Optimal revenue-raising trade restrictions under uncertainty

A country seeks to achieve a fixed expected revenue by restricting trade when it faces uncertainty about domestic demand for a good and about foreign supply. If the uncertainty in the demand and supply functions is multiplicative then the policy which maximises domestic expected surplus is a fixed schedule of tariffs depending only on world price. Under additive uncertainty the ranking of ad valorem tariffs and quotas depends systematically on the targeted expected revenue and the degree of uncertainty in demand and in world price but a specific tariff is superior to both these policies.     

Government intervention and consumer welfare: The impact of international trade restrictions

The purpose of this paper is to examine trade policy changes in OECD countries in the past decade and the impact of such changes on producers and consumers. Consideration is given to trade policy objectives as well as the impact of trade policies on foreign suppliers and domestic export industries in evaluating the potential benefits from protection. The results indicate that trade protection imposes high costs on the consumer and the domestic economy. The costs include higher prices, the reduction in consumer choice, and the decline in a competitive environment for domestic industries. In many instances trade protection means that consumers subsidize both domestic and foreign producers. In contrast trade protection faces severe limitations in achieving its twin objectives of job preservations and industry modernization due to supplier response in domestic and foreign countries.

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Staatliche Intervention und Verbraucherwohlfahrt: Auswirkungen internationaler Handelsbeschränkungen

Zusammenfassung Zahlreiche entwickelte Länder haben während des letzten Jahrzehnts ihre Politik der Handelsbeschränkungen verschärft. Solche Verschärfungen bürden den Konsumenten Kosten auf und vermindern die wirtschaftliche Effizienz insofern, als große Teile der Wirtschaft vom Wettbewerb ausgeschlossen werden. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, den Wandel der Handelspolitik der OECD-Länder und seine Auswirkungen auf Produzenten und Konsumenten genauer zu untersuchen.Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, daß Handelsbeschränkungen hohe Kosten sowohl für die Konsumenten als auch für die heimische Industrie bewirken — und zwar vor allem durch höhere Verbraucherpreise, durch eine Verringerung der Wahlmöglichkeiten für Verbraucher und durch fehlende Wettbewerbs-Anreize für die heimische Industrie zu modernisierenden und innovativen Maßnahmen. In vielen Fällen wirken Handelsbeschränkungen ausgesprochen rückschrittlich und treffen die einkommensschwachen Konsumenten am stärksten.Auch ihr eigentliches Doppelziel, die Erhaltung von Arbeitsplätzen und die Förderung der Industrie-Modernisierung, kann die Politik von Handelsbeschränkungen nur sehr begrenzt erreichen. Beschäftigungszuwächsen in einem Bereich stehen oft Beschäftigungsverluste in anderen, vor allem exportabhängigen, Bereichen gegenüber. Ohnehin hat die allgemeine wirtschaftliche Lage in der Regel einen stärkeren Einfluß auf die heimische Beschäftigung als Handelsbeschränkungen.Die Ausweitung von Handelsbeschränkungen in den letzten Jahren bestätigt, daß in der Handelspolitik die Interessen der Produzenten und Arbeitnehmer dominieren, und sollte die wichtige Rolle der Verbrauchererziehung hervorheben. Konsumenten müssen darüber informiert sein, daß sie als Folge von Handelsbeschränkungen in der bestehenden Form nicht nur einheimische sondern auch ausländische Produzenten subventionieren.

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Rachel Dardis is a Professor at the Department of Textiles and Consumer Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.     

The theorems of international trade under generalized uncertainty

A number of authors have extended the theorems of international trade to the case where the output of the various production processes (for pre-set inputs) is random. But they limited their analysis to a very special type of technological randomness known in the financial literature as ‘scalar uncertainty’. The purpose of the present paper is to extend the theorems to a much wider class of random neoclassical production functions. It is assumed that there exists a unified stock market worldwide.     

浅谈技术性贸易壁垒与中国的国际贸易

在经济全球化，国际贸易日趋激烈化的趋势下，科技日新月异，同时也随之产生了国际贸易中的又一重要手段一技术性贸易壁垒(Technical Barriers to Trade—TBT)。所谓技术性贸易壁垒，是指一国以维护国家安全，或保护人类健康和安全，保护动植物的生命和健康，保护生念环境，或防止欺诈行为，保证产品质量为由，采取一些强制性或非强制性的技术性措施，这     

Dispute resolution in international trade

Internationalization of a company's operations creates new uncertainty and risk for the company, including political and legal issues. This article discusses some of these problems, examines alternative solutions for these problems, and makes recommendations as to what solutions a company should give priorty to. Specifically, the study argues that in international business arbitration and litigation should be used as lust resort and only when all other alternatives have been exhausted.     

Choice under restrictions

Nearly every decision a person makes is restricted in some way. While we are painfully aware of some of these restrictions, others go largely undetected. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding how restrictions interact with situational and individual characteristics, as well as goals to influence behavior. Implications for overlooked research opportunities in choice modeling are presented and discussed.     

不可替代的国际商展

今天的外贸与10年前有何不同？几乎没有异议,电子商务（E—commerce）的应用是近年来发生的最大变化。当电子商务成为趋势时,电子商务就成为外贸曲折的路径中最短的那条。     

试论服务贸易在国际贸易中的发展趋势

随着产品生产、销售的进一步全球化,资本也更加国际化,服务也将进一步全球化。先进的信息技术的发展与应用也必将进一步对服务贸易的发展带来巨大的深刻的影响,国际服务贸易的发展与国际物资贸易的发展相辅相成,在技术和全球化力量的推动下,国际服务贸易出现了新的发展趋势。     

Financing international trade transactions

International trade transactions present unique commercial and legal risks, and hence specialized forms of financing are required.     

Vehicle currency use in international trade

We explore the major driving forces for currency invoicing in international trade with a simple model and a novel dataset covering 24 countries. We contrasts a “coalescing” effect, where exporters minimize the movements of their prices relative to their competitors', with incentives to hedge macroeconomic volatility and transaction costs. The key determinants of invoice currency choice are industry features and country size, with some role for foreign-exchange bid-ask spreads. The coalescing effect also goes a long way to explaining the well-known dominance of the dollar. Trade flows to the United States are predominantly invoiced in dollar, as foreign exporters face competition with U.S. firms. The use of the dollar in trade flows that do not involve the United States reflects trade in homogeneous products where firms need to keep their price in line with their competitors'.     

New developments in international agricultural trade

The nineties have seen a number of developments which will have major consequences for international agricultural trade. Will the changed conditions in the world agricultural markets enable less developed countries (LDCs) and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) to exploit their comparative advantages better, or will the reforms further squeeze them out of the industrial countries’ markets?     

浅论国际贸易融资中的信用风险

随着我国改革开放的深入和对外贸易不断发展,国际贸易融资已经成为商业银行普遍看好的一项金融业务,该业务不但为进出口企业提供了融资便利,而且也给银行拓宽了利润来源。但是在贸易融资过程中,我国的银行业将面临许多风险,其中信用风险就是一个主要的风险。本文尝试分析现代贸易融资中银行所面临的信用风险及其特征,并提出信用风险的防范建议。一、关于国际贸易融资的概述(一)国际贸易融资的定义国际贸易融资是外汇银行围绕着国际结算的各个环节为进出口商提供的资金便利的总和。与其它业务不同的是,国际贸易融资业务集中间业务与资产业务…     

我国国际服务贸易竞争力分析

随着我国经济的不断发展,在经济发展的质量上开始投入越来越多的关注,服务贸易作为对外贸易里面日益重要的一块,其发展结构和状态需要受到更多的重视.本文根据波特的钻石模型,从现状出发,分析影响我国服务贸易的各种因素,以及各因素相互之间的关系,解析我国服务贸易的国际竞争力,提出有利于发挥服务贸易竞争力的政策建议.     

Investment liberalization and international trade

This paper estimates the cross-price elasticity of exports with respect to investment costs for bilateral relations between 36 countries. We show that the effect of reducing foreign direct investment costs on exports depends on country characteristics and trade costs as predicted by the [Markusen, 1997] and [Markusen, 2002] model. When countries differ in relative factor endowments and trade costs are low, investment liberalization stimulates exports, whereas when countries are similar in terms of relative factor endowments and size, and trade costs are moderate to high, investment liberalization reduces exports.     

Chinese investments aid international trade

Chinese firms＇ increased outbound investment has benefited the recipient countries, a senior Chinese Ministry of Commerce （MOC） official said on November 1.     

Technical regulations and specialization in international trade

It is widely acknowledged that while technical regulations can improve welfare and facilitate markets, they can also impede trade. The trade impeding effects of technical regulations are especially worrisome for developing countries: they frequently lack the human and capital resources necessary to satisfy technical measures, and thus are more likely to be excluded from markets by technical measures. This paper uses highly disaggregated US data on agricultural, mining and manufacturing imports to examine the impact of technical regulations on trade patterns. Using instrumental variables estimation to correct for the potential endogeneity of technical regulations, the analysis suggests that technical regulations substantially impinge on poor countries' exports: their weaker capacities to satisfy technical regulations lead them to specialize away from industries with heavier regulatory burdens.