Necessarily welfare-enhancing customs unions with industrialization constraints: The Cooper-Massell-Johnson-Bhagwati conjecture

This paper demonstrates that welfare-improving Customs Unions can be guaranteed even if we are constrained by specific non-economic government objectives, thus proving the Cooper-Massell-Johnson-Bhagwati conjecture. We consider a ‘production’ objective here, where a member country requires the output of a particular sector (e.g. a target level of industrialization) to be maintained at the pre-union level, and show that welfare-improving Customs Unions can still be achieved. It is straightforward to show that this result can be extended to other non-economic objectives as well.     

Harmonization of the auditor's report

International efforts to harmonize the audit report, spearheaded by the International Auditing Practices Committee of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), culminated in the issuance of International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 13 in 1983. The stated purpose of ISA 13 was to: “provide guidance to auditors on the form and content of the auditor's report issued in connection with the independent audit of the financial statements of any entity.” The purpose of this paper is to assess whether ISA 13 has resulted in greater international harmonization of audit reports. We assess the level of harmonization both by examining the extent to which countries have adopted ISA 13 and by the extent to which the content of the auditor's report has changed. A survey of IFAC's member organizations in 86 countries netted 50 responses. Eighty-six percent of respondents (and 93% of respondents from developing and emerging economies) said they have achieved harmonization with ISA 13. We compared the auditor's reports (in financial reports) of 450 companies in 33 IFAC member countries on two different dates (a pre-ISA 13 date and a post-ISA 13 date). The results suggest a higher degree of conformity with the standard for the post-ISA 13 reports. Finally, cluster analysis was conducted to explore the dynamics of clustering from pre-ISA 13 to post-ISA 13 regimes. A slight drop in the divisiveness coefficient (DC) was observed for the total audit report elements as well as for the form elements, suggesting a less cohesive cluster structure for the post-ISA 13 regime. The empirical evidence, taken as a whole, shows reduced diversity of practices and standards involving the audit report since the issuance of ISA 13. This conclusion should provide encouragement for international standard-setters.     

Market disruption, export market disruption, compensation and GATT reform

This paper analyzes the problem of market disruption as it currently afflicts the exporting countries, chiefly LDCs. Based on the analysis of optimal policy intervention under endogenous uncertainty, developed by Bhagwati and Srinivasan (Journal of International Economics, November 1976), it develops a complete set of rules by which the developed and less developed countries may abide, under a revised GATT code, when faced by the problem of increased competitiveness of LDC exports to DC markets. These rules include the compensation of LDCs by DCs, in varying degrees, for both potential and actual exercise of import restrictions by DCs.