EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION AND INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper uses cumulative export experience functions to explore the structural dynamics of South Africa's exports for the period 1990–2003. It finds a large spread of emerging non‐traditional accelerating export products across industry clusters of different factor intensities, steadily increasing their proportion in total exports and her main markets. Shift‐share and correlation analyses show that increased intra‐industry specialisation and trade within import competing product groups explain the structural change in the direction of export diversity. With respect to quality, as measured by relative unit prices of exports and imports in intra‐industry trade with the EU and the US, a relative improvement of export quality is found.     

WUBU COUNTY TIANCHENG IMPORT AND EXPORT TRADE CO., LTD

吴堡县天诚进出口贸易有限公司是一家从事农产品及果品加工和销售为一体的现代化企业,经营业务包括红枣与各种杂粮加工与销售、工程机械及配件进出口贸易、润滑油销售。其中以红枣与各种杂粮加工销售为主。公司以人为本,密切关注市场变化,准确把握市场信息,追求可持续发展。     

亲情无限 服务无限——写在青岛移动《亲情无限》服务品牌荣获山东首批服务名牌之际

春节前,中国海洋大学的小王尽管没有回家,但仍感受到了亲情的浓浓暖意。每逢传统节日,青岛移动都会在海洋大学、青岛大学、科技大学等高校里,放置近百部移动“报平安”电话供师生免费使用。几年如一日,年年有此情,正如青岛移动的服务品牌“亲情无限”一样,架起心灵的沟通。而就在今年2月揭晓的山东省首批38个服务名牌中,青岛移动“亲情无限”服务品牌高票入选。而这,仅仅是青岛移动服务的一个缩影。     

TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE: IS SOUTHERN AFRICA A POLLUTION HAVEN?

Evidence that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) may be explained by trade patterns casts doubt on the oft‐stated conclusion that economic growth automatically leads to environmental improvement. Trends in net exports as a proportion of consumption for both USA and UK trade with SACU were examined for various dirty industries. Some evidence of pollution haven effects is found, although a similar trend for clean industries suggests that this effect is weak. However, even a general shift in manufacturing industries from North to South (as opposed to a shift in specifically dirty industries) may explain the EKC to some extent.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S EXPORT PERFORMANCE: DETERMINANTS OF EXPORT SUPPLY

This paper presents both a comparative analysis of South Africa's export structure and performance and an econometric investigation of the determinants of export volumes. The paper finds that the improved growth and diversification of South African manufactured exports during the 1990s lag those of East Asia and a few other resource‐based economies. This performance in part reflects relatively low world growth in resource‐based products, but factors that affect the profitability of export supply, such as the real effective exchange rate, infrastructure costs, tariff rates and skilled labour, are also shown to be important. Export demand and the ability to compete in the export market on the basis of price are not found to be a major constraint to export growth.     

HOW EXPOSED IS THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY TO INTERNATIONAL TRADE?

Following the policies implemented during the 1990s, the South African economy has become more globalised. This is particularly the case as far as international trade is concerned. The implementation of trade reforms, in some cases faster than WTO commitments, has increased the exposure of the South African economy to international trade. Trade in intermediate inputs increases the external orientation of an industry and hence increases the economy's exposure to trade. This in effect means that the economy is more open to external trade shocks than is conveyed by the traditional openness measure which considers only the trade in final products. This paper uses a measure proposed by Campa and Goldberg (1997) to estimate the exposure to trade and finds that around 79 per cent of output in 2000 was accounted for by industries that became more exposed to international trade. Further, domestic production has become more reliant on imported inputs with around 60 per cent of South Africa's GDP being accounted for by industries with a negative external orientation (i.e. industries where imported input costs exceeded export revenue). In addition, it was also found that those sectors that became more externally oriented had lower inflation rates and higher growth rates than the other sectors in the economy for the period under analysis. The extent to which the increased exposure to international trade facilitated these developments remains topical for further research.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND WAGE PREMIUM IN ARGENTINA: THE ROLE OF TRADE FACTOR INTENSITY

During the 1990s, several Latin American countries implemented policies directed to the removal of barriers on international trade. However, there is a perception that reforms, especially trade liberalization, failed to deliver on their promises, easing the way for policies aimed at reversing some of them. Following Wood's hypothesis, we allow for the effects of liberalization to vary, depending on the skill intensity of production. The evidence confirms that the role of trade liberalization has been relatively small, but controlling for the presence of endogeneity gives larger estimates. Contrary to previous evidence, the wage premium of skilled workers was more sensitive to the increase of skill‐intensive exports than to that of unskilled‐intensive imports.     

彭水滨：栩栩如生写丹青

彭水滨自幼酷爱绘画。1984年拜著名花鸟画家陈雪薇为师,专攻工笔花鸟、山水绘画。彭水滨的画作,山水山意起伏,云烟出没,变化无穷。他画的花鸟栩栩如生,画面生动而富有灵气,自然而不做作,以新颖的创意、雅致的色彩给人以清净、优美的享受。     

UNION-OLIGOPOLY SEQUENTIAL BARGAINING: TRADE AND INDUSTRIAL POLICIES

This paper considers the efficacy and the desirability of homegovernment tariff and subsidy policies when labour market structureand asymmetries in the firms' size matter. In a Cournot-Nashduopolistic sector, a unionized home-firm competes against anon-unionized foreign firm. The home firm-union choose wagesand employment in a two-stage Nash bargaining game. The secondstage corresponds to the Cournot-Nash game with the foreignfirm. Firms may play in strategic substitutes or complements.As the home bargainers recognize that market shares are determinedby relative marginal costs, they may use the wage stage strategically.Home government policy choices critically depend upon the bargainingstructure and general equilibrium spillovers.     

EXPORT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NAMIBIA: A GRANGER CAUSALITY ANALYSIS

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the causality between exports and GDP of Namibia and to evaluate the relationship of these variables for the period 1970 to 2005. Time‐series econometric techniques (Granger causality and cointegration) are applied to test the hypothesis of a growth strategy led by exports. It tests whether export Granger causes GDP, or whether the causality runs from GDP to exports, or if there is bi‐directional causality between exports and GDP. The results revealed that exports Granger cause GDP and GDP per capita. This suggests that the export‐led growth strategy through various incentives has a positive influence on growth.     

TRADE UNIONS AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

This paper investigates the relationship between trade unionsand financial performance using British establishment-leveldata. We estimate the average overall impact of manual unionrecognition in 1990 to be roughly half what it was in 1984.We report results suggesting that in 1990 unionized establishmentshave lower financial performance only where there are closedshop arrangements and the establishments have some product marketpower and that this effect is greater where managerial freedomto allocate tasks is limited by union work rules. This lattercombination occurs in only about one in ten of the unionizedworkplaces in our sample.