An Analysis of the Effects of Recent Changes in the Exchange Rate and the Terms of Trade on the Level and Composition of Economic Activity

Over the eighteen-month period ending June 1986, the Australian economy experienced two major shocks: a nominal devaluation of the $A of some 28 per cent and a terms of trade decline of some 16 per cent. The effects of these influences are examined using the ORANI model of the Australian economy. The effects of the devaluation on selected macroeconomic variables and key sectoral variables are presented for various degrees of wage indexation. Effects on quota rents are calculated and compared with actual outcomes. The terms of trade decline has an adverse impact on the balance of trade and in order to offset this impact while maintaining aggregate employment demand the model calculates that both real wages and real absorption would need to be around 4 per cent less than the values they would otherwise take.     

Multilateral trade and export-led growth in the world economy: some post-war evidence

In this paper, we address an empirical question: is there evidence to substantiate the assumption that the post-war liberalization of world trade has actually led to a significant increase in the world GDP? In our attempt to answer that question, time series data in the Penn World Table 6.1 are aggregated across countries to obtain a measure of world trade and output, and the total number of GATT/WTO member countries is employed as an explanatory variable to account for the impact of multilateral trade agreements, such as the Kennedy Round, Tokyo Round, and the Uruguay Round, on the trade-growth nexus. We then examine the relationship between world trade and the post-war GDP per worker across the world through the multivariate cointegration and error correction modeling and the Granger causality test. The results suggest that, at the global level, the post-war liberalization of multilateral trade has promoted both GDP and trade activities. There is also evidence that supports the export-led growth hypothesis in the world economy.     

Agricultural Policies of Industrial Countries and their Effects on Traditional Food Exporters*

A multi-commodity model of world food markets is used to quantify the adverse impact of agricultural policies in Western Europe and East Asia on farmer welfare in Australasia and North America. The results suggest that net farm incomes for these traditional food exporters would be one-third greater than in the absence of protectionism in other industrial countries. For Australian farmers this represents as much as A$30 000 per farm, or more than three times as much as the adverse impact on them of Australia's manufacturing protection. Econometric analysis suggests that agricultural protectionism is likely to continue to grow as per capita incomes and agricultural comparative disadvantage increase in industrial countries.     

GATT,Preferential/Regional Trading Blocs and Agricultural Trade*

Agricultural trade impasses have again frustrated the GATT process. Interest in preferential/regional trading blocs is increasing. the paper probes the theoretical and empirical consequences of preferential arrangements instead of multilateral liberalization. It concludes that in a second-best world preferential arrangements could either improve or decrease global welfare. For agricultural trade, previous experience suggests that in regional groupings such as the EC trade diversion exceeded trade creation. This results from trade distorting domestic policies. Prospects for liberalization of agricultural trade under either GATT or preferential arrangements are limited. the consequences for small agricultural exporters are not positive.     

Partial Free Trade Agreements and Economic Welfare: Reconsidering GATT Article 24

This paper generalizes the Kemp–Wan theorem on the customs union to cover partial and incomplete free trade agreements emerging all over the world and elucidates the conditions which ensure that they are potentially conducive to the economic welfare of member countries without harming the rest of the world. In the light of this generalization, it also reconsiders two well‐known conditions stipulated in Article 24 of the GATT required for the formation of FTAs.     

FACTOR ENDOWMENTS, TRADE LIBERALIZATION, AND THE FUTURE OF APEC TRADE PATTERNS

The heads of state of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations have committed member nations to remove all barriers to trade both among themselves and with respect to the rest of the world by 2020. The present paper uses a simple econometric model of bilateral trade flows based on country size, relative factor endowments, and trade barriers of importing as well as exporting countries to estimate the shares by country of origin in imports of each of the 16 major APEC countries and the rest of the world for each of 45 commodity groups comprising world trade in commodities. The estimates reveal that APEC trade would be expanded by 13% with complete liberalization of tariff barriers, by an additional 5% if nontariff barriers are also removed, and by another 4% if the rest of the world would also remove all barriers to trade. Variants on this base scenario show that such trade expansion could be substantially reduced were trade liberalization, capital growth, or both to be reduced in the countries affected by the Asian financial crisis. ( JEL Fl, F17)     

The adjustment of external tariffs in the Kemp‐Wan‐Grinols compensation scheme

Abstract.  This paper considers the adjustment of external tariffs when two countries integrate and implement the Kemp‐Wan‐Grinols compensation scheme. Attention is also paid to the restrictions set by Article XXIV of GATT. This paper shows how the external tariffs would change in a three‐good, three‐country model under the assumption of gross substitutability. The results are sensitive to the initial trade pattern. In particular, they depend on the number of goods initially traded between the member countries. The analysis can be extended to a multi‐commodity model if the preferences of the countries have identical CES representation. JEL classification: F11, F15     

On the emergence of an MFN club: equal treatment in an unequal world

Abstract .  Motivated by GATT, we endogenize the formation of a club whose members have to abide by the MFN principle of non-discrimination. The underlying model is that of oligopolistic intraindustry trade. While an MFN club does not alter average tariff levels across countries, it increases aggregate world welfare; makes non-members worse off; and can immiserize its high cost members. These results imply that (i) core WTO rules such as MFN are valuable even if multilateral negotiations deliver limited trade liberalization and (ii) the distributional effects of MFN maybe one reason why developing countries have been granted Special and Differential treatment at the WTO.     

Preferential versus multilateral trade liberalization and the role of political economy

In this paper we analyze the effect of the freedom to pursue preferential trade liberalization, permitted by Article XXIV of the GATT, on country׳s incentives to participate in multilateral negotiations and on feasibility of global free trade. We present a model, in which countries choose whether to participate in preferential or multilateral trade agreements under political pressures from domestic special interest groups. We show that heterogeneity in political preferences across countries plays an important role in determining the relative merits of preferential and multilateral approaches to trade liberalization. On one hand, the opportunity to liberalize preferentially may be necessary to induce countries with strong political motivations to participate in multilateral free trade negotiations. On the other hand, when countries share similar political preferences, multilateral free trade that would have been politically supported otherwise becomes unattainable if countries can pursue preferential liberalization.     

Are developed country multilateral tariff reductions necessarily beneficial for the U.S.?

Since the formation of the GATT in 1947, the belief underlying U.S. participation in GATT multilateral tariff reductions has been that they are beneficial to the U.S. This paper reports general equilibrium computations of the welfare effects of a 50% multilateral tariff reduction among developed countries using a seven region world trade model due to Whalley (1982).     

Mega‐Regional Agreements and Their Impact on Australia

This paper estimates the effects of emerging mega‐regional agreements on the economy of Australia using a Computable General Equilibrium model. Scenarios considered include the 11‐member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans‐Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement, its possible enlargement to include five additional members (‘TPP16’) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) currently under negotiation. The study finds that Australia stands to enjoy real income and trade gains along both the CPTPP and RCEP paths. However, since Australia is already benefiting from its own liberal trade policies and many prior trade agreements, benefits are relatively modest, typically below one per cent of real income.     

East–West European Integration: A General-Equilibrium Analysis of Alternative Agricultural Policies

This paper studies the budgetary and trade implications of European Union (EU) membership of Eastern European countries under various agricultural policy scenarios. The author uses a six-region, 13-sector general-equilibrium model with many explicitly modeled agricultural and trade policies. It is found that EU membership of Eastern European countries, including their adoption of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), leads to a surge in Eastern Europe's agricultural exports. Moreover, the EU's agricultural expenditure increases by 26%. A reform of the CAP following the Agenda 2000 proposal does not reduce the cost of enlargement if Eastern European farmers receive compensation payments.     

Agricultural trade liberalization,price changes,and environmental effects

Many analyses of agricultural trade liberalization have been undertaken but few have considered the effects on the environment. For the developed countries, reducing the degree of protection would result in less intensive production; therefore, environmental stress would be reduced. A reduction of trade barriers in industrial countries would result in higher world prices and in a somewhat lower world price variability. Assuming initially no policy changes for developing countries, the question is how the liberalization would affect the environment. Higher Prices in developing countries increase the level of production by intensifying production, particularly in the commercial sector, and by an area expansion. Both result in negative environmental effects. These could be partly offset by an increase in hired labor in the commercial sector, which might reduce pressure at the frontier and on marginal lands, as well as by the income effect. These off-setting effects may be small; however, the direction of the overall environmental effects cannot be determined unambiguously without empirical examination. At the global level, the beneficial economic effects of agricultural trade liberalization probably outweigh the expected negative environmental effects in developing countries, but this cannot be unambiguously established without valuation.     

Developing-Country Benefits from MFN Relative to Regional/Bilateral Trade Arrangements

Using a general‐equilibrium model of world trade, this paper evaluates the benefits of most‐favored‐nation (MFN) treatment to developing countries in multilateral relative to bilateral or regional trade agreements, from three sources. First, developing countries may be able to free‐ride on bilateral tariff concessions exchanged between larger countries in MFN‐based GATT/WTO rounds. Second, MFN benefits developing countries by restricting discriminatory retaliatory actions by other countries, evaluated here by a non‐ cooperative Nash tariff game. Finally, MFN changes threat points in bargaining and hence affects the bargaining solution of multilateral MFN‐based trade negotiation compared to a bilateral/regional arrangement. The authors find that the benefits to developing countries are small in the first case as the tariff rates are already low, and the benefits are small in the second case as the optimal tariffs under unconstrained retaliation are not very asymmetric. Benefits from the third case are large as large countries can extract large side‐payments if they bargain bilaterally.     

The Cairns Group and the Uruguay Round of International Trade Negotiations

The Cairns Group was formed out of frustration among comparatively efficient agricultural exporting countries about a series of changes in the conduct of world agricultural trade over which they, as individual countries, could have no influence. They are collectively significant as producers of agricultural products, with more value added in agriculture than either the EC or the United States, and as agricultural exporters, with more such exports than the EC and the United States combined. Their cohesion, stemming from the reduction in their net agricultural export earnings by more than half as a consequence of protection in industrial countries, and their unique combination of industrial and developing countries has given them an extraordinary influence over the conduct of the Uruguay Round. This article quantifies their collective interest in agricultural trade reform, reviews their contributions to the Round and examines their interest in the reforms which are most likely to emerge from it.     

GATT TRADE RULES AND THE ENVIRONMENT

This paper addresses the alleged conflict between the GATT trade rules and the protection of the environment by GATT members. The author contends that the principal objective of the GATT rules on nontariff trade restrictions is to eliminate government interventions that promote the commercial interests of domestic producers and consumers in a manner that discriminates against foreign producers and consumers in either domestic or international markets. He further contends that this objective fundamentally does not conflict with protecting GATT members' domestic environment or the global environment. The GATT should explicitly recognize the objectives of environmental protection and natural resource consemation, either by an amendment to the GATT Articles or by resolution of the GATT Council. GATT members, in the interest of protecting their national and the global environment, should be free to impose restrictions on imports or exports so long as the interventions conform to the following conditions: (i) restrictions do not have the intent or signficant effect of discriminating against foreign producers or consumers in favor of domestic ones, (ii) restrictions are in the interest of protecting the global environment where the concerns are widely shared by other nations and do not simply reflect unique and parochial views of the individual member, and (iii) restrictions do not constitute an effort to force trading partners to adopt environmental standards of production that have no global or trans-border pollution implications .     

THE IMPACT OF TAX REGIMES ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE PATTERNS

This paper discusses the trade implications of value‐added taxes (VATs) that refund domestic taxes paid by exporters of domestic production while imposing taxes on imports of foreign production. VATs are used by over 140 countries of the world, including every member of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development except the United States. An investigation of the implications of border‐adjustable taxes on the U.S. trade balance suggests that VATs positively affect trade competitiveness but with differing impacts by sector. These results do not necessarily extend to the conclusion that a U.S. VAT would increase U.S. exports; such a prediction requires economic forecasting and appropriate simulations. The present results do imply that the adoption of VATs by other countries appears to have benefited U.S. trade. Panel data over 20 years, 29 industries, and 145 countries is used to conduct the analysis. (JEL F10, H20, K34)     

Trade effects of regional integration: A panel cointegration analysis

The paper quantifies the most likely trade effects of the exceptional cases of the GATT/WTO system, namely, Regional Integration Agreements, on the selected member as well as non-member countries of the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR and AFTA. To this end, the gravity model was estimated through fixed effects model and panel cointegration analysis. It was found that the explanatory power of the latter has superseded the former one. For the case of EU, it was found that the intra-union trade-creation effect is approximately six times larger than extra-union effects. In NAFTA, exports to outside countries are significantly diverted. For MERCOSUR, on the other hand, results indicate that the integration has not contributed to intra-union trade. The members are still significantly dependent on extra-union imports, just like the members of AFTA.     

The Economics of Trade Disputes, the GATT's Article XXIII, and the WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding

Economic theory has yet to provide a convincing argument that can explain why the threat of retaliation under the GATT/WTO dispute settlement procedures is not sufficient to prevent countries from violating the agreement. We consider the question of why countries violate the agreed–upon rules in the face of explicit provisions which allow them to legally adjust their trade policy. Using the GATT/WTO institutional structure and the guiding principle of reciprocity, we provide a theory suggesting when countries will choose to implement protection in violation of GATT/WTO rules, as opposed to under the relevant safeguards provisions, when trade policy adjustments are necessary between "negotiating rounds."     

GATT/WTO Promotes Trade Strongly: Sample Selection and Model Specification

Some recent empirical studies examine the impact of the GATT/WTO on trade. This paper investigates the sample selection bias and the gravity model specification issues in the literature. First, the GATT/WTO not only makes existing trading partners trade more at the intensive margin, but also creates new trading relationships at the extensive margin. Most existing papers exclude zero trade observations and hence ignore the extensive margin. Secondly, due to the violation of some maintained assumptions, the traditional log-linear gravity regressions fail to uncover the role of the GATT/WTO even at the intensive margin. Using a large bilateral panel dataset including zero trade flows and a more appropriate econometric method, this paper finds that the GATT/WTO has been very effective in promoting world trade at both the intensive and extensive margins.