冷战后美国经济外交中的单边经济制裁

随着冷战的结束,两极对峙终结,国际政治经济结构发生变化,经济外交成为总体外交中最重要的组成部分之一.中国作为一个社会主义国家,奉行独立自主的和平外交政策,主张在平等互利的基础上与各国开展经济外交.在出现经济摩擦的情况下,中国从来都避免采取武力或经济制裁等硬性手段,主张在平等协商和谈判的基础上解决分岐.而作为冷战后世界上唯一的超级大国的美国,受其资本主义经济外交理念的支配,却将经济制裁作为其经济外交政策的核心.经济制裁是把"双刃剑",有可能在国际政治中得以延续.但是如果不转变传统的制裁思维,经济制裁的最终破产又将是历史的必然.     

Formally shaming white-collar criminals

The dust has settled, and the 2001-2002 corporate scandals are in the rearview mirror for most executives and managers. There is, however, still an upward trend in white-collar crime, which can negatively affect everything from investor confidence, to stockholder embarrassment, to the degree to which the public views the firm's social responsibility and reputation. We find that formal shaming sanctions are slowly being added to the traditional punishment options of fines and incarceration for convicted white-collar offenders. Sentencing judges, courts, legislatures, convicted criminals, and the public have little understanding of the deterrence impact, if any, of shaming sanctions. This article attempts to clarify what shaming sanctions are, why white-collar personnel should become more familiar with the array of shaming punishments being utilized, and how shaming sanctions are being used to deal with white-collar offenders.     

Conform or challenge? Adjustment strategies of sanction-torn companies

The literature on sanctions often neglects the role of domestic firms in sender states, although sanctions only have a real economic effect when senders’ firms reduce their activities on the target's market. In contrast, sanctions avoidance and increasing investments in the target country (the observed behaviour of many companies facing the EU sanctions against Russia imposed in 2014) mitigate the impact of these restrictive measures. While sanctions increase the political risk for companies, they also offer economic opportunities—and previous studies could not settle the debate on which factor prevails. By evaluating responses from British, French, German, Italian and Polish enterprises to an online survey distributed in 2017, we analyse at the firm level how sanction-torn companies adjust to new political orders and what drives their strategic decisions. We find evidence that resource dependency induces strategies that challenge sanction policies: in particular, non-fungible assets in the target country incentivise companies to further increase their engagement. These defiance strategies diminish the real economic effect of sanctions and generate a new economic equilibrium, which has negative long-term implications on the choice set of policymakers to further pursue the imposition of sanctions and which even outlasts the lifting of these restrictive measures.     

Inhumane Arbeitsbedingungen auf dem globalen Markt — Wer kann, wer soll handeln?

Workers in Asian factories producing for Western markets suffer under inhumane working conditions. Suicides at Chinese suppliers of computer manufacturers and a fire in a Bangladesh garment factory recently drew public attention to this problem. But would workers in developing countries really benefit from better working conditions and higher wages? It may be more likely that countries implementing these improvements would lose in global competition. Therefore, developing countries are limited in their ability to raise labour standards on their own. This competitive situation, however, is the very reason why labour rights have to be negotiated internationally. Existing voluntary international standards of the UN, ILO or OECD are useful but not sufficient, and trade sanctions in the WTO framework pose dangers of disguised protectionism. More promising but still imperfect avenues are Free Trade Agreements that could be used to enforce minimum ILO labour standards and transparent certifications, e.g. for fair trade products.     

How Do US Economic Sanctions Affect EU's Trade with Target Countries?

We investigate the impact of US economic sanctions on EU's trade using a panel data approach expressed in a two‐level framework. Both multilateral and unilateral sanctions involving the US and the EU have a negative impact on EU trade (total, imports and exports). We argue that unilateral sanctions, if extensive in nature, would have a depressing impact on target countries’ trade, especially in the stage after sanctions have been imposed. Over time, both multilateral and unilateral sanctions lead to an increase in a target country's exports to the EU, lending support to the third‐country effect of sanctions.     

Sovereign defaults: Information, investment and credit

Why would a sovereign government, immune from bankruptcy procedures and with few assets that could be seized in the event of a default, ever repay foreign creditors? And, correspondingly, why do foreign creditors lend to sovereigns? This paper finds general conditions under which, even in the absence of sanctions, lending to sovereigns can emerge in a single shot game. Furthermore, it shows that positive borrowing can be sustained both in pooling and separating equilibria. In this way, it makes clear that neither sanctions nor reputation considerations, the two classical explanations, are necessary to enforce repayment. Information revelation is the crucial mechanism for these results. The repayment/default decision is interpreted as a signal used by the government to communicate information to domestic and foreign agents about the fundamentals of the economy. Governments repay to affect agents' expectations about them. A default, through its effect on expectations about fundamentals, can generate a decline in foreign and domestic investment and a credit crunch in domestic credit markets. Governments repay to avoid these costs, but may default (in equilibrium) when hit by a negative shock.     

Measuring Vulnerability to U.S. Foreign Economic Sanctions

Economic sanctions are an important instrument of U.S. foreign policy. While politicians look favorably on unilateral economic sanctions as a policy instrument, many scholars attribute significant long-term economic costs to the United States and have doubts about their effectiveness. We outline a simple approach to assess the vulnerability of target countries to sanctions in order to develop focused sanctions and reduce unnecessary costs to U.S. business, avoid the imposition of sanctions on countries when sanctions are unlikely to have the desired effects, and determine what other countries must join the United States in imposing sanctions if they are to be effective.JEL Classification K330,F190     

US Economic Sanctions Against China: Who Gets Hurt?

The United States maintains a broad spectrum of economic sanctions against China ranging from export controls to prohibitions on certain imports. Our study finds that, although from a macroeconomic perspective, US sanctions have had no significant adverse effect on China's overall economic growth and trade between the two countries, they do have a negative impact on producers and consumers in both countries. US economic sanctions have hindered technology transfer to China and US investment in China. US restrictions on imports from China have caused deadweight losses for the US due to higher domestic production costs for import substitutes and a reduction in consumption. US export controls have hindered US exports to China and contributed to large US trade deficits with China. The export controls have also caused losses of high‐paid jobs in the United States and benefited competitors from other countries. In addition, US economic sanctions against China have had significant third‐party effects. China's diversification of imports to sources other than the United States may have a long‐term effect on US exports to China even after US economic sanctions against China are lifted.     

Impacts of the US Trade and Financial Sanctions on Iran

This article presents a case study of the effectiveness of the US unilateral trade and financial sanctions on Iran. To assess the trade sanctions’ effect, the US–Iran historical trade data are examined, and the economic cost of trade sanctions is measured by applying the concept of welfare loss. The financial sanctions’ impacts are evaluated by assessing the extra charges Iran has paid on its foreign debt obligations and for financing its oil development projects. At the end, the efficacy of the US sanctions policy towards Iran is evaluated. It is found that the financial sanctions have had a more powerful impact than the trade sanctions. The analysis also shows that the unilateral import sanctions on the fungible crude oil have been ineffective. It is concluded that, overall, the sanctions’ economic effect has been significant, while its political effect has been minimal. This article suggests that targeting the sanctions towards the ruling clergy can improve their effectiveness while lessening their side effects on the Iranian population. Precise smart sanctions to force the ruling clerics to step down will calm down Islamic fundamentalisms throughout the region and will contribute to peace and better relations with the West.     

Innocent or Not‐so‐innocent Bystanders: Evidence from the Gravity Model of International Trade About the Effects of UN Sanctions on Neighbour Countries

This paper examines two hypotheses about the effects of UN sanctions on trade flows between land neighbours of the target country and the rest of the world. First, there have been claims that sanctions hurt neighbour countries by cutting off trading routes, increasing transportation costs and disrupting established trading ties. We would expect that a neighbour's trade with the rest of the world would fall, as a result. Second, there is extensive evidence that neighbours have been involved in smuggling. Consequently, neighbours should trade more with the rest of the world during UN trade embargoes, because now they also trade on behalf of the target. I employ the gravity model of international trade to show that, overall, a neighbour's trade with the rest of the world tends to fall during UN sanctions episodes. This confirms the first hypothesis above: on a net basis, land neighbours have been ‘innocent bystanders’ hit by UN sanctions.     

Regulatory Sanctions on Independent Directors and Their Consequences to the Director Labor Market: Evidence from China

We investigate the regulatory sanctions imposed on independent directors for their firms’ financial frauds in China. These regulatory sanctions are prima-facie evidence of significant lapses in business ethics. During the period 2003–2010, 302-person-time independent directors were penalized by the regulator (the China Securities Regulatory Commission—the CSRC), and the two stock exchanges. We find that the independent directors with accounting experiences are more likely to be penalized by the CSRC, though they do not suffer more severe penalties than do the other sanctioned independent directors. We also find that independent directors suffer less severe penalties than do the insider directors. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the sanctions on independent directors are tied to their assumed ethical and legal responsibilities. Following a regulatory sanction, penalized independent directors experience a significant decline in the number of other board seats held. However, they can gain board seats in better quality firms. We find that interlocked firms that share penalized independent directors with the fraud firm do not suffer from a valuation decline. Overall, our results suggest that regulatory sanctions have not triggered further sanctions on the penalized directors in the labor market but they have, instead, created a disincentive for these directors to serve on the company boards of high-risk firms.     

Sanctions against Iran,political connections and speed of adjustment

This study examines the effect of intensifying economic sanctions against Iran on speed of adjustment (SOA) in firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange during 2001–2018. We find evidence that firms adjust their leverage toward the target at a lower speed in high-intensity sanctions than low-intensity sanctions. Moreover, we indicate that the negative impact of the intensification of sanctions on SOA is stronger for politically connected firms than other firms. Our results are robust to an alternative set of leverage determinants, two alternative definitions for sanctions intensity, an alternative measure for political connections, and an alternative two-step process for hypotheses testing.     

高技术产业缘何成为美国对华贸易摩擦的角力场?

2018年美国以"寻求贸易平衡"为由对中国进口产品实施单边贸易制裁,制裁的产品集中在《中国制造2025》计划发展的高技术产品。基于2000-2017年中国海关总署以及《中国高技术产业统计年鉴》数据对中美高技术产业贸易现状和贸易竞争力进行了分析,同时依据《中国制造2025》中的创新能力指标对中国高技术产业五大行业的创新能力进行了测度,研究发现贸易顺差只是美国对华贸易摩擦集中于高技术产业的表象原因,遏制中国技术创新和维持全球经济体系治理话语权才是其真实目的。中国应通过提升高技术产业在全球价值链上的位置、加强与日本欧盟的经贸联系、积极申请加入CPTPP来应对美国对中国高技术产业产品的进口限制。     

International business under sanctions

Sanctions are a tool used by political actors to induce foreign countries, firms or individuals to alter their behavior. As nonmilitary coercive measure, they have the potential to disrupt the international business environment, often on short notice, and change the rules of the game. Synthesizing the available evidence on the economic and political impacts of sanctions, we explore how sanctions disrupt the institutional framework for international business and how firms respond to sanctions. Based on a review of available scholarly evidence, we discuss how theories of international business, such as institution-based view, resource- and knowledge-based view, resource dependency theory, and behavioral theories of the firm, can contribute to explaining the impact of sanctions. At the same time, we discuss how sanctions, as politically motivated disruptions, challenge some assumptions underlying these theories. Going forward, our research agenda on sanctions is likely to help firms and governments to strategize in a geopolitically sensitive world.     

Knowledge Protection Challenges of Social Media Encountered by Organizations

Although social media (SM) represents a new means of creating and sharing knowledge, it also presents new challenges for protecting confidential information and other data that companies do not want to share. However, knowledge protection and security-oriented knowledge management processes related to SM have received little attention in previous studies. This research attempts to close that gap by examining which information and knowledge protection challenges arise from employees' use of SM, why they arise, and how organizations can address them. The main contribution of this study is a framework that integrates three types of knowledge protection challenges (information security challenges; reputation challenge; management challenges) with five special characteristics of SM (information distribution speed; blurry audience; merging of private and professional identity; easily collectible information; generation transition), which explain why these challenges arise. In addition, the framework presents eight questions that organizations should answer to help them address the three types of knowledge protection challenges. Our findings have practical implications: by answering the eight questions proposed in this study, companies can create knowledge management and protection policies for SM. Furthermore, the findings in this study open up several future research questions.     

Russian MNEs Under Sanctions: Challenges for Upgrading in GVCs (Cases of Energy and IT Industries)

Abstract

The article examines upgrading strategies of Russian multinational enterprises (MNEs) under sanctions. We focus on MNEs from energy and information technology industries. Four types of global value chain (GVC) upgrading strategies (process, product, functional, and chain upgrading) are discussed. The paper is based on the case study research. The research questions address the influence of sanctions on Russian MNEs’ upgrading strategies in GVCs and the role of import substitution policies for companies’ upgrading. Research findings show that at microlevel, sanctions do not prevent implementation of upgrading strategies. Import substitution policies provide additional support for MNEs upgrading in GVCs.     

WTO Dispute Settlement and the EU–US Mini Trade Wars: A Commentary on Fritz Breuss

Economic theory suggests that some of the trade remedies allowed by the WTO may lead away from liberal trade and impose costs on those that apply them. Breuss has provided evidence in the case of four EU-US mini-wars that the policy that created the trade conflict was not clearly in the economic interest of the offending country and that the sanctions imposed exacerbated rather than alleviated the problem. Breuss builds a case for compensation payments rather than trade sanctions for rule violations and for targeting of the recipients of those payments.If trade policy were a matter of economic rationality then this approach would be convincing. For better or worse, the trade rules are an unruly mix of economic, political and legal constructs. The commentary expands on this to explore the role of the dispute settlement process itself and the sanctions designed to give it teeth. The conclusion is that the economic calculations, while a good measure of the costs of legal or political decisions, are not central to the dispute settlement and sanctions processes. The dispute settlement process is also about preserving the balance of political advantage from negotiated rules and schedules, and the sanctions process is as much to do with preventing abuse as correcting it. So a full economic analysis would have to compare politically balanced alternative scenarios and the incorporate the effect of the threat of sanctions on government behavior.     

The economics of South African sanctions

The present debate on economic sanctions against South Africa reveals that, despite a long history of the threat and use of economic sanctions in international relations, there still prevails a wide array of misconceptions regarding the nature, mechanisms and consequences of such a policy. This article examines some of the economic aspects of the way in which sanctions can impact on a target country and assesses their implications for the South African case.     

A computable general equilibrium model of international sanctions in Iran

We detail recent international sanctions against the Iranian economy and its government imposed by a subset of developed countries. The effects of these sanctions on the Iranian economy in general and upon upper and lower‐income rural and urban Iranian households, as well as the Iranian government, are modelled using a computable general equilibrium (CGE ) model. We supplement the Global Trade Analysis Project 8 data set using income and expenditure shares from the Urban and Rural Household Income and Expenditure Survey from the Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI ). The model is calibrated to simulate the effects of international sanctions as closely as possible. We use endogenous trade taxes to simulate the effects of sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical exports and Iranian imports of petroleum products, metal products and motor vehicles. Our study finds that international sanctions reduced aggregate Iranian welfare by 14%–15%. Rural households in Iran suffered welfare losses which were almost double those experienced by urban households, and the poorest urban and rural households experienced the largest welfare losses, in the order of 5%–10%. But the government of Iran sees a decrease in real revenue of 40%–50%, due to the large negative effect of sanctions on the Iranian oil sector.     

Corporate governance as a foundation for corporate social responsibility in transitioning economies: The Russian experience

This article discusses the critical role of corporate governance in Russian business and management and its potential for promoting corporate social responsibility in that country. We describe the current state of these two phenomena and examine their linkages as they exist in Russia, and explain that this situation also applies in other transitioning economies. We conclude with implications for non‐Russians who would do business with Russian counterparts, and reasons why they should be aware of how these important issues can affect their dealings in those situations. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.