SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR IN GENEVA

This article reflects on how close World Trade Organization members came to reaching agreement in Geneva last July on the key agricultural and industrial issues at the heart of the Doha Round. But since 6 November, when the text of this article was finalised, the global economy has been in continuing decline and there was insufficient convergence on outstanding issues to justify a new ministerial meeting tentatively planned for December. The prospects of completing the round by the end of 2009 have therefore weakened.     

中国—东盟自由贸易区法律制度框架存在的问题研究——基于与WTO法律制度比较分析

2010年1月1日,中国—东盟自由贸易区(CAFTA)正式建成。它的建成对中国与东盟各国的经贸关系乃至政治关系,都将产生深远而重大的影响。建立CAFTA的法律基础包括五大法律文本,文章在对CAFTA法律文本主要内容进行分析的基础上,重点与WTO法律制度进行对比,发现存在的一些问题,最后得出结论与展望。     

中国入世后建筑业发展的对策研究

中国建筑业与发达国家建筑业在体制、法制、机制、产业结构、技术水平及市场竞争力等方面存在着较大差距,缩短这些差距的重要途径就是与国际接轨。本文根据世贸组织（ＷＴＯ）关于“全球贸易自由化”的宗旨,结合中国建筑业的现状提出了提高中国建筑业整体水平的八点对策。特别指出,只有按市场经济规律办事和进行企业创新才能不断增强中国建筑业的国际竞争能力。     

The political economy of international trade and factor mobility

Abstract. Free trade in goods and factors is efficient. When we move away from economic theory and consider the policies actually followed by governments, we observe distortions being implemented both on goods and factors trades. It is natural then to question the relative merits of the two types of intervention, and the normative literature has provided only partial answers. We ask then why is the international flow of goods and factors not free, and the political economy literature has looked at the two issues only separately. In studying the determination of trade policy, a theoretical paradigm has emerged, focusing on the role of influence driven contributions. This approach has also found strong empirical support. The literature on the political economy of factor mobility, on the other hand, is fragmented. Distortions in labor and capital flows are typically the subject of different studies, and only recently a unified framework has been proposed. More work has to be done in this area as well as in integrating the political economy of trade and factor movements.     

Study on Nepal-China Economic Relations

The Chinese economy is in the process of gradual transformation towards a market economy and opening to the outside world. Nepal is also committed to promoting private sector-led economic growth based on liberalization and deregulated competitive markets. To this effect the country has already introduced a range of policy reforms related to exchanged rate policy, trade and industrial policy, foreign investment policy and privatization. Both countries are now the member of the World Trade Organization. These changes in economic policies of the two neighbors have created favorable.     

Export restraints in a model of trade with capital accumulation

This paper examines the impact of voluntary export restraints (VERs) in an international duopoly modeled as a differential game. With a Ramsey capital accumulation dynamics, the game admits multiple steady states, and a VER cannot be ‘voluntarily’ employed by the foreign firm in case of Cournot behavior in demand substitutes. Hence, the dynamic framework confirms the results of the VERs literature with static interaction in output levels. In the case of price behavior, the adoption of an export restraint may increase the profits of both firms if products are substitutes and the steady state is ‘market-driven’. However, contrary to the acquired wisdom based upon the static approach, the dynamic analysis also admits an equilibrium outcome, identified by the Ramsey golden rule, where the incentive to adopt a VER is ruled out, irrespective of whether firms are quantity- or price-setters.     

Trade imbalances and harmonization of competition policies

The present study constructs a game in which the two countries strategically set competition policies in their respective non-tradable service sectors. These policies affect the countries’ utilities through the presence of trade imbalances. We demonstrate that in the presence of persisting trade imbalances, in a Nash equilibrium, the trade-deficit country maintains perfect competition while the trade-surplus country restricts competition. This shows it highly difficult to harmonize their policies to achieve the first best state under the current international trade regime, which is centered around the principle of reciprocity.     

Intergovernmental Organisations and Economic Freedom: Wise Technocrats or Black Helicopters?

This article explores the relationship between country membership in major intergovernmental organisations and economic freedom. While it makes no claims to have found any broad theoretically bound, robust causal mechanism, baseline fixed effects models establish relationships amongst economic freedom and membership in the EU, NATO, WTO, UN, OECD, World Bank, and IMF. Though the results are not simple, the strongest findings are negative relationships with the UN, IMF, and WTO, and positive relationships with the World Bank and possibly the EU.     

CONTAINING SINO-EUROPEAN PROTECTIONISM

The trade politics of EU–China commercial relations have sharply deteriorated in the last year. Obsessed by the EU's trade deficit with China, European leaders have become shrill and confrontational in their approach. China has contained its irritation over the EU's China-bashing, but has slowed down its trade liberalisations. The EU and China must find a new way to contain protectionist threats in their trade and investment relations.     

促进我国区域贸易的探讨

区域贸易是指不同区域之间进行商品交换的活动。历史证明:存在区域贸易的区域比那些自给自足的封闭型地区更能够促进国民经济的发展。目前,我国各省区之间的区域贸易仍然比较弱,地方保护主义仍旧盛行。各地区没有充分利用各自的比较优势、以专业化生产来提高各自的贸易利益。本文通过对我国地区贸易冲突及生成机制的研究,找出出现这种现象的根本原因。同时,借鉴美国促进国内区域贸易的措施,给我国合理的区域贸易建言献策。     

以国内信用证促进国内贸易

自2020年开始,新冠肺炎席卷全球,在这样的背景下,我国诸多外贸企业遭受了不同程度的冲击,进出口下降、交易成本增加等问题纷纷出现。对此,诸多企业不得不开始转变运营方向,内贸市场一时间成为国内外贸企业的新宠儿。纵观2020年,国内信用证在内贸结算的使用日益广泛,结算及融资量得到放量增长。在此有必要重新审视国内信用证的原义,分析其快速发展的原因,为挖掘国内证推动国内贸易潜能提出相关建议。     

碳关税对世界经济和农产品贸易的影响研究

采用GTAP 8.0模拟欧盟、美国、日本分别和同时征收碳关税时对世界经济和产品贸易的影响。结果表明：碳关税将对世界经济均衡增长产生负面影响,受影响最大的是中国、金砖和东盟国家;碳关税将改变世界贸易结构和贸易利益格局,发达国家受益、发展中国家受损;碳关税将使世界农产品出口总额小幅下降,但对改善世界农产品贸易结构具有积极作用。     

Obstfeld and Rogoff׳s international macro puzzles: a quantitative assessment

Obstfeld and Rogoff (2001) propose that trade frictions lie behind key puzzles in international macroeconomics. We take a dynamic multicountry model of international trade, production, and investment to data from 19 countries to assess this proposition quantitatively. Using the framework developed in Eaton et al. (2016), we revisit the puzzles in a counterfactual world without trade frictions in manufactures. Removing these trade frictions goes a long way toward resolving a number of puzzles. The dependence of domestic investment on domestic saving falls by half or disappears entirely, mitigating the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) puzzle. Changes in nominal GDPs in U.S. dollars become less variable across countries and line up with changes in real GDPs as much as with real exchange rates, mitigating the exchange rate disconnect puzzle. Less dramatically, changes in consumption become more correlated across countries, mitigating the consumption correlations puzzle and changes in real exchange rates become less variable across countries, mitigating the relative purchasing power parity puzzle.     

On the distributional effects of trade policy: Dynamics of household saving and asset prices

This paper studies the effect of trade liberalization on inequality. We develop a theoretical framework that generates economy-wide distributions of wealth and income for different levels of trade protection. The model unambiguously determines the effect of liberalization on inequality; and rationalizes why larger inequality can be the outcome of a welfare enhancing policy, as households reduce their buffer savings when liberalization lowers the price of food. The framework reconciles the increase in inequality, the fall in the value of land, and farmers’ opposition to freer trade, that have featured in different liberalization episodes. We also present empirical support for the model’s predictions.     

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH FAIR TRADE: CANDOUR OR DECEPTION?

Proponents of development through Fair Trade allege the movement can seek out the most disadvantaged in ways an impersonal market cannot. While in theory Fair Trade could provide these qualities in a market‐based framework, the evidence herein shows the current Fair Trade movement is failing when measured against these objectives.