The International Coffee Agreement: Economics of the Nonmember Market

The provisions of the 1983 International Coffee Agreement (ICA) and proposed reforms to eliminate exports to nonmember importers at discounted prices are analyzed. The discounted sales were a key issue that led to the breakdown of negotiations for a new ICA and the end of export quotas under the current agreement. A model of the world coffee market incorporating the policy response of exporting countries is used to analyze the welfare implications of the different alternatives. The model shows that the price discounts result from the structure of the current agreement (the existence of nonmember importing countries) and allocation of export quotas for the member market, which does not reflect export capacity. Welfare calculations based on the model show that several small exporters derive substantial benefits from nonmember market sales. These exporters will not be willing to comply with an arrangement to allocate quotas for the nonmember market unless they receive a large share of this market. However, the large exporters appear determined to retain their market share. The results of the model predict that, unless importers no longer insist on eliminating the price discounts, a new agreement is unlikely.     

Appropriating Resources: Land Claims,Law, and Illicit Business

Business ethicists should examine ethical issues that impinge on the perimeters of their specialized studies (Byrne 2011). This article addresses one peripheral issue that cries out for such consideration: the international resource privilege (IRP). After explaining briefly what the IRP involves I argue that it is unethical and should not be supported in international law. My argument is based on others’ findings as to the consequences of current IRP transactions and of their ethically indefensible historical precedents. In particular I examine arguments from political philosophy for more equitable distribution of resources and appeals to property rights as a means of achieving this; business ethicists’ critiques of contemporary resource appropriations; and legal historians’ accounts of despoliation of aboriginal peoples, especially in what is now the United States, involving acquisition via conquest, asserted jurisdiction, and religious and racial preeminence. I also consider relevant human rights’ standards; supportive views of some theorists, especially early modern realists and current supporters of group rights and multidimensional rectification; some de facto incidences of substantive restitution; and proposals for effecting further rectification.     

The Relaunch of the Trades Union Congress

Despite the institutional bias in British industrial relations research, one of the oldest institutions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has been neglected by researchers. This article seeks to rectify this deficiency through an analysis of the formal relaunch of the TUC since 1994 under its new General Secretary, John Monks. It reviews the internal reforms and innovations in policy that comprise the relaunch and identifies two competing visions of the union future that lie at its centre. In the first of these, the TUC's role is to act as an authoritative social partner in relations with government and employers, while in the second its function is to promote, co-ordinate and support organizing activity by its member unions. Each of these perspectives on the TUC's role is informed by experience overseas in continental Europe in the one case and in Australia and the United States in the other. The article concludes that social partnership and the 'organizing model' are not easily reconciled and that, despite the relaunch, the TUC has yet to make a key strategic choice: whether to follow the European or the North American route as it enters the twenty-first century.     

Differential response of U.S. import prices and quantities to exchange-rate adjustments

Zusammenfassung Unterschiedliche Reaktionen der amerikanischen Importpreise und-mengen auf Wechselkursanpassungen. - Dieser Aufsatz stellt einen ersten Versuch dar, für verschiedene Industrien die Wirkung von Wechselkurs?nderungen auf Preise und Mengen der Importgüter zu analysieren. Es werden Theoreme auf dem Gebiet der Industrieorganisation und des internationalen Handels herangezogen, wenn untersucht wird, welchen Einflu? branchenspezifische Besonderheiten auf die von Industriezweig zu Industriezweig unterschiedlichen wechselkursbedingten Preis- und Mengenreaktionen haben. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, da? solche Besonderheiten tats?chlich das Ausma? beeinflussen, in dem sich Wechselkursbewegungen in Ver?nderungen der Dollarpreise ausl?ndischer Güter niederschlagen. Sie deuten au?erdem darauf hin, da? die Art dieses Einflusses von Land zu Land und je nach Richtung der Dollarkursschwankungen unterschiedlich ist.

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Résumé Réponse différentielle des prix et quantités des importations des E.U. aux ajustements des taux de change. - Cette étude est la première qui essaie d’analyser pour les branches de l’industrie l’effet des changements de taux de change sur les prix et les quantités des biens commercés. Basée sur des théorèmes de l’organisation industrielle et de la théorie du commerce international, elle examine l’effet des caractéristiques des branches industrielles sur les réponses différentielles de prix et de quantité des importations des E.U. aux mouvements des taux de change. Les résultats suggèrent que les caractéristiques des branches influencent la mesure avec laquelle les mouvements des taux de change sont transmis aux changements en prix dollar des biens étrangers. Les auteurs aussi concluent que cette influence varie selon les pays et la direction du mouvement du dollar.

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Resumen La respuesta diferenciada del precio y la cantidad de las importaciones de los EE UU a ajustes en la tasa de cambio. - Este trabajo représenta un primer intento de realizar un analisis del efecto de ajustes en la tasa de cambio sobre los precios y las cantidades de los bienes négociables a nivel de ramas industriales. Se basa en la teoría de la organización industrial y en la del comercio internacional al examinar el impacto de las características de las industrias sobre las respuestas diferenciadas del precio y la cantidad de las importaciones de los EE UU a movimientos en la tasa de cambio. Los resultados sugieren que las características de las industrias influencian la medida en la cual los movimientos de la tasa de cambio son transmitidos a los precios en dólares de los bienes extranjeros. Los resultados también sugieren que esa influencia varía de país a país y al cambiar el sentido de los movimientos del dólar.

     

Book briefs

Agricultural mechanization and the evolution of farming systems in Sub‐Saharan Africa, World Bank publication, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and Lon‐don, 1987

Livestock development in Latin America, World Bank publication. 1986

Liberty, Market and State: Political economy in the 1980s, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986

Law, custom and social order: The colonial experience in Malawi and Zambia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1985