Political Commodities and Sovereignty Management: Cigarette Smuggling across Brazil’s Southern Borders

Cigarette smuggling across Brazil’s borders with Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina involves large amounts of merchandise and money. The public in Brazil associates this activity with images of war, contamination and other threats to state sovereignty. This article assesses the political meaning and uses of smuggling in order to challenge the assumption that smuggling threatens the sovereignty of the Brazilian state. With the help of a literature review, fieldwork at the border, interviews with practitioners, a cartographic analysis of news coverage of seizures, the tobacco production and consumption, the market and its regulation, actors, routes and networks were mapped and analysed. In the Southern Cone of South America, an integrated transborder territory emerges where tobacco is cultivated, prepared and distributed, and cigarettes are manufactured, transported, sold and smoked. These flows cross distinct legal framings and lead to an increase in danger and profit. Thus, the market is segmented between national legal products and imported cigarettes that are cheaper and illegal but easily obtainable. The concepts of political commodities understood as the acts of powerful agents who barter advantages related to their authority and sovereignty management, understood as the use of legal (state-managed) structures according to private interests at different scale levels, provide useful theoretical tools to examine the territorialisation of the cigarette smuggling and its control by the state and private agents. We conclude that tobacco production and trade, as well as cigarette smuggling, are connected via agents who use the border to build the legal market and, consequently, to increase the trade value of national tobacco. Cigarette smuggling across the state borders of the Southern Cone combines networks and places in such a way that is integrated into the legal economy and the national territories, and it does not defy state’s sovereignty.     

The modern welfare state: Problems and suggested reforms

This article examines some of the major market failures and government failures at work in the modern welfare state and investigates the political reasons for ignoring these failures in formulating welfare state policy. Next, the article examines some recent economic developments that endanger the welfare state: the expansion of international trade, skill-biased technological change, and the restructuring of firms. Finally, it suggests some policy approaches that may help make the welfare state more efficient and equitable.     

Illegal trade in the Iranian economy: Evidence from a structural model

This study investigates the causes and consequences of import and export smuggling and estimates its relative size in Iran from 1970 to 2002. Multiple Indicators–Multiple Causes (MIMIC) modeling and trade misinvoicing are used to compute the latent variable of smuggling. The results indicate that the penalty rate for smuggling and the quality of economic and political institutions reduce smuggling, while tariffs and black market premia increase the incentives for illegal trade. More trade openness is associated with greater illegal trade in the case of Iran. On average, smuggling in Iran has been approximately 13% of total trade.     

Tobacco consumption and policy in the United Kingdom

In recent years, several structural changes and sequences of shocks have occurred in the market for tobacco in the UK, including an explosive growth in smuggling. This study examines whether it is still possible to estimate a reliable, plausible tobacco demand equation from time series data for the UK whilst allowing for all of the various shocks and structural changes. A second objective of this study is to use the estimated demand function to evaluate tobacco policy in the UK, including the scope for using tax increases to achieve reduced consumption and increased revenues. It is found that smuggling has diminished the revenue yield of higher rates of duty, but total consumption of tobacco has been reduced. In addition to the introduction of further measures to control smuggling, policy may need to place more emphasis in the future on health campaigns and smoking restrictions.     

Exploring the boundaries of services trade

The level of international trade in services is relatively low. This can be the consequence of policy barriers and regulations or it may be due to the nature of products produced in the services sector. To understand the relative importance of both factors, this article uses data for Scottish bilateral services exports and imports to the UK to estimate theory-based trade costs for a wide range of sectors for two economic regions that are almost perfectly integrated. The results of this analysis provide important insights for future trade policy by identifying those narrowly defined industries which are more tradable by nature and have the potential to expand internationally.     

The Economic Sustainability of Post-conflict Kosovo

Kosovo is currently operating as an independent economic state, having severed the majority of economic links with the former Yugoslavia. This article explains why the Yugoslav dinar was replaced by the DM (in turn replaced by the Euro) as the new national currency of post-conflict Kosovo. Use of the DM, coupled with a relatively open trade policy, has resulted in a severe visible trade deficit. The stock of DM is continuously being replenished by the inflow of money both from the various international agencies operating in Kosovo and from remittances from Kosovars working abroad. The article argues that, even with the current low level of export earnings, the economy of Kosovo is economically sustainable, since the international presence in Kosovo is partly responsible for the high demand for imports. However, in the absence of a competitive export sector, the economy is still highly reliant upon the inflow of remittances, without which Kosovo would be unable to meet the costs of vital imports.     

Smuggling around the world: evidence from a structural equation model

This article uses a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model to analyse the determinants of smuggling. The analysis reveals that higher corruption and a lower rule of law encourage smuggling. Tariffs and trade restrictions are important push factors, while a higher Black Market Premium (BMP) discourages smugglers. Based on the MIMIC estimates, we calculate an index of smuggling which provides a ranking for 54 countries. We find that smuggling is rampant in Cameroon, Pakistan and Kenya while it is least prevalent in Switzerland, Finland and Sweden.     

我国国际贸易波动的影响因素——基于因子分析的研究

文章通过因子分析方法研究了我国国际贸易波动的因素,研究表明贸易波动的主要因子是供给冲击、需求冲击、贸易竞争力、体制与政策因素和世界经济周期波动,并通过对四个不同时期的考察发现各个因素在不同时期其重要性不同.文章最后指出:转变经济增长方式及外贸增长方式,提高企业经营业绩是提高我国贸易竞争力,减少国际贸易波动不利影响的必然选择.     

Shared Renewable Resources: Gains from Trade and Trade Policy

This paper examines the effects of international trade and trade policy in a two‐country, two‐good model with an open‐access renewable resource that is internationally shared. We show that both countries may still benefit from trade when they specialize in the production of their comparative advantage good, although the shared resource is reduced by trade. In addition, we demonstrate that the steady state utility of a resource‐good importing country may be reduced by trade, even if it specializes in the production of a non‐resource good. Import tariffs and export taxes on a resource good may increase or decrease the shared stock level depending on the production patterns in a trading steady state. The trade policy is likely to be Pareto‐improving when the shared stock rises, while both countries may be made worse off by the trade policy when the shared stock falls.     

国际金融危机与我国宏观经济政策反思

国际金融危机使得全球贸易与金融旧秩序被重新审视,新的变革即将开始。面对国际局势,我国必须立足国情,认真分析与反思当前一揽子经济刺激计划,在政策方针和微观经济活动之间建立有效的宏观政策传导机制,以政府投资引导和激发民间投资,改革阻碍发展的体制机制约束,尽早考虑大规模计划的退出机制,为获得长期发展战略竞争优势未雨绸缪,在国际政策博弈中牢牢争取把握主动。     

资本账户开放与国际金融冲击的传导——基于DSGE模型的分析

本文在动态随机一般均衡的框架下,建立了一个包括贸易部门和非贸易部门的小型开放经济模型,系统研究和比较资本管制与资本账户开放两种情况下,国外金融冲击、出口需求冲击对中国经济的不同影响和传导机制,并检验资本账户开放情形下应对国际冲击时不同货币政策规则的有效性。结果发现：当资本账户开放时,一国受到国外冲击的波动幅度远大于资本管制的情况;资本管制和资本账户开放对国际金融冲击传导机制的关键差异在于贸易部门与非贸易部门的互动关系,具体表现为劳动力转移的差异;在资本账户开放后,面对不同形式的国际冲击,货币数量型规则和混合型规则均能有效熨平经济波动。     

Countries, regions and trade: On the welfare impacts of economic integration

We study the impact of falling international trade costs and falling national transport costs on the economic geography of countries involved in an integration process. Each country is formed by two regions between which labor is mobile, whereas there is no international mobility. Goods can be traded both nationally and internationally at positive, but different, costs. A decrease in trade costs and/or in transport costs has a direct impact on prices and wages, which allows us to account for the impact of changes in these parameters on the economic geography and welfare of each country. We show that, as trade barriers fall, the benefits of integration come after its costs. We also show that national transport policies are of the beggar-thy-neighbor type. On both counts, policy coordination is required in the process of economic integration.     

The question of international competitiveness

International competitiveness is advanced whenever the economic welfare of a nation is enhanced through an increase in the flow of trade or through an alteration in the conditions of trade starting from a presumed initial equilibrium. In order to describe the processes involved in securing and maintaining international competitiveness, the conventional models of international trade theory are used, namely the Ricardian, Heckscher-Ohlin, contemporary standard trade, and industrial organization models. Then, the role of the commodity terms of trade as they are manifested in exchange rates, which are affected by both short- and long-term international capital flows, is considered. Finally, possible implications regarding economic policy are briefly addressed. The author is grateful for the support in this endeavor of John Reid, Benwari L. Kedia, and Presh Daniel.     

Unfinished Business

Abstract This article is about three phases in Australian trade policy: protectionism, unilateral liberalisation, and participation in regional trade liberalisation. Australia used to have one of the most protected economies in the world. The last dozen years have seen a radical transformation of Australian economic policy: Australia is in the process of becoming one of the most open economies in the world. The last five-to-ten years have also seen a related transformation of Australian foreign economic policy. This policy is now centrally concerned with promoting the process of international economic integration within the Asian region; particularly through the APEC process. Should Australia be pursuing ‘open regionalism’ in the Pacific? or promoting an Asia Pacific trading bloc? or concentrating on its own unilateral trade liberalisation? or using its energy to press for global liberalisation through the GATT? I argue that there remains a deep contradiction in the APEC process; that ‘open regionalism’ is in Australia's interests, and that the critical test of Australia's conversion to liberalisation will come in this third phase, in the future answers that it gives to these questions.     

Trade,Strategic Environmental Policy,and Global Pollution

This paper examines the effects of international trade in a model with global pollution that accumulates over time because of production emissions in each country. If countries cooperatively determine their environmental policies, autarky and free trade in the absence of trade costs generate the same optimal solution. By contrast, if environmental policies are determined noncooperatively, the effects of trade on global pollution and welfare are ambiguous because policy games can result in multiple equilibria. Although trade increases both the lower and upper bounds of the pollution stock, whether trade expands the range of possible steady‐state pollution levels is ambiguous. The analysis then extends to consider trade costs.     

Perseverance of perverse subsidies and their impact on trade and environment

Theoretical and empirical aspects of policy failures due to subsidies are discussed in the context of international trade. A general classification of subsidies that cause environmental externalities is presented. The economic and environmental impacts of producer subsidies on international trade are examined with partial equilibrium analysis. The magnitude and economic and environmental relevance of subsidies in various sectors is assessed on the basis of empirical indicators. Finally, suggestions are provided on how subsidy-related policy failures can be eliminated at national and international levels.     

STRATEGIC TRADE POLICY WITH INTERNATIONALLY OWNED FIRMS*

The consequences of international firm ownership for strategic trade policy are examined both in a general and in a simple linear model of an international duopoly with two governments using production subsidies as policy instruments. At first sight, the case for strategic trade policy seems to be weakened, because international ownership reduces a government's incentive for rent-shifting. Closer inspection shows, however, that there are ownership structures leading to optimal policies which induce the duopolists to behave more collusively. This tends to resolve the conflict between national and international rationality in a policy game with retaliation and makes strategic trade policy look more attractive.     

The Challenges of Climate Policy

Climate policy planners and the public should be aware of both economic challenges and arguments that may influence the intensity of the climate policies with which they have to cope. This article examines six economic challenges: cap‐and‐trade versus taxes, non‐price regulations, energy efficiency policies, mitigation versus adaptation, trade effects, and transmission planning. Three additional challenges affect the end itself: ‘fat tails’, discount rates, and whether environmental protection should be evaluated by willingness to pay. If future generations cannot compensate the present for climate policy costs, climate policy is inherently redistributive and cannot be evaluated through cost–benefit analysis alone.     

Japan's New Foreign Economic Policy: A Shift Toward a Strategic and Activist Model?*

This article analyzes key departures in Japanese foreign economic policy: the development of an extensive network of free trade agreements thereby abandoning the exclusive focus on the multilateral system as the vehicle for trade liberalization, and the revamping of the official development assistance (ODA) program by slashing its budget, emphasizing national interests in aid giving, and phasing out yen loans to China. We argue that the remarkable degree of policy activism in both trade and ODA represents the Japanese government's attempt to respond strategically to common challenges: domestically the economic recession, internationally the pressure for policy convergence and competition with China. However, in both issue areas the ability of the government to embark on swift policy changes has been compromised by domestic politics: opposition from vested interests and politicization of policy‐making, bureaucratic sectionalism, and weak executive leadership. We conclude with some policy recommendations to improve the coherence of foreign economic policy formulation in Japan.     

An Input–Output Analysis: Linkages versus Leakages

Resorting to input–output analysis, the relationships between production sectors are investigated. For such assessment, the distinction between imported and domestically supplied inputs, which has been disregarded so far in empirical analysis, is crucial. Besides an accurate measurement of domestic linkages, it also allows us to evaluate the importance of international trade in the production process. Moreover, the interaction between domestic linkages and leakages resulting from international trade can also be analysed. The study of such links improves our knowledge on the economic production structure and how it has evolved over time, which is essential for policy making. Using as a case study a small open European economy, the Portuguese one, we assess sectoral interdependence and trade effects for individual sectors as well as for the economy as a whole.