WTO制度危机与发展问题研究

WTO的存在价值是在近几年才提出的一个新话题，从1995年WTO成立到2000年回合失败前，学界对其一直保持着乐观态度。但是西雅图会议之后，尤其是在坎昆会议之后，甚至有人提出WTO应该解体了。那么，这到底是WTO制度的危机？还是发展中的问题？WTO当代存在价值如何是一个非常有意义的论题。本文认为这些问题是发展中的问题，而不是制度危机所致。     

区域保险贸易对WTO保险贸易体系的威胁与挑战

尽管区域保险贸易有全球保险贸易自由化的先行或示范作用,但从当前区域保险贸易合作组织运行的实际情况看,区域保险贸易本质上形成了对保险全球化的对抗.区域保险贸易中"特惠制"的歧视性及贸易转移的"负效应",削弱了WTO保险多边贸易体系的作用;而区域保险贸易合作组织的激增,形成了新的集团保护主义,对WTO保险多边贸易体系的进一步发展构成严峻的威胁与挑战.     

An Explanation of the International Variation in the Prevalence of Child Labour

It is hypothesized that the institutional acceptability of child labor will be more prevalent when the other members of a society gain from its use. Therefore, the cross‐country variation in the prevalence of child labor depends on the degree to which child labor affects the welfare of the remaining members of a society. It is demonstrated theoretically that the non‐child‐labor factors gain from child labor when the economy is closed. As an economy becomes more open to international trade, those gains diminish and even turn negative as the size of the economy increases. Child labor will not exist in capital abundant countries since, in them, child labor makes the non‐child‐labor factors worse off. It is shown empirically that the cross‐country prevalence of child labor falls with increases in a nation's per capita income, its openness to trade, and its economic size. It is argued that trade sanctions, as a remedy for child labor, may be counter‐productive since an open economy reduces the benefits of child labor to the other members of a society, and thereby reduces the society's incentive to allow child labor. The model also demonstrates that the economic changes brought on by democracy undermine the practice of child labor.     

International Organisations in a World of Regional Trade Agreements: Lessons from Club Theory

This essay deals with the challenge that international organizations face at the turn of the millennium. The basic insight from the theory of clubs and information theory is that coordination and cooperation require dominant providers. Cooperation becomes more difficult as players become more equal in economic size. Today's environment is less conducive to cooperation than the environment after World War II. By extension, club theory suggests that Regional Trade Agreements are not flukes. They have proliferated because cooperation is feasible in smaller groups with a few larger players. There is a significant risk, however, that regional blocs may replace the multilateral cooperative process. To reduce this risk we propose the creation of an inter‐bloc international organization dedicated to reduce blocs' barriers to trade and finance.     

Mercosul: Its Successes and Failures During Its First Two Decades

ABSTRACT

In this article, we consider the formation of the Common Market of the Southern Cone (Mercosur) as the outcome of an integration process where its two largest member countries (Brazil and Argentina) pursue industrialization objectives. The article considers the effects of Mercosur in terms of the promotion of economic efficiency and in terms of the promotion of new inflows of foreign direct investment. The article highlights that economic asymmetries between the two largest member countries have been a major obstacle in fostering economic integration in the Southern Cone region.     

The value of market access and national treatment commitments in services trade agreements

This paper looks at market access and national treatment commitments for services in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and in 95 regional trade agreements (RTAs) involving the countries that are covered in the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI). The objective is to quantify the impact of legal bindings on trade in services that result from a reduction in the uncertainty faced by exporters. Bilateral bindings indices are created for five broad service sectors (professional services, computer services, telecoms, financial services and transport services). They indicate how close the sector is from a fully bound regime with no possibility to introduce any new trade barrier, by comparing commitments with the actual trade regime. These bilateral indices are then tested over the period 2000–2014 in a structural gravity model. Despite differences across sectors, the results confirm that the legal bindings typically found in services trade agreements tend to have a positive impact on exports even if no actual liberalisation takes place.     

区域服务贸易协定中的“GATS-”条款研究

研究区域服务贸易协定的文献不可胜数,但涉及到"GATS-"条款的文献却是屈指可数。"GATS-"条款具有潜在的危害,理应引起适当的警惕,它们的存在不仅使人质疑"GATS-"下区域协定的合法地位,而且对于整个贸易体系都有着不良的暗示。本文在已有文献的基础上,对区域服务贸易安排的"GATS-"条款的主要特点、存在原因以及潜在的危害进行系统的梳理和分析,为区域服务贸易合作的发展提供有益的参考视角。     

Supplementary Trade Benefits of Multi-Memberships in African Regional Trade Agreements

ABSTRACT

Few papers have investigated the trade effects of multi-memberships of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), but none has done this in an Africa-wide manner. This paper investigates the supplementary trade effects of multi-memberships of RTAs after controlling for single-membership for all African RTAs. We use (1) overall number of RTAs by country pair; (2) dummies of number of RTAs; and (3) number of RTA memberships by countries within each RTA grouping, in a panel of 53 African countries from 1995 to 2014. The gravity models are estimated with the Eicker-White robust covariance Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) which is superior to previous ones. All the estimates concur that multi-memberships have significant additional intra-Africa trade benefits which increase with the number of memberships. The implication is that although RTAs enhance trade in Africa, it is only a second-best to a complete integration of the African continent. A complete dismantling of politically induced trade barriers and even inter-RTA boundaries within Africa will yield significant intra-Africa trade benefits. The results support the ongoing efforts in Africa in pursuing a “one Africa” vision. Such efforts have to transcend regional integration and pursue the ideal of an integrated Africa for the full trade benefits to be realized.     

欧盟投资保护理念的“西学东渐”及其启示

《里斯本条约》签署以来,欧盟新近达成的FTA呈现出“西学”美国NAFTA文本的倾向,并以FTA为媒介,将本区域的投资、人权、环境等价值“东渐”至发展中国家.欧盟在投资文本选择上的“西学东渐”策略源于其追求法律稳定性、重塑投资保护和公益管制平衡的内在需要,也有与美国保持竞存、与其进行TTIP谈判、共同参与全球贸易治理的外在需要,为中国对外谈判FTA/BIT时如何构建“中国理性”提供了启示.     

Formation of interdependent regional trade agreements and production networks

Production networks (PNs) can be defined as a determinant of trade partnership. Deepening PNs may generate positive welfare effects and lead to a proliferation in the formation of interdependent regional trade agreements (RTAs). This paper theoretically develops the link between PNs and the formation of RTAs and empirically investigates the link by applying a qualitative choice model estimation methodology (probit) with panel data that covers bilateral country‐pairs among 147 countries between 2000 and 2010. We find that the RTA formation has been strongly driven by deepening PNs between members as well as with third countries. We also find that production network‐driven RTA interdependence is member specific.     

区域贸易协定“可司法性”问题新论——朗·富勒司法哲学的启示

区域贸易协定与WTO纪律的相符性问题是国际司法实践中的一大难题。法理学者朗·富勒论述了司法的主要特征与局限,指出"多中心任务"不适合司法解决,这一思想对国际法具有高度借鉴价值。受制于一系列复杂因素,区域贸易协定与WTO纪律的相符性问题是一个典型的"多中心任务",可司法性较弱。"多中心任务"不适合司法解决的思想,为国际法治推进过程中政治与法律的分野提供了新的分析工具。     

Feasible multilateralism and the effects of regionalism

Recent research shows that the GATT/WTO negotiating rules are capable of delivering a politically efficient equilibrium. Such an equilibrium is, however, economically inefficient. Global free trade, in particular, is unattainable even in a fully cooperative world, if governments have political motivations. In such a context, we show that regional trade agreements can help move the world towards a welfare-superior equilibrium. The reason is that, when members of regional trade agreements lower trade barriers against one another, they tend to reduce their multilateral tariffs as well. Once we account for these endogenous changes—and only then—we find that regionalism can raise world welfare even in a fully cooperative (but political) world. Regional integration can, however, harm outsiders.     

Do deeper regional trade agreements enhance international technology spillovers?

We examine whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) enhance international technology spillovers using a panel of patent citation data for 114 countries/regions for the period 1991–2007. We use patent citations as a proxy for technology spillovers. The focus of this study is on whether the depth of regional integration matters for technology spillovers among member countries/regions of RTAs. The depth of integration is measured by the extent to which an RTA includes legal obligations outside the current mandate of the World Trade Organization. We find that the depth of integration actually influences technology spillovers and that a deeper integration in a broad sense has a greater impact on technology spillovers than do technology‐related provisions.     

区域贸易协定新规则对中国出口贸易高质量发展的影响研究

作为最大发展中国家,中国在世界贸易中有着极大的优势和发展前景。但中国在世界贸易中起步较晚,且整体经济基础较为薄弱,因此,如何持续有效提升中国国际贸易水平是重中之重。以区域贸易协定新规则制定为切入点,以中国与东盟地区国家贸易数据为研究样本,研究了区域贸易协定新规则制定对中国出口贸易高质量发展的影响,并提出了相关对策建议。     

A Sword and a Shield: South Korea's Strategic Use of World Trade Organization Litigation

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has since its inception in 1995 produced a cohort of 108 “fully litigated” trade cases. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of this cohort of cases reveal that South Korea ranks first among all Asia Pacific nations in appearances as complainant. Similarly, Korea ranks first among the 13 most litigious WTO members in the relative frequency with which it converts WTO Consultation Requests to formal litigation. Furthermore, its litigation history reflects a strategy to employ the formal WTO litigation venue in the service of two key exports: steel and semiconductors. Through this strategy, Korea has challenged U.S. safeguard measures on steel and defended its own putative subsidization of semiconductor manufacturers from countervailing duties imposed by the United States, European Union, and Japan.     

The importance of heterogeneity in determining the effects of preferential trade agreements on Foreign Direct Investment

This paper investigates the importance of PTA formation in attracting inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). In particular, we examine the heterogeneous effects of different types of PTAs (FTAs or CUs) on the extensive and intensive margins of FDI and on how the interdependence among various PTAs may affect a country's ability to attract FDI inflows. We find that the larger the preferential markets to which a country has access, the larger the FDI inflows the country receives. Furthermore, we find that the type of PTA matters in determining FDI inflows. In this case, we find that the formation of CUs tends to promote more FDI inflows than the formation of FTAs. Our findings also indicate that the formation of PTAs significantly affects FDI through the intensive margin, rather than through the extensive margin. Importantly, notice that these effects are driven by the preferential markets to which a country has access and that have not established a PTA with the FDI-originating (home) country, confirming that PTA interdependence matters in determining FDI inflows.     

Competitive pressure,innovation and trade protection: Evidence from US patent data

Recent theoretical models have suggested that the relationship between competition and innovation may best be characterised as an inverted‐U shape: firms in industries with low levels of competition are more likely to innovate in the wake of increased competition as they attempt to escape competition, while those in highly competitive industries will decrease innovation in the wake of increased competition as the profit incentive to innovate dissipates. Results from other studies have found positive as well as negative relationships between innovation and competition. In a parallel literature, trade economists have produced conflicting results regarding the impact of trade liberalisation on innovation. One stream of research has shown that increased access to imported intermediate goods increases productivity, suggesting a positive relationship between imports and innovation. Others have hypothesised that firms may use the technology embodied in intermediate inputs as a substitute for domestic innovation. In this paper, we merge these divergent literatures and investigate whether innovation, as measured by the production of patents by US manufacturers, has been impacted by market competition and tariff reductions. Our empirical findings indicate that insulation from imports in the form of higher tariffs on final goods was associated with innovation until the late 1980s, while falling tariffs on intermediate goods appear to have facilitated innovation during the 1990s. We also find evidence of the inverted U‐shaped relationship between market competition and innovation.     

区域贸易协定框架下的标准一致化合作研究

本文对区域贸易协定框架下标准一致化合作的不同方式对区内外不同发展水平国家的影响进行了分析。其中,着重分析了区域贸易协定框架下标准一致化合作的不同方式对发展中国家的潜在影响,并对发展中国家应采取的应对策略进行了分析。     

Obtaining a hub position: A New Economic Geography analysis of industry location and trade network structures

We present a linear New Economic Geography model with three regions, one remote region and two regions that entertain a trade agreement with low bilateral trade costs. Only one of these two integrated regions has the outside option to conclude an additional trade agreement with the remote region and to obtain a hub position. We show that the new trade agreement has a substantial impact on industry location and trade patterns and that the effects strongly depend upon level of integration between the initial two regions. It is not always the region with the outside option that profits from using it. Finally, we also show that higher firm mobility may lead to complex dynamics.     

India's Trade Policy Reforms and Industry Competitiveness in the 1980s

The paper proposes a method of measuring and analyzing competitiveness, and applies it to Indian manufacturing data of 1980/81, 1987/88 and 1991/92. The method consists of computing a unit cost ration and breaking it down into various components, ditinguishing between comparative advantage measured at shadow prices, and competitive advantage measured at market prices. The difference, equal to the sum of all price ditortions, may enhance or diminish competitiveness, depending on whether the distortions are cost‐increasing or ‐decreasing. The study reviews first the limited trade reforms of the 1980s and examines whether they have led to increased competitiveness. Although the present study is limited to less than the full potential of the method, due to lack of adequate data, it demonstrates, that the policy changes of the 1980s have failed to enhance the competitiveness of the industrial sector as a whole, while some industries have undergone substantive changes. In three industry case studies the results are compared with the findings of earlir studies.