International trade and climate change

This paper provides a selective review of the interaction between international trade, international trade policies, environmental policies and climate change. The focus is on the role that international trade and the existence of countries have on the generation of emissions leading to greenhouse gas stocks in the atmosphere and hence, potentially, to climate change and on the role of trade and environmental policies in dealing with this global externality. We first review the question of whether trade exacerbates or contributes to the climate change problem by increasing global emissions, a particularly important issue being the pollution haven problem. Then we consider environmental policies and trade. We analyse non-cooperative environmental policies and investigate whether trade undermines the effectiveness of unilateral environmental policies, in which carbon leakage and international competitiveness are of particular importance. To deal with climate change, cooperation among countries is important. In this aspect, we review the interactions between trade and environmental policies, border tax adjustment policies, and the role of the World Trade Organization in combating climate change arising from economic activities.     

Tracking NAFTA's Shadow 10 Years on: Introduction to the Symposium

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is arguablythe first "case study" of what might be expected from the increasingnumber of preferential trade agreements involving both developedand developing economies. Ten years after the treaty’sinception, it is time to assess how its outcomes compare withinitial expectations. The articles in this symposium issue provideinsights into the effects of NAFTA on economic geography, trade,wages and migration, and foreign investment from Mexico’sperspective. The contributions paint a complex post-NAFTA realitycharacterized by persistent intrabloc trade barriers, interregionalinequality within Mexico, labor market outcomes that seem closelytied to migration patterns and international trade and investment,and foreign investment flows that appear weakly related to tradeagreements. NAFTA seems to be the first trade agreement in historyfor which the traditional static trade creation or diversioneffects are likely negligible—and hard to identify inany case.     

Cooperation in environmental policy: a spatial approach

Inefficient competition in emissions taxes for foreign direct investment creates benefits from international cooperation. In the presence of cross-border pollution, proximate (neighboring) countries have greater incentives to cooperate than distant ones as illustrated by a model of tax competition for mobile capital. Spatial econometrics is used to estimate participation in 110 international environmental treaties by 139 countries over 20 years. Empirical evidence of increased cooperation among proximate countries is provided. Furthermore, strategic responses in treaty participation vary across country groups between OECD and non-OECD countries and are most evident in regional agreements.     

中国货币互换协议的动因分析

本文将我国货币互换协议的历程划分为三个时段,对其背后的动因进行了分析,揭示出:(1)次贷危机前的动因主要是,寻求亚洲区域合作,增强抵御外来冲击的能力,促进区域经济发展;(2)次贷危机中的动因主要是,提供短期流动性,稳定市场预期和信心,促进对外贸易和投资,防止经济增长放缓;(3)次贷危机后的动因侧重于推动人民币国际化、促进经济增长。三个时段的动因带有历史承接性,但又体现出一定的"时变性"。另外,与美国同期对比后发现,我国中央银行对货币互换协议进行了期限上的创新以将其用于对外贸易、投资,并兼顾人民币国际化,从而多元化了其目标。     

Regional Integration and Economic Growth

The rapid economic growth of developing countries that openedtheir markets to free international trade during the past twodecades has stimulated a large empirical and theoretical literatureon the impact of trade on growth. This literature concludesthat free trade and growth were positively correlated duringthe 1970s and 1980s. However, most studies focus on nondiscriminatoryopenness. Does regional integration matter for economic growth?Do regional trade agreements have any impact on growth? This article presents empirical evidence that countries withopen, large, and more developed neighboring economies grow fasterthan those with closed, smaller, and less developed neighboringeconomies. The results are robust to different specificationsof the empirical model and different definitions of openness,suggesting that small economies should grow faster when theyform regional trade agreements with large and more developedeconomies. However, testing for the impact of five regionaltrade agreements during the 1970s and 1980s finds that noneled to faster growth. The main reason seems to be that mostof these agreements were among small, closed, and developingeconomies.     

Dynamics and Politics in Regional Integration Arrangements: An Introduction

Overwhelming evidence links openness and economic growth. Inrecent years many developing countries have attempted to liberalizetheir trade and investment regimes, mostly through autonomousunilateral liberalization. At the same time, a growing numberof governments have begun to explore and participate in regionaltrading agreements. The agreements grant reciprocal trade preferencesto participating countries, resulting in discrimination againstnonmembers. The causes and consequences of regional integration have givenrise to an extensive and vigorous debate among both scholarsand policymakers. However, the quality of this debate has beenseriously hampered by the absence of clear analytical modelsand empirical evidence on many of the factors under discussion.Few of the recent arguments in favor of regional integrationarrangements have been satisfactorily formalized or tested.To address some of these issues, a World Bank research programfocuses on new and developing country aspects of regionalism.The program explores lacunae in the traditional static analysisof regional integration arrangements; addresses the dynamiceffects of integration, the economics of deep integration, andthe politics and political economy of regional integration arrangements;and compares regionalism with multilateralism. The articlesin this symposium address the topics of dynamics, politics,and political economy in regional integration agreements.     

论反倾销中的替代国制度及我国的法律对策

替代国制度作为反倾销调查中针对“非市场经济”国家出口产品计算“正常价值”的一种特殊方法，其合法性被WTO规则所确认。该制度存在理论基础界定不明，实践中被进口国滥用等缺陷，宜从明确非市场经济国家标准、限制替代国适用等方面进行完善。中国作为替代国制度滥用的最大受害国之一，在国际层面，应正确解读《中国入世议定书》第15条、运用WTO争端解决机制、积极签署多边或双边协定、警惕“特殊市场状况”条款、采取适度合理的贸易保护反制措施等，在国内层面，应进一步推动市场化改革、完善反倾销法、建立反倾销调查预警机制、主动提供替代国等，统筹考量、综合权衡、精准对策，充分依据既有国际贸易规则，以期切实维护国家和企业在国际贸易中的合法权益。     

Foreign direct investment,foreign trade and environment: New evidence from simultaneous-equation system of gravity models

Since the early 90s, after the implementation of various regulatory multinational agreements, debates about the impacts of environmental quality on international trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have been increased considerably. This article tackles this issue for 14 home countries and 39 host countries for 6 Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) over the period 1990–2011 by using gravity models. We also used simultaneous-equation system of gravity models in order to investigate the two-way linkages between trade and FDI in the presence of environmental degradation. Our main findings suggest that the impact of the environmental degradation on trade is negative and significant only for the static estimation. However, the impact of the environmental degradation on FDI is negative and insignificant for both static and dynamic estimations. The results also show that there exists a unidirectional causal relationship running from trade to FDI.     

Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico since the Approval of NAFTA

Cross-country panel data are used to assess the effect of free-tradeagreements on flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). Free-tradeagreements are found to have a significant positive effect onFDI flows, and free-trade agreements are found to matter morefor the smaller members of the agreement. For example, the NorthAmerican Free-Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) effect on FDIflows into Mexico is much larger than its effect on flows intothe United States. These cross-country results are used to assessNAFTA’s effect on FDI flows into Mexico. After controllingfor a set of other factors—such as an increase in worldwideFDI flows—the trade agreement is found to generate FDIflows nearly 60 percent higher than they would have been withoutthe agreement.     

Agriculture in the Uruguay Round: Interests of Developing Countries

Agriculture has been favored and protected in developed countrieswhile trade policies in developing countries frequently supportindustry at the expense of exportables and unprotected importablesin agriculture. This protection constrains expansion of temperateand subtropical agricultural exports from developing countries.Several studies have estimated the effects of liberalizationof trade restrictions on world prices, export earnings, andimport costs. While developing countries generally would benefitfrom having the agricultural policies of the most powerful countriesbound by international rules on trade, there are differencesamong the developing countries as to which products should beliberalized. Even if such conflicts did not exist, politicallyfeasible means to obtain such compliance are elusive. The potentiallymost feasible approaches for developing countries to obtainsome measure of liberalization in the Uruguay Round of tradenegotiations are discussed.     

Short- and Long-Term Effects of United Nations Peace Operations

In an earlier study Doyle and Sambanis (2000) [Doyle, MichaelW., and Nicholas Sambanis. 2000. "International Peacebuilding:A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis." American PoliticalScience Review 94(4):779–801.] showed that United Nations(UN) peace operations have made positive contributions to peacebuildingin the short term, helping parties implement peace agreements.But are the effects of UN peace operations lasting? Becausethe UN cannot fight wars, such operations should not be usedto enforce a peace. Peacekeeping operations contribute moreto the quality of the peace—that is, to securing morethan the mere absence of war—than to its duration, becausethe effects of such operations dissipate over time. For peaceto be self-sustaining, countries must develop institutions andpolicies that generate economic growth. UN peacebuilding lacksa strategy for fostering self-sustaining economic growth thatcould connect increased participation with sustainable peace.The international community would benefit from an evolutionthat uses economic reforms to plug the gap between peacekeepingand humanitarian assistance on the one hand and developmenton the other.     

跨国企业的规模扩张与东亚经贸关系的紧密化——中国对外贸易增长的国际背景

中国加入WTO后,外贸出口急速增长,有关各方也对中国外贸出口的激增产生了不信任感。中国出口增长的原因,除经济成长、贸易政策等内部因素外,在华跨国企业的生产—出口的增加是引起中国外贸出口增长的重要外部因素。同时,跨国企业的贸易活动促进了外资来源国与贸易伙伴国之间的一致性,进而推动了区域经贸一体化进程。基于中国与主要贸易伙伴—主要外资来源国是互补型的贸易关系,中国的出口增长对于这些国家来说是安全的。     

关于增值税的理论研究与实证分析

本文是对增值税理论研究和实证分析的一个全面综述。当前的增值税转型等税制改革将对我国宏观经济的各个方面产生重要影响,因此为增值税建立一个全面的经济学分析框架就具有非常重要的意义。本文从税收负担、税收收入、储蓄和投资、通货膨胀、社会福利、出口贸易和国际税收竞争等各个方面分析了增值税的经济影响,并且重点回顾了使用可计算一般均衡模型来模拟增值税改革的各类实证研究。     

Finance and international business cycles

Business cycles are more correlated among countries that have similar financial structures. We first document this empirical regularity using OECD data, and then build a two-country DSGE model with financial frictions that replicates it. Alternative monetary policy regimes and parameter values are explored. Output co-movements increase when the countries involved are linked by a credible exchange rate peg and when they open up to trade; they decrease when their financial openness increases. The model also accounts for a number of stylized facts of international business cycles, such as the positive international correlation of output, investment and employment.     

Unfair Trade? The Increasing Gap between World and Domestic Prices in Commodity Markets during the Past 25 Years

The early literature on international trade has debated extensivelythe constraints facing exporting countries in the major commoditymarkets. This article goes one step further by suggesting thatthe final demand for these products could not have increasedbecause the declines in world commodity prices were not transmittedor were transmitted imperfectly to domestic consumer prices.In contrast, upward movements in world prices were clearly passedon to domestic prices. As a result, the spread between worldand domestic prices almost doubled in all major commodity marketsduring 1975–94. This asymmetry, seldom discussed in theliterature, does not seem to be caused, at least systematically,by changes in trade and tax policies or factors such as transport,processing, and marketing costs. This article argues, therefore,that a special effort should be made to better understand thetransmission from world to domestic prices, especially the roleof large international trading companies that may have the capabilityto influence such spreads through one or several stages of processingin most major commodity markets.     

反倾销如何影响了跨国并购

当前,贸易壁垒对中国构建更高层次的开放型经济体制造成了多重复杂影响。基于中国微观企业跨国并购以及反倾销微观案件数据,本文全面探究了反倾销贸易壁垒对跨国并购的影响效应与作用机制。通过多种稳健性估计发现,国家、行业不同层面反倾销壁垒,对企业跨国并购规模、并购数量具有显著的抑制效应。进一步分析发现,反倾销贸易壁垒有助于企业规避特定国家政策冲击,进而对企业跨国并购成功率具有一定带动效应;反倾销贸易壁垒加大了“上下游企业”并购协同成本,显著抑制了跨行业并购;反倾销对企业跨国并购的多重影响,与一国行业贸易竞争力降低存在显著关联。因此,要全面理性分析反倾销带来的跨国并购障碍与风险,制定符合企业自身的并购策略,积极利用同行业协同并购优势,规避贸易壁垒带来的负向冲击。     

Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and International Technology Transfer: A Survey

What role does trade play in international technology transfer?Do technologies introduced by multinational firms diffuse tolocal firms? What kinds of policies have proved successful inencouraging technology absorption from abroad and why? Usingthese questions as motivation, this article surveys the recenttrade literature on international technology transfer, payingparticular attention to the role of foreign direct investment.The literature argues that trade necessarily encourages growthonly if knowledge spillovers are international in scope. Empiricalevidence on the scope of knowledge spillovers (national versusinternational) is ambiguous. Several recent empirical plant-levelstudies have questioned earlier studies that argued that foreigndirect investment has a positive impact on the productivityof local firms. Yet at the aggregate level, evidence supportsthe view that foreign direct investment has a positive effecton economic growth in the host country.      

Global trade and the future of national health care reform

As a result of economic globalization, health care reform is no longer strictly a matter of domestic health policy and politics. This paper argues that international trade agreements impose institutional constraints on governments’ abilities to implement health care reform, and, if left unchallenged, could frustrate social reforms. The thesis is developed through three case studies that examine the implications of various trade agreements for health care reform in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The findings are discussed in the context of theoretical debates concerning the impact of globalization on the autonomy of nation states and the relevance of national politics.     

Bank Employee Incentives and Stock Purchase Plans Participation

We investigate which factors influence 44,649 employees’ decision to invest in a top retail banking group in France. We have two objectives: (i) to explore factors associated with the amount invested in the plan, and (ii) to explore whether these factors have same associations with the probability of investing more than the incentive pay i.e. being an active investor. Specifically, we focus on four parameters that have been shown to affect participation: liquidity constraints, imperfect knowledge of the plan, asset choice, and transaction costs. We confirm Engelhardt and Madrian (Natl Tax J 57:385–406, 2004) assumptions according to which such factors contribute to explain non-participation. We show that ESPP contributors have very specific and unobserved motivations, as shown with the positive correlations between error terms in the two steps of investment decisions. The existence of unobservable investment motives can be explained by a lower risk aversion, a higher time preference, or a strong willingness to participate to corporate governance.     

Aspects of international financial services

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues related to international financial services, particularly foreign direct investment in banking. The paper discusses the challenges of measuring incomes generated from the activities of multinational banks, including their international lending and direct investment in host countries. The paper highlights the complementary role of FDI and trade in financial services and discusses investment in banking services. The patterns of FDI in banking in Eastern European countries, Latin America and East Asia are also analysed with a focus on the costs and benefits of FDI in banking in the emerging countries.