Indonesia – Trade Policy Review 2007

This paper examines the 2007 WTO review of Indonesian trade policy. Indonesia undertook a major policy liberalisation in the late 1960s. Serious protectionist pressures emerged in the 1970s but for most of this period, and especially since the mid‐1980s, the economy has remained broadly open. We summarise the WTO report, update some of its analysis, highlight its key findings, and point to some trade policy issues that in our opinion warranted greater attention. The main theme of the paper is that Indonesia is a largely open economy, but that this openness on occasion remains precarious. There are both political economy, rent‐seeking forces opposed to the current openness and, perhaps more importantly, much of the country's influential public opinion is sceptical of the merits of an open economy and deeper global commercial integration. Nor is there a deeply institutionalised support for openness in the country's bureaucracy and polity. Seen from this perspective, a key question to answer is why the country has remained open, particularly since the deep economic and political crises of 1997–98.     

Trade and the (dis)incentive to reform labor markets: The case of reform in the European Union

We study the relation between international trade and the gains to reform labor markets by removing firing restrictions. We find that trade linkages imply substantially smaller benefits to reform than those calculated in the closed economy general equilibrium model of Hopenhayn and Rogerson [Hopenhayn, Hugo, Rogerson, Richard, 1993. Job Turnover and policy evaluations: a general equilibrium analysis. Journal of Political Economy 101 (5), 915–938 October]. When economies trade, labor market policies in one country spill over to other countries through their effect on the terms of trade. A key finding in the open economy is that the share of the welfare gains from domestic labor market reform exported substantially exceeds the share of goods exported. Thus, with international trade, a country retains little to no benefit from unilaterally reforming its labor market. A coordinated elimination of firing taxes yields considerable benefits. We also find that the U.K. benefits from labor market reform by its continental trading partners. These insights provide some explanation for recent efforts toward labor market reform in the European Union.     

Liberalising the Movement of Natural Persons: A Lost Decade?

Liberalisation of international trade in services through the Movement of Natural Persons (Mode 4) remains one of the least negotiated issues of trade policy among the 144 members of the World Trade Organisation. Economists believe that there is a basic convergence of economic interest between the developed and the developing world for liberalising Mode 4. Yet the multilateral trading system has not facilitated greater worker mobility between the labour‐surplus and labour‐scarce countries. Is there any economic logic as to why cross‐border movements of workers have not followed the pattern predicted by international trade theory? Or are there strong socio‐political barriers that have come in the way of liberalising Mode 4? These are some of the questions the paper attempts to answer. The paper shows that the economic arguments against the free movement of natural persons are based on the narrow perspective of the welfare of domestic workers while ignoring the benefit it brings to the economy as a whole. Further, non‐economic arguments miss the point that the movement of workers under Mode 4 of GATS is temporary in nature, and so unlikely to have any lasting social and cultural spillovers. The paper gives specific illustrations from the recent past where temporary import of workers from labour‐surplus countries has enabled both developed and developing countries sustain their economic growth. It concludes by arguing that the environment for renegotiating WTO commitments under this important sector of international trade in services is better than ever before, even though the current world economic slowdown may delay actual negotiations for a while.     

WAGE POLICY IN AN OPEN‐ECONOMY KALECKI–KALDOR MODEL: A SIMULATION STUDY

This paper discusses a Post‐Keynesian model of income, production and trade. The one‐country, one‐sector model features Kaleckian investment demand, Kaldorian productivity and a labor market module based on a wage–price spiral. The model is first presented for a closed economy with exogenous real wages; second, for a closed economy with endogenous real wages; third, for an economy open to trade with endogenous real wages. Simulations with different calibrations show key characteristics of the model. Monte Carlo simulations over reasonable parameter ranges shed some light on the effectiveness of wage policies in open economies.     

Export and imperfect hedging

Abstract

This paper considers the effects of trade liberalization on child labor that arises out of subsistence needs. It argues that favorable income effects are most likely to reduce the need for child labor in the South, even when export goods have a necessity character. However, in very poor economies, aggregate hours of child labor can also increase as a result of more open trade. Although the poorest families are the ones who benefit the most from trade in a Heckscher – Ohlin setting, their income gains might not be high enough to make them withdraw their children from work, while adverse income effects can raise the incidence of child labor among the less poor. The paper provides empirical support for the argument by finding that in a country panel, increases in trade openness are associated with significantly smaller reductions in child labor among the poorest food exporters than among food exporters on average.     

耗散结构下国际贸易信用的非线性流动

经济社会是一个复杂的、主动的、进化的、不可逆和非决定的质的世界,是远离平衡态的开放系统,其中有一个子系统,即国际贸易信用系统。国际贸易信用系统在经济社会系统中是特殊的价值运动,它的价值运动形式是多基元、多组分、多层次的,因此它又是非线性流动的,国际贸易信用非线性流动不停地与经济社会系统通过实物和货币交换着物质和能量。所以说国际贸易信用非线性流动也是一个开放系统,把国际贸易信用系统置于耗散结构状态下进行研究,将对我国国际贸易的双赢起到积极的促进作用。     

管理贸易政策调整与经贸可持续发展问题探讨——基于青岛市管理贸易政策的研究

管理贸易政策是各贸易主体参与国际分工中为追求最大化贸易利益而实施的政策。随着各国政府宏观调控的加强,管理贸易政策成为一个国家或地区经贸可持续发展的重要支撑之一。青岛是典型的以对外贸易拉动经济增长的城市,通过研究青岛市经贸发展中存在的问题,探讨通过管理贸易政策调整寻求实现经贸可持续发展的路径,为地方经济提供具体政策建议同时对我国类似的地区经贸发展提供可借鉴的经验。     

The choice of appropriate technology in a general equilibrium model

This paper analyzes the general equilibrium aspects related to the choice of technology. The paper studies the problem from the perspective of a small, labor abundant open economy that does not generate its own technology. The economic planners must choose between two technologies, one better geared toward the production of labor intensive goods, the other to capital intensive goods. It is shown that the choice of technology not only will affect the welfare level, but it can also reverse the pattern of international trade. It is also shown that the imposition of a tariff can lead the planner to choose a different technology from the one that is optimal under free trade.     

Preference Erosion,Government Revenues and Non‐tariff Trade Barriers

Developing countries benefiting from developed country unilateral trade preferences fear that Doha Round tariff cuts will erode the value of those preferences. That these programmes confer significant benefits, however, is not clear. Studies indicate that the impact of preference erosion would be minimal for most developing countries. But for a small subset of middle‐income and least‐developed countries, concern may be warranted. WTO members, should address affected countries’ concerns, perhaps by tailoring WTO tariff negotiations to lessen adjustment pressures and providing development assistance. Developing countries also are anxious that lower tariffs will reduce government revenues. Dependence on tariff revenue is diminishing and trade liberalisation need not result in lower total tax revenues or even lower customs revenues. Much depends on a country's current tariff and trade regime, its tax structure and its overall economic structure. At some point, a country does need to broaden its tax base and look to other revenue sources to offset declining tariff revenues. Tax reform, therefore, complements trade reform. A third area of developing country concern is non‐tariff barriers (NTBs), which may limit market access even after tariffs are reduced. Despite prior WTO work in this area, NTBs remain a thorny issue for all WTO members.     

Trade Effects of the European Union's Service Directive: Contrasting ex ante Estimates with Empirical Evidence

One of the top priorities to improve the European Union's growth performance is the creation of a single market for services. The directive on services adopted by the Parliament and the Council by the end of 2006 aims at removing barriers to the free movement of service providers on the internal market. Previous studies quantified ex ante sizable effects of implementing the directive in its original form. This paper is a first attempt to evaluate ex post the trade effects induced by a directive – which excludes the country‐of‐origin principle – by performing a difference‐in‐difference‐(in‐differences) estimator on a sample of EU‐ and non‐EU countries in the period 2004 to 10. We account for non‐tariff trade barriers and the endogeneity of regional trade agreements and find that the service directive adds to a reallocation of business services trade within the EU. Accounting for the trade effect of past deregulations, the EU directive fosters a deeper integration of the new member states into the European service value‐added‐chain and promotes business service exports from third countries towards the EU significantly more than trade of country pairs in the control group. The reorientation of the EU‐15 towards the new members is in turn associated with less intense intra‐EU‐10 businesses, while business trade between EU‐15 members is not significantly affected.     

电信服务贸易自由化的经济效应研究综述

GATS框架下的电信多边谈判使世界电信市场的开放进程有了明确的时间表,它通过督促各国积极实践电信承诺来推进电信服务自由化。电信服务贸易自由化不仅促进各国电信服务的相互渗透,而且有利于电信服务消费者福利的改善。电信市场开放以来取得的巨大成就显示了服务贸易自由化对经济的重要作用。     

China and the Trans‐Pacific Partnership: A Numerical Simulation Assessment of the Effects Involved

The Trans‐Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a new negotiation on cross‐border liberalisation of goods and service flows going beyond WTO disciplines and focused on issues such as regulation and border controls. This paper uses numerical simulation methods to assess the potential effects of a TPP agreement on China and also China's inclusion or exclusion on other countries. We use a numerical 11‐country global general equilibrium model with trade costs and inside money. Trade costs are calculated using a method based on gravity equations. TPP barriers potentially removable are trade costs less tariffs. Simulation results reveal that China will be slightly hurt by TPP initiatives in welfare when China is out, but the total production and export will be increased. Other non‐TPP countries will be mostly hurt in welfare, but member countries will mostly gain. If China takes part in TPP, she will significantly gain and increase other TPP countries' gain as well. The comparison of TPP effects and global free trade effects show that the positive effects of global free trade are stronger than TPP effects. Japan's joining TPP would be beneficial to both herself and most of other TPP countries, but which negative effects on China's welfare when out of TPP will increase further.     

Determinants of Bilateral Trade Protection

In this paper, determinants of bilateral protection levels are empirically identified when controlling for multilateral trade regulation and importing‐country‐specific factors. Strong empirical support is provided of that three bilateral factors are influencing the bilateral protection level. Specifically, a country's protection level on goods from a trade partner is positively affected by the domestic import penetration of goods produced by the trade partner, negatively influenced by the intra‐industry traded share of these imports and positively affected by the trade partner's protection level on domestic goods. Moreover, very high explanatory values are provided in the cross‐section estimations, indicating that these determinants, policy regulations and importer‐specific factors jointly explain almost all of the variation in bilateral protection levels. The results are general in the sense that estimations are performed for a large sample of bilateral trade relations including 22 trade partners that are highly differentiated in terms of country characteristics. The overall results indicate that, to the extent that policy makers can affect bilateral protection levels under multilateral trade regulation, they act on political‐economy rather than economic goals.     

Bilateral Trade and the Eurozone: Evidence from New Member Countries

The question of whether and how much currency unions increase bilateral trade among their members has garnered much attention since Rose’s seminal article. The answer is as pertinent now as ever for both the Eurozone’s existing and future members as the financial crisis shook the very foundations of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and brought its shortcomings into the spotlight. This paper analyses the issue using the gravity equation with country pair and time fixed effects. For a sample of the four new members of the EMU – Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus – which has, to the author’s knowledge, not been studied thus far due to their recent joining, and controls drawn from the European Union, this paper finds a positive relationship between joining the EMU and trade with EMU partners but not with non‐EMU partners.     

Beyond Border Barriers: The Liberalisation of Services Trade in Tunisia and Egypt

Tunisia and Egypt have both recently undertaken significant steps toward trade reform. They have committed to a partnership agreement with the European Union. Both countries have also joined the WTO and are participating in Doha Round discussions on the liberalisation of non‐tariff barriers on both goods and services trade. These developments provide an interesting context within which to investigate not only the changes in welfare associated with reforms affecting the trade in goods, but also the impacts of services liberalisation. Using open‐economy computable general equilibrium models for both Tunisia and Egypt, this paper explores the reasons why structural differences in these two economies imply different opportunities and challenges with trade reform and services liberalisation. The gains from eliminating barriers at the border for goods trade are significantly greater for Tunisia than Egypt. Both countries, however, gain substantially from liberalisation of foreign direct investment in services. Furthermore, economic growth is more evenly distributed across sectors than with liberalisation of trade in goods alone. In addition to reporting on the impact of alternative policies on income, output, employment and trade, sector‐level effects are also considered.     

中国对外贸易的劳动就业效应:贸易结构视角

文章旨在分析中国对外贸易结构变动在劳动就业以及城乡劳动力转移中产生的作用。文章认为中国对外贸易的发展有利于劳动就业水平的提升;对外贸易结构的改善有利于促进中国农村劳动力向城市转移,优化劳动就业结构;城乡劳动力转移,农村人口比重的降低,不能仅仅依靠农业的发展,而必须以第二、三产业发展为依托,不能单纯依靠经济规模的扩大和投资的增加,而需要通过产业结构调整,促进城乡联动;对外贸易劳动就业效应的可持续发挥需以经济增长和资本积累为基础;社会劳动就业的增长,就业结构的改善有利于促进经济增长和资本积累。     

开放经济下如何实现外贸内生型增长

实现外贸内生型增长是开放经济的客观要求和我国经济发展的现实所需。在开放经济条件下,要实现我国外贸增长方式由粗放式、外延式向内生型转变,应把增强经济的国际竞争力作为政府工作的重点。通过战略性贸易政策培育战略贸易型产业,充分利用国际社会资源提高外贸管理的效率,着力把握当今国际机遇,扩大海外生产经营规模。这样方能适应开放条件下国际经济环境的变化和自身经济科学发展的客观要求。     

The EU Anti‐dumping Policy Towards Russia and China: Product Quality and the Choice of an Analogue Country

This paper uses the theory of international trade in vertically differentiated products in order to assess whether the EU has calculated disproportionately high dumping margins in its anti‐dumping policy towards the two non‐market economies (NMEs) Russia and China since 1992. Specifically, the investigation concerns cases in which the level of economic development in and the quality of the products from the chosen analogue country are higher than in the two NMEs. The conclusion drawn here is that, even when the EU chooses analogue countries at a higher level of economic development than Russia and China, the differences in product quality and in the levels of economic development between the dumpers and the analogue countries provide no systematic explanation of the size of dumping margins.     

开放条件下贸易利益内涵的界定及其相关理论评述

长期以来,参与国际分工与贸易的各国是否能从国际贸易中获得利益这一问题,一直是理论界争论的焦点,因此,本文从狭义的贸易利益与广义的贸易利益,真实的贸易利益与潜在的贸易利益,贸易利益与地区经济一体化,贸易利益与不完全竞争、规模报酬递增四个角度作了一些评述。本文认为,只有在一定的条件之下,一国才可以从开放的国际贸易中获得贸易利益,最终实现一国经济持续增长的目标,如政府在开放经济条件下采取适当的贸易政策、在开放贸易情况下补偿受损人群的利益、参与区域经济一体化等。     

Accumulation,Structural Change and External Balances in a World with Internationally Traded Environmental Assets

Environmental literature has largely neglected macroeconomic considerations, especially open economy and asset market ones. This paper develops a small country framework that seeks to address these issues. Medium‐ and long‐run aspects are explored using standard trade and portfolio balance models, modified to incorporate trade in claims on non‐renewable resources (environmental assets). In the medium run, changes in environmental regulations, saving behavior and other variables affect the current account, investment and composition of output. In the long run, both the sectoral intensity of environment use and the structure of the economy are affected, as are the capital stock and the global distribution of claims on resources.