EU Trade Regulation for Baby Food: Protecting Health or Trade?

This paper explores the effect of European Union (EU) food safety regulations on EU imports of baby food. Pesticides and contaminants contribute to various health problems. Children are more vulnerable to the dangers of pesticides and contaminants because as soon as they start eating solids, they consume a limited number of food items, most of which are fruits and vegetables. To protect the health of the most vulnerable part of the population, the EU regulations stipulate that no more than 0.01 mg/kg of any single pesticide residue is permitted in baby food. In this respect, the EU differs from most of its trading partners, the majority of which do not differentiate food safety regulations according to the age of the consumer. The purpose of this paper is to compare the EU regulations on maximum residue limits of pesticides to those of its major competitors through a severity index. This index is then introduced into a gravity equation to assess the impact on EU imports of baby food. We find that the EU regulation had a negative impact on the volume of trade but a positive one on the probability of setting up new trade relationships.     

Competitive Pressure in Transition: A Role for Trade and Competition Policies?

This paper investigates the effects of trade reforms and antitrust enforcement on the pricing behavior of firms, shedding light on the respective contributions of these policy instruments to the shaping of competitive markets. To this end, we use a rich panel data set of more than 25,000 manufacturing firms from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, spanning a 5-year period. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between domestic firms’ mark-ups and industry protection, as reflected in MFN and trade-weighted import tariffs. The toughness of competition policy enforcement, captured by the number of final instance decisions delivered by national antitrust authorities and an index developed by the EBRD, has a negative impact of greater magnitude than import penetration. We also test for the significance of enacting major legislative amendments with regard to competition policy in the studied countries, as well as for differential effects in export-oriented and import-competing industries.     

Taming the Chinese Dragon: A Promising Cornerstone for Transatlantic Trade Cooperation?

Intereconomics - The desire of many policymakers to tame the Chinese Dragon is apparent. But what is particularly disappointing is the little, if any, reflection on how to induce the government in...     

New Curbs on Processing Trade for A New Trade Pattern

China recently announced a new policy that seeks to rein in the de- velopment of processing trade in re- stricted commodities,in a bid to op- timize the country's exporting struc- ture,put strong curbs on the export of"high-energy-consuming, high- polluting and resource-dependent"products,and discourage the export of commodities with low added value and poor technology content,so as to gradually eliminate trade frictions, and promote trade balance to ease tension caused by the too wide trade surplus.The change is instrumental in upgrading the present processing trade system,transforming the pat- tern of foreign trade growth mode, and promoting the sustainable devel- opment of social economy.     

Zhang Mao on Beijing's Ideas and Measures for Developing the Service Trade

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Transatlantic Trade Dispute: Solution for Airbus-Boeing Under Biden?

Intereconomics - With the widening of the US measures three weeks before the end of the Trump administration, it falls on Biden to find a solution for the Airbus-Boeing dispute.     

Managers’ Citizenship Behaviors for the Environment: A Developmental Perspective

The objective of this longitudinal study is to analyze the intrinsic drivers and values underlying managers’ organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBEs) from a developmental psychology perspective based on measuring the stages of consciousness that shape the meaning-making systems of individuals. At time 1, the stages of consciousness of 138 managers were qualitatively assessed using the Leader Development Profile test. At time 2, a quantitative survey measured the environmental beliefs and OCBEs of these managers. The links between stages of consciousness, environmental beliefs, and OCBEs were analyzed using hierarchical regressions. The main findings show that managers’ stages of consciousness positively influence two types of OCBEs, namely eco-initiatives and eco-helping, while environmental beliefs influence eco-helping and eco-civic engagement but do not appear to be connected with the stage of consciousness development. This paper first contributes to the literature on corporate greening by shedding more light on the aspects of behavioral and developmental psychology that underlie environmental leadership. Second, it bridges the gap between theories that have developed separately by showing the interconnectedness between the managers’ stage of consciousness and the more concrete environmental behaviors in the workplace that could have emulative effects throughout the organization.     

ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area: A Bane or Boon for ASEAN Countries?

At the ASEAN Summit in November 2000, the leaders of ASEAN and China agreed to enhance economic cooperation and integration with the goal of establishing an ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area (FTA). This decision was a natural response to a number of important global and regional developments of the past decade. Since the signing of the framework agreement, policymakers from China and ASEAN member states have already started their negotiations on the specific terms and features for this proposed FTA. While such an FTA would hold the potential of yielding enormous economic benefits, it also causes some sense of apprehension and uncertainty in some quarters, due to the common perception that China is already a strong competitor in trade and attracting foreign investment. To examine the economic basis for such concern, this paper analyses the economic implications of this proposed free trade area from the ASEAN economies’ perspective. Specifically, it examines how competitive ASEAN countries are vis‐à‐vis China, evaluate the scope for strengthening China‐ASEAN trade and the impediments facing Chinese and ASEAN investors in each other's markets, and recommends policy measures to maximise the benefits and minimise the hardships resulting from an ASEAN‐China FTA.     

1994: A Fruitful Year for Beijing's Foreign Trade and Ecnomic Cooperation

In 1994, foreign trade and economic cooperation in Bejing made major progress following overall growth for the previous three years. By 1994, the number of foreign-funded enterprises approved by the city exceeded 10, 000, the foreign capital actually used amounted to US $ 1.9 billion, and exports totalled US $ 2.1 billion, representing three major breakthroughs. In 1994, 2, 675 foreign-funded enterprises were approved, involving a     

Should Chinese Renminbi be Blamed for Its Trade Surplus? A Structural VAR Approach

During the recent years, the Renminbi (RMB) exchange rate issue has been at the centre of ongoing debate over the source of global current account imbalance, especially with the United States. The objective of this study is to contribute to the current discussion by providing some new evidence on China’s exchange rate policy and the impacts of RMB devaluation/revaluation on China’s trade balance using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) approach. The results indicate that the dynamic effect of exchange rate on China’s trade balance is still very limited and China’s balance of trade is mainly determined by the world demand and its trade performance, with the latter being a result of its successfully maintained comparative advantage.     

WTO Analysis:World Trade Prospects for 2008

Recent developments in early 2008 cloud the near-term pros- cts for the world economy. mong these developments are widely held expectations of recessionary tendencies in the United States,weaker demand growth in both Europe and Japan, a rise in inflation and depressed global stock markets.     

Unilateral Liberalisation or Trade Agreements: Which Way Forward for the Pacific?

Empirical results show that, for the Pacific island states, a free trade agreement with developed countries provides more benefits followed by regional trade agreement within the Pacific and then unilateral tariff reduction. While the agricultural sector expands and the manufacturing sector declines in all scenarios, to avoid second‐best outcomes, developed countries need to go beyond the provision of aid for trade/development measures. For developing countries, the way forward with regional trade agreements is to carefully sequence them with regard to the different developed countries involved. This must be accompanied by domestic reform which is necessary but not sufficient for long‐term gains.     

Sheyang—A Coastal Window for Trade in Mid-northern Jiangsu

To carry out internationalized economic strategy is one of the "Three Great Development Strategies" that Jiangsu Province faces in the 21st century, Being a coastal-open county, Sheyang will implement, an all-round outwardly oriented strategy to promote its coastal dominance and build a coastal window opening to the outside world in the middle part of northern Jiangsu. Sheyang is located at the middle of the 954-kilometer coastline of Jiangsu, looking towards Japan and Korea across the sea. Its own coastline is 109.6 kilometers in length, the first in the province, and it is in the forward position where the country, the province and the city implement coastal economic     

Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey

This study surveys the literature on the relationship between international trade and economic growth, and succinctly reviews the role of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade. Most studies support the gains of trade and recognise the substantive contributions of GATT/WTO in fostering free trade; the evidence is, however, not ubiquitously unambiguous. The macroeconomic evidence provides a dominant support for the positive and significant effects of trade on output and growth, while the microeconomic evidence lends larger support to the exogenous effects of productivity on trade, as compared to the effects of trade on productivity. The GATT/WTO remains surrounded by barriers to trade and avowed preferences for preferential trade agreements. The strength of the argument for the gains of trade needs to be evaluated in juxtaposition with several methodological and measurement issues that surround the trade‐growth empirics. Most studies focus on partial equilibrium analysis of trade policy and ignore the general equilibrium aspects of macroeconomic policy. It is difficult to disentangle the effects of trade policies from those of other macroeconomic policies and unequivocally interpret the observed correlations between trade policies and economic growth. Trade is one of the several catalysts of productivity and growth and hence its contribution is contingent on its weight in economic activity.     

The Environment as a Stakeholder? A Fairness-Based Approach

Stakeholder theory is often unable to distinguish those individuals and groups that are stakeholders from those that are not. This problem of stakeholder identity has recently been addressed by linking stakeholder theory to a Rawlsian principle of fairness. To illustrate, the question of stakeholder status for the non-human environment is discussed. This essay criticizes a past attempt to ascribe stakeholder status to the non-human environment, which utilized a broad definition of the term "stakeholder." This paper then demonstrates how, despite the denial of stakeholder status, the environment is nonetheless accounted for on a fairness-based approach through legitimate organizational stakeholders. In addition, since stakeholder theory has never claimed to be a comprehensive ethical scheme, it is argued that sound reasons might exist for managers to consider their organization's impact on the environment that are not stakeholder-related.     

Trade Credits and Bank Credits in International Trade: Substitutes or Complements?

Trade credits are an important financing tool for internationally active firms. This is surprising, as trade credits are generally more expensive than bank credits and thus a costly substitute for bank financing. In this paper, we investigate the relation between trade credits and bank credits for exporting firms. We develop a theoretical model and show that trade credits convey a quality signal which reduces the risk of the transaction and may thus facilitate obtaining additional bank credits. Hence, exporters who are not able to obtain bank credits in the first place use trade credits and bank credits complementarily. Using panel data on large German manufacturing firms, we provide supportive evidence for our theoretical predictions. In general, trade credits and bank credits are substitutes. For financially constrained exporters, the overall substitution effect is attenuated which is consistent with a positive signalling effect.