rather heavily biased towards East Asia as far as foreign trade is concerned. The role of ASEAN in particular is strong, even if the role of entrepôt trade tends to exaggerate the degree of integration between the economies of Singapore and ASEAN. It also seems clear that the latter, as an organization, has not contributed much to the development of trade relations between its members. Rather the closeness and the liberalization of these economies during the last 15 years or so appear to have been decisive. It is interesting to note that the newer members of ASEAN seem to have been integrated quickly in Singapore's economic network.