The new World Trade Organization: Pacemaker for world trade?

The Gatt Uruguay Round was finally brought to a conclusion in April following long-drawn-out negotiations. What changes are contained in the new agreements? How should we rate these changes? How important will the future World Trade Organization (WTO) be?     

竞争政策与企业发展环境

作为市场竞争规则的竞争政策对于建立和维护正常的市场竞争秩序,有效地保护和鼓励正当竞争,正常发挥竞争机制的作用,保障社会主义市场经济健康发展具有重要意义。企业的发展离不开其所依赖的外部环境,企业的外部环境是多方面的,具有关联性和不稳定性。政府的竞争政策为企业制定了＂游戏规则＂。在市场竞争中,政府作为竞技场中的裁判应该尽职尽责,既不能缺位,也不能越位和错位。     

European Competition vs. Global Competitiveness Transferring EU Rules on State Aid and Public Procurement Beyond Europe

As long as state aid outside the EU is unregulated, the European Commission faces a dilemma: either European firms will be disadvantaged in global competition by strict EU rules, or the Commission will come under pressure to relax the rules, thereby running the risk that fair competition within the EU will be undermined. As a consequence, the Commission attempts to promote EU rules on state aid and public procurement beyond EU borders — in non-member countries as well as at the WTO level. This article analyses the Commission’s channels of regulatory transfer and the factors accounting for its varying success. Bilateral cooperation provides many opportunities to spread European state aid rules, but decentralised enforcement at the national level remains ultimately deficient. Moreover, the transfer of European rules to the multilateral WTO depends heavily on the EU’s ability to reach prior consensus with its most powerful partner and rival, the US government.     

Anti-competitive effects of trade policy

Because GATT rules permit countries to take anti-dumping action, anti-dumping measures have come to be regarded as an integral part of the trade landscape. But is it really necessary to have both a domestic competition policy and an external anti-dumping policy, given that both policies aim to promote competition?     

Towards a Single European Market? The Evolution of the Leasing Industry

It is argued that completion of the internal market for leasing requires sufficient openness of national markets for competition between rules to take place. This study of the leasing industry in the European Economic Area analyses those aspects of the European Commission’s Single Market Programme which are intended to achieve this aim and pinpoints tax harmonisation, banking regulation and mutual recognition of accounting standards as the main areas of Commission regulatory activity which will impact on the evolution of rules for the industry. The paper looks at the structure of the national industries and highlights the constraints and driving forces within the various rule systems which will influence the process of change. It is concluded that relatively high levels of competition between rules are actually occurring. In the long term, national markets will continue to be segmented and it is questionable whether a European leasing industry will actually emerge     

世贸组织框架下反倾销制度与竞争政策的协调

针对世贸组织反倾销制度与竞争政策的冲突问题,国际上提出了三种主要协调方案。文章分析认为在国际层面即在世贸组织框架下对反倾销制度与竞争政策的协调应分步骤进行:第一步先将世贸组织反倾销制度作改良处理,作为近期目标;第二步则应用竞争政策来解决倾销问题,作为最终目标。与此同时提出了相关的政策建议。     

TPP 视野下上海自贸区的法治思维与问题

以TPP为代表的国际经贸新规则一方面在投资、金融、服务贸易领域强调放松管制,另一方面则加强对劳工标准、环境、公平竞争的有效监管。上海自贸区的法治建设体现了主动与国际经贸新规则对接的特点。然而,在权威的立法依据、地方立法与部委规章之间的关系、对抽象性行政行为的司法审查、加强司法审判中的商事思维、加大自贸区地方立法中使用国际通行规则的表述等问题上,仍需要深入思考,在法治框架下找到合理解决方案。     

Locational Competition: A Neglected Paradigm in the International Division of Labour

Krugman's verdict that competitiveness of countries is a largely meaningless concept is a serious misjudgement of the economics profession. Countries compete for the mobile factors of production, most importantly for capital and technology. The exit‐option of these factors and of firms changes the calculus of national governments. This paper sets out the main elements of the concept of competition between locations – locational competition – and analyses its impact on welfare and employment of the capital‐exporting country. It also looks at whether competition between countries necessarily results in a race to the bottom or whether it can function as a controlling mechanism for governments and as a discovery device. The paper discusses under which conditions common rules are needed to reduce transaction costs and to prevent strategic, opportunistic behaviour of countries and which common rules thus reduce transaction costs. Finally, it deals with the question whether one institutional equilibrium in the world economy can be expected or whether many national equilibriums can coexist.     

大国产业竞争视阙下美欧推动的国际产业补贴新规则——中国的立场与对策

在经济全球化和先进技术占主导地位的时代,大国竞争的本质在于争夺产业链的控制权,提高在产业链中的地位。为阻止中国在产业链的升级,欧美通过对外签订经贸协定,推动国有企业规则和更新补贴规则,同时在WTO框架下谋求针对中国补贴模式修改WTO补贴规则,将补贴范围从财政补贴延伸至扭曲市场的贷款,以反补贴、竞争政策、国有企业规则等多项规则管制产业补贴。我国必须通过分类改革确定国有企业在产业竞争中的作用和地位,对充分竞争行业的商业类国有企业重新塑造"商业性"或"中性"身份,避免对我国国有企业特殊反补贴规则的适用;确立我国接受产业补贴规则的底线思维,通过博弈明确产业补贴负面清单,积极回应欧美国家关于补贴透明度要求,为相关谈判奠定良好基础。     

冷静面对纺织品贸易争端

世贸组织的精神是促进自由竞争,但在实践中则是坚持国际贸易规则和维持规则下的国际贸易。我国加入世贸组织的协议中包括一些“超世贸”条款,这也是我们不得不付出的代价。面对不利的规则,我们更应当理智对待,力争最有利的结果。     

Consumer protection in Switzerland: Strengthening countervailing power or competition?

Intervention by pressure groups overshadows the discussion of the extension and revision of legislation in the field of competition. The result is increasing codification of political interpretations of the rules underlying a market oriented economy. This tendency is not only illustrated by the draft law on the monitoring of prices but also by the one on consumer protection. In both cases, two guiding principles are at stake, namely the strengthening of rules of competition and the improvement of the position of consumers. The article emphasizes the economic implications of these two principles and shows how difficult it is to reconcile them in the new law. Measures designed to provide more transparent market structures may have adverse effects. Measures designed to reinforce the position of consumers create imperfect conditions on the demand side. In both cases it is unclear how their explicit and social costs will be divided between producers and consumers and what will be their impact on prices.     

Trade, competition and antidumping—Breaking the impasse!?

Recent reviews of the WTO, while cautioning against broadening its scope, nevertheless agree that antidumping concerns would need to be addressed “somehow”. Obviously, promoting international market access and “fair” competition is difficult in the presence of divergent rules for dealing with private market power and non-border restraints to trade. This is especially true once these differences are taken to justify preferences for highly discretionary trade policy measures in dealing with dumping concerns. Antidumping and the prerequisite competition issues will therefore have to be put onto the agenda of the new round of trade negotiations.     

Strategic Behaviour under European Antidumping Duties

In this paper we develop a dynamic two-period model of imperfect competition to analyse the effects of European antidumping duties on firm behaviour and domestic welfare. Our model is one of the first to complement the European empirical literature on antidumping policy and can usefully be compared with papers dealing with the effects of US antidumping policy. We arrive at three important conclusions: (a) the strategic behaviour of European firms under European antidumping rules may run in the opposite direction compared to the incentives for US firms provided under the US antidumping rules; (b) US antidumping rules perform better than European rules in terms of domestic welfare and in terms of protecting domestic value added and employment; (c) the Strategic Trade Policy argument for protection need not apply for antidumping duties because the level of protection is endogenously determined by the firms involved.     

对我国通信运营商竞争与合作的博弈分析

本文认为,由于存在个人理性与集体理性之间的矛盾,短期内通信运营商在价格竞争博弈中可能选择相互压价的非合作策略,但是从长远来看,还有实现合作的可能性;选择互联互通对于通信运营商各方来说都是有利的。文章提出,在电信产业的发展中,政府应当发挥积极作用,制定市场规则,并公正地执行规则,从宏观的角度对通信运营商进行积极的引导,促成通信运营商走向良性竞争,实现共赢;要最终解决我国通信运营商之间存在的恶性价格战、互联互通障碍等问题,需要对国有通信运营商的公司治理结构进行改革,使通信运营商成为真正以赢利为目的的市场主体。     

The Hungarian Cocktail of Competition Law and Consumer Protection: Should It Be Dissolved?

Hungary, a candidate country expecting to join the EU in 2004, has to approximate its laws and economic policies to those of the EU. However, it is not certain whether the Brussels standards will always improve national rules.This article will discuss one possible case. It concerns the special Hungarian legislation on competition law and certain consumer protection rules in the Competition Act of 1990 and the amended Act of 1996. The inclusion of rules governing consumer interests in the Acts greatly contributed to the recognition and the enforcement of consumer interests in Hungary.Nevertheless, the European Commission and the OECD increasingly argue that the Hungarian Office of Economic Competition should pass its competence in consumer related cases to another institution and instead pay more attention to more prominent fields of competition law such as horizontal agreements and mergers.This article will contest this argument. Although it is an understandable approach, there are several reasons why it should be carefully reconsidered. These include the position of consumers, which is still weak, the general system of consumer protection in Hungary, and the strong standing of the Office for Economic Competition. The comprehensive nature of the Hungarian Competition Act of 1996 is one of the cases in which the European guidelines should be considered with caution in order to determine whether their implementation would improve or damage a system that already functions well.     

外资银行在华并购的反垄断规制政策研究

中国目前既缺乏专门的法律来规范外资银行的并购行为,也没有专门的管制权威机构去评估审查其行为可能带来的反竞争效应,因此迫切需要加强对外资银行在华并购行为的反垄断规制。应从合理原则和国家金融安全与金融竞争力目标,高效的组织管理体系和合作有序的管制协调机制,统一的《银行并购法》,科学合理的对竞争效果的经济分析体系,激励性和约束性相容的反垄断规制政策,专业化、国际化的人才培养与激励机制等几方面进行政策设计。     

Strategic Options Available to the Service Marketer in a Highly Competitive Uncertain Environment

Intensifying competition in the service sector has pre- sented service marketers with environments more turbulent and un- certain than ever. And careful attention must be paid to systematic plans and actions. The travel agency business, one of the fastest- growing service industries of the last decade (Banks 1985), illus- trates. Deregulation of airlines (1978) and of travel agents (1985) have caused dramatic changes in operating rules, in the degree and nature of competition, and in the structure of an entire industry. This paper explores the case of travel agency services to illustrate both such changes and the repertoire of strategic responses necessary to effectively compete.     

EC Competition Law After Modernisation: More than Ever in the Interest of Consumers

In this paper it is argued that even though the consumer cannot (anymore) be reduced to a homo oeconomicus, competition law is the cornerstone of consumer law and that the decentralised application of EC competition law since 1 May 2004 (pursuant to Regulation 1/2003) gives new opportunities for an effective application of the EC competition rules to the benefit of consumers. While the EC Treaty (and the future Constitution for Europe) aim to protect consumers in the framework of the internal market programme, as well as on the basis of a genuine consumer protection policy, it is submitted that an effective competition policy remains crucial for consumers in a market economy. Consumer interests are generally diffuse and therefore difficult to protect via legal procedures. Nevertheless a further development of remedies which are already available in Community law (nullity of restrictive agreements, claims for damages, actions for a cease and desist order, and so on) will contribute to an increased application of the competition rules in the interest of consumers.     

BOOK REVIEWS

The Cost of Europe by PATRICK MINFORD (ed.) International Aspects of Economic Development by GRAHAM BIRD (ed.) Changing the Economic System in Russia by ANDERS ASLUND and RICHARD LAYARD Globalizing the Gatt — The Soviet Union's Successor States Eastern Europe and the International Trading System by LEAH A. HAUS Mexico The Remaking of an Economy by NORA LUSTIG National Trade Policies by DOMINICK SALVATORE (ed.), Economic Reforms in Centrally Planned Economies and Their Impact on the Global Economy by JOZEF M. VAN BRABANT     

我国服务贸易非公平竞争的分析和建议

GATS是服务贸易领域第一个多边协议,是乌拉圭回合多边贸易谈判的主要成果之一。根据GATS的规定,国际服务业必将进入逐步自由化阶段．．本文从竞争政策与竞争规则的角度,分析GATS协议中涉及的有关服务贸易的公平竞争原则,并对我国服务贸易领域竞争法的完善提出若干建议。