Trade Wars: The Exaggerated Impact of Trade in Economic Debate

The rules governing trade and capital flows have been at the centre of controversy as globalisation has proceeded. One reason is the belief that trade and capital flows have massive effects on the labour market – either positive, per the claims of international financial institutions and free trade enthusiasts, or negative, per the ubiquitous protestors at WTO, IMF and World Bank meetings demanding global labour standards. Comparing the claims made in this debate with the outcomes of trade agreements, this paper finds that the debate has exaggerated the effects of trade on economies and the labour market. Changes in trade policy have had modest impacts on the labour market. Other aspects of globalisation – immigration, capital flows and technology transfer – have greater impacts, with volatile capital flows creating great risk for the well-being of workers. As for labour standards, global standards do not threaten the comparative advantage of developing countries nor do poor labour standards create a ‘race to the bottom’.     

Images of Globalisation in the Mass Media

Increasing flows of goods, capital and labour across various national borders have signalled the ever‐increasing integration or ‘globalisation’ of international markets. The impacts of globalisation are complex and multidimensional and have been intensely debated in the academic literature. Likewise, globalisation and its impacts have also gained attention in the mass media. Yet findings on the way globalisation has been portrayed in the mass media are mixed. In this paper, we examine the conceptual evolution and overall progression of tone of globalisation coverage in the Associated Press from 1984 to 2004. We find that AP reporters have weaved a number of key themes in their stories: growth and efficiency, poverty, employment, environment and migration among others. More‐over, we find ‘balance’ in reporting to the extent that both sides of an argument are presented in an article. However, in absolute terms reporting is skewed in favour or against a specific issue depending on story narrative employed. Our empirical results go some way to reconciling why news organisations feel they present balanced and objective coverage while proponents and opponents on a specific issue feel that coverage is biased one way or the other.     

Unemployment and Trade Liberalisation

In contrast to the focus of the public debate over trade liberalisation on job losses there is a widespread view among economists that unemployment and trade issues should be considered separately. This view cannot be justified theoretically, and ignores the growing number of general equilibrium trade models with unemployment. In a simple model with an exogenous wage floor, trade liberalisation can lead to either gains or losses depending on the production technology, severity of the factor market distortion, factor intensities of the industries and conditions in trading partners. Definite results can be derived about gains from liberalising trade with lower wage floors, about relative abundance of the unemployed factor dampening losses when trade is liberalised, and about gains when the good which uses the unemployed factor is exported. The theoretical models are then linked to the policy modelling literature, using the example of recent Australian controversies over liberalisation of trade in automobiles and textiles. It is argued that trade liberalisation would be better advanced by including endogenous employment in trade policy simulation exercises and by discussing employment effects rather than brushing them aside as temporary adjustment problems or regional difficulties.     

Financial literacy and support for free trade in the UK

Recent events in Europe and the United States suggest that open economies are increasingly under stress as nationalist, protectionist and populist political entrepreneurs are gaining significant ground across the Western world. Many theories have been formulated as to which factors are more likely to explain such policy preferences. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that financial literacy affects economic policy preferences. I analyse data from the British Election Study and test my theory on support for free trade in the United Kingdom. Findings suggest that financial literacy does affect economic policy preferences. On average, financially literate individuals are more likely to think that free trade is good for the British economy. Furthermore, this is true regardless of economic self-interest, as both financially literate winners and losers from globalisation are more likely to support free trade than their illiterate counterparts.     

Ideas,Interests and Oil Prices: The Political Economy of Trade Reform During Soeharto's Indonesia

Indonesia since the late 1960s constitutes an excellent case study in the political economy of trade protection. There have been major changes in the overall policy regime, from liberalism to significant intervention, and back towards liberalism. There have been large, though declining, inter‐industry variations in effective protection. There has been a lively domestic debate, much of it dominated by non‐economists. Many actors at home and abroad have a stake in that debate. And, since the 1980s at least, trade policy interventions have been reasonably well documented and quantified. In this paper, we show how quantitative analysis may be employed to shed light on changes in the trade policy regime over time. We also examine the principal actors with an interest in, and influence over, trade policy, delineating where possible how their influence translated into the policy arena. Finally, we speculate on whether the framework developed in this paper is applicable to the very different circumstances prevailing in the post‐Soeharto era.     

Is Globalisation in Danger?

This paper compares the globalisation experience of the late 19^th century with that of the post world war period. It notes the enormous changes in the world economy arising from the increasing participation of the developing countries in the world goods, labour and capital markets and the reduction in the cost of communications that has underlined these changes. More importantly globalisation was made by a consensus on trade, debt and macroeconomics which has led to policy reforms in developing countries including China whose entry into the WTO provides a high watermark in globalisation of the latter period. The paper notes that globalisation is not in danger of reversal given that the forces that led to this outcome in the earlier period have become weak. Ideas, interests, international relations and stability achieved in the post World War period gives ground for qualified optimism about the continuation of globalisation.     

战略性贸易政策理论的新发展

战略性贸易政策理论是在 2 0世纪 80年代初提出并建立的 ,该理论有两个基本模型 ,即第三国市场模型和相互倾销模型。其基本结论认为 :政府可以通过一定的干预政策改变本国厂商与外国厂商之间的博弈关系 ,使博弈的结果有利于本国厂商 ,进而提高国民福利。这便为政府的贸易干预提供了新的理论基础 ,引起了政界、学界的极大关注 ,出现了大量的研究文献。本文旨在较完整地概括该理论近 2 0年的发展 ,特别着重于最新的研究成果 ,以供贸易政策研究者参考 ,把握当今贸易政策研究的理论前沿。     

Robustness of the KOF index of economic globalisation

The KOF indices of globalisation are the most used globalisation measures in international economics literature, but it uses the nominal trade openness measure to construct the globalisation index. In this paper, we use real trade openness instead of nominal trade openness and recalculate the KOF economic globalisation index over the period 1970–2013. Using the panel data regressions for 146 countries, we revisit the economic globalisation–economic growth nexus to investigate the robustness of the KOF economic globalisation index. We consider several possibilities in model specifications, and the results show that using nominal trade openness measure in calculating the KOF globalisation index is statistically robust. In addition, the KOF economic globalisation index in logarithmic form introduces a more robust outlook in the panel data regressions—a lower bias is emerged by considering different trade openness measures to calculate the globalisation level.     

Measuring Effects of Trade Policy Distortions: How Far Have We Come?

After a brief review of the literature to the early 1970s, this paper assesses the contributions by economists during the past three decades to measuring the distortionary effects of trade policies. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey, but draws on selections from the literature that give a sense of the distance the profession has travelled from a trade policy practitioner's viewpoint since Corden's first paper on the subject in 1957. Phenomenal though that progress has been, there is ample room for further improvement in computing the economic (and other) effects of trade‐related policies and their reform. The paper concludes with suggestions of where the priorities should be in global modelling of trade policy reform, as the world moves into the next round of multilateral trade negotiations.     

Comprehensive Trade Agreements: Conditioning Globalisation or Eroding the European Model?

Trade dynamics within the EU are presently pushing it towards deepening globalisation through bilateral comprehensive trade agreements which establish far-reaching rules that govern the bilateral trade relationship. The European Commission has defended these agreements as a vehicle through which to promote world trade in accordance with European values and norms. However, the theory of fiscal federalism and the principle of subsidiarity tell us that one should not centralise decisions at the supranational level which are better taken at the national or regional level when there are different preferences among countries or regions. Consequently, member state and regional competences ought not to be perceived as a mere obstacle to swift trade deals. Rather, they can provide an important checks and balances function with regard to whether EU trade policy is truly working to condition globalisation according to European values and preferences.     

ASEAN and China: Export Rivals or Partners in Regional Growth?

Rivalry in trade between China and its regional neighbours in ASEAN has become a major preoccupation for many regional policy‐makers. For these reasons, strengthening the basis of empirical evidence on regional trade relations is especially important, and this paper does so in two ways. Using very detailed historical trade data, we combine econometric and trade flow analysis to elucidate patterns of export competition and underlying comparative advantage for ASEAN and China. Our findings indicate that the potential exists for both export rivalry and more extensive trade complementarity, but so do many challenges for policy makers who seek to mitigate adjustment costs and facilitate long term efficiency. Our econometric results indicate that, in the short run at least, ASEAN and China are experiencing intensified export competition in prominent third markets such as Japan and the US. More extensive trade flow analysis reveals, however, that in the long run globalisation can accommodate export growth by all the economies of East Asia, if aggregate growth can be sustained to facilitate the structural adjustments necessary for an optimal regional division of labour.     

新贸易理论对我国外贸战略的启示

国际贸易理论是开展国际贸易活动的指导,同时不断发展的国际贸易实践要求国际贸易理论必须同时不断发展。国际贸易理论大致经历了三个发展阶段。20世纪80年代以来针对国际贸易领域出现的新现象,经济学家提出了"新贸易理论"。在新贸易理论形势下我国的贸易政策应重视培育和转化国家竞争优势,发挥政府作用,扩大国内市场;通过创新实现我国外贸结构转型升级;提高外贸竞争力,制定保护政策,培养竞争优势;实现从贸易大国向贸易强国的转化。     

对外开放程度度量方法的研究综述

从贸易方面度量开放程度的指标有外贸依存度、关税率、有效保护率和数量限制平均覆盖率、非关税壁垒覆盖率、价格扭曲度等。从金融角度来研究开放的指标有外汇黑市溢价、本国对外投资和吸收外资的流量、存量、增长率以及它们占GDP的比重等。有些学者运用计量方法测算选定指标的理论预测值,通过比较实际值与理论预测值的差异来度量开放程度。国内学者一般选择3至6个分指标的加权平均值来度量我国经济的对外开放程度。     

Offshoring: Political Myths and Economic Reality

Overseas outsourcing, commonly known as offshoring, is an aspect of globalisation that has attracted significant political and media attention. In this lecture David Smith discusses the phenomenon and examines the costs and benefits both to the companies and countries from which activities are being outsourced and to the host economy. He concludes from a review of the evidence that there are indeed significant benefits, and that they mainly accrue to the outsourcing country, in the form of lower inflation, faster growth in real incomes and an improved product‐ivity performance (the shift to higher value‐added activities). So why is there so much political sensitivity about offshoring? One is that, unlike in the case of manufacturing, the jobs being offshored are commonly seen as those in which advanced economies retain comparative advantage. Another is that the new, higher value‐added jobs that will be created are in areas and activities that barely exist at present. The biggest problem, he concludes, is that while the victims of offshoring can be easily identified, and have a political constituency, the gains are spread more thinly across the economy. This is the challenge for economists and pro‐free trade politicians.     

Electronic Commerce and the Future for SMEs in a Global Market-Place: Networking and Public Policies

This paper explores three inter-related issues: globalisation; the role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs); and electronic commerce (e-commerce). A central question is whether e-commerce offers advantages to SMEs that may facilitate their access to global markets and help them overcome the disadvantages they face vis-à-vis large transnational corporations (TNCs)? The paper starts by briefly considering the extent of globalisation and its relationship to free trade. We then go on to consider recent developments in e-commerce, focusing on the key issue of e-payment systems. Differences in the requirements of large and smaller firms are identified, and we identify a number of key issues concerning access of smaller firms to e-payment systems and the (virtual) market place, and outline their implications for regulatory policy. Our analysis highlights the importance of network externalities, and institutional factors affecting trust and the relationships amongst different economic actors. This leads to a consideration of networking and public policies more broadly. One of the central conclusions of our analysis is that there are important synergies between e-commerce (virtual) networks and (real) production networks. This suggests that policy makers and smaller firms should think in terms of extending existing, and catalysing new, real production networks to incorporate e-payment systems for networks of firms in order to facilitate their access to virtual markets.

     

Reconciling globalisation and technological change: Growing income inequalities and remedial policies

Since the mid-1970s wage inequality has increased sharply in OECD countries. Among the factors singled out by economists as possible major contributors to this development are economic globalisation processes and skill-biased technological change. Although these are most commonly considered as independent influences, the present authors argue, after critically outlining views about these factors, that strong interdependence exists between them. The article then examines potential policy responses to this growing inequality.     

Conceptualising Globalisation A Symposium for the World Economy

This paper discusses a central element in globalisation debate little addressed by economists, namely the interactions at global, national and community levels between globalisation and societally based values. Social values refer to wider notions of collective identity; religious values, attitudes towards materialism, moral beliefs, and a sense of collective awareness and are a broader and more encompassing concept than social capital discussed in recent economics and sociology literature. Social capital relates to trust, honesty and the social fabric of accepted norms central to the successful implementation of individual optimising decisions and denotes a communal asset reflecting strength of joint collective commitment whose amount can be increased or improved upon through investment of time and resources. Social values are much discussed in sociological literature going back to Comte, Durkheim, Parsons, and others. The issues taken up here are how different social values might interact and change as societies and their economies integrate (globalise). Processes of value competition, displacement and joint assimilation occur naturally to economists, but seem little studied by sociologists who seemingly place less stress on analytical comparative statics. Scenarios for how values can interact under globalisation are discussed in the text.     

The impact of trade openness on the unemployment rate in G7 countries

Recent and ongoing literature strongly implies the existence of a significant and robust impact of trade openness (liberalisation) and globalisation on unemployment, particularly in developed economies. This paper empirically investigates the impacts of four different measures of trade openness and globalisation on the unemployment rate in an unbalanced panel framework. The analysis focuses on the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Robust empirical findings from panel data estimates demonstrate that, along with macroeconomic indicators and market size, all the measures of trade openness and globalisation are significantly and negatively associated with the unemployment rate. Therefore, we conclude that the continuation of the globalisation process instead of protectionism is of great importance in reducing the unemployment rate in developed economies.     

Does and How Does Globalisation Matter at the Industry Level?

In this paper we develop a concept of globalisation at the micro level defined as the exposure of a productivity follower industry in one country to the productivity leader in another country. Globalisation is measured by the intensity of contacts through trade and foreign direct investment. In a simple model and empirically we show that the exposure of a productivity follower to competition with the leader is highly correlated with the productivity gap of this industry. Competition restricted to one region such as Europe, or North America, or the Far East, is not sufficient to achieve highest productivity levels. Moreover, it turns out that foreign direct investment (FDI) has a weight in the globalisation index at least equal to trade. FDI can contribute directly to higher levels of domestic productivity by transferring the best production practices, and put pressure on other domestic producers to improve. The impact of trade on globalisation can be weakened by tariffs and non‐tariffs.     

French textile specialisation in long run perspective (1836–1938): trade policy as industrial policy

Abstract

This article concerns textile industry dynamics. Using a new database covering French international trade between 1836 and 1938, it focuses on France’s specialisation in various textiles. It demonstrates, for the first time, the major influence of trade policy on the French textile trade during the first globalisation. Tariffs appear to be key factors in specialisation, measured by the Lafay Index and intra-industry trade in textiles. By analysing changes in tariffs between textile raw materials and finished textiles and decorrelation between tariffs, we show that an effective trade protection approach was applied by successive French governments in order to sustain the industrial competitiveness of textile firms. Such trade policy slowed down textile de-specialisation in silk and wool fabrics until World War One.