Regionalism Within Multilateralism: The WTO Trade Policy Review of Canada

The World Trade Organisation published a Trade Policy Review of Canada in 2003. In this paper, we discuss the WTO Review and augment the discussion by presenting original data and reviewing the empirical literature. The WTO concludes that Canada's trade regime is open and transparent but maintains barriers in a few important sectors. We subject this claim to empirical scrutiny, comparing Canada's actual imports to a multilateral benchmark based on the gravity equation. We show that Canada imports about what should be expected given the size of its economy and its location. In a second benchmarking exercise, we show that Canada's anti‐dumping initiations are in proportion to its imports and that Canada's exports are targeted less by other countries’ anti‐dumping investigations than what might be expected based on Canadian export levels. Like many other countries, Canada has pursued trade liberalisation through the World Trade Organisation while simultaneously signing multiple regional trade agreements. Our summary of the recent literature indicates that Canada's regional trade agreements have generated more trade creation than trade diversion. Canada has also spurred imports from the least developed countries by unilaterally eliminating tariffs and quota barriers on 48 of the world's poorest countries in January 2003. We also discuss Canadian progress in opening its agriculture and clothing industries. Overall, we conclude that Canada appears committed to advancing globalisation through multilateral trade liberalisation supplemented by unilateral and bilateral initiatives.     

The Consumer and Advertising Regulation in the Television without Frontiers and Audiovisual Media Services Directives

This paper aims to assess the balance between the commercial interests of broadcaster and advertiser and the interests of the viewer, as well as programme makers. The new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) seeks to clarify and to simplify whilst maintaining the traditional European broadcasting landscape. The recurrent theme of the debate about legislative revision has been based in the vocabulary of consumer choice empowered by technology. The use of this vocabulary then leads to assumptions about the ability of the consumer to make choices. Insofar as those choices existed, they have been limited by developments in the AVMSD and in the broadcasting environment. Despite the claims of the AVMSD about viewer choice, it seems likely that the viewer will have no choice whether to receive commercial communications or not.

Exposure to foreign media and changes in cultural traits: Evidence from naming patterns in France

Free trade in audio-visual services has faced opposition on the grounds that foreign media undermine domestic culture, and ultimately, global diversity. Using a long panel of French birth registries, we assess the media–culture link using name frequencies as a measure of tastes. Controlling for the number of people who currently have a name and unobserved name effects, our regressions show that media influences choices via selective imitation. Parents are much more likely to adopt media names that they associate with youth. Using estimated parameters, we simulate our model of name choice to reveal that, absent foreign media, fewer than 5% of French babies would have been named differently. Our simulations also suggest a positive effect of foreign media on the welfare of parents.     

Offshore production and skill upgrading by Japanese manufacturing firms

We investigate the influence of offshore production by Japanese multinationals on domestic skill intensity. Identifying relationships based on within variation in a panel of 1070 firms, we find that additional foreign affiliate employment in low-income countries raises skill intensity. The positive effect of FDI on domestic skill intensity, however, diminishes as investment shifts towards high-income countries. Increases in affiliate employment in low-income countries also raise a firm’s reliance on finished goods purchases, suggesting that overseas employment affects domestic skill intensity because imports of final goods from foreign affiliates displace domestic production.     

The Cultural Paradigm of the Smaller Firm

This paper presents the findings from an ethnographic study of organizational culture and shared values in four smaller firms, the outcome of which was the identification of the cultural values shared between owner–managers (OMs) and employees in each firm. The research employed Schein's conceptualization of culture as a three-layer phenomenon, consisting of surface artifacts, shared values and beliefs, and basic assumptions. The analytical technique of grounded theory was employed to process the large volume of data gathered during the extended research period. The data reveal a complex array of values in each firm, with only one firm exhibiting a homogenous culture where values are shared by all those working in the organization. In the remaining three firms, five values appear to be shared by all employees; however, this is overlaid by a pattern of subcultures differentiated by distinctive shared values. Interfirm analysis among the four firms found that the values of survival, independence, control, pragmatism, and financial prudence were shared by two or more firms. The research collectively defines these shared values as the cultural paradigm of the smaller firm.     

推进外汇管理体制简约化市场化改革研究

作为金融监管和服务体系的重要组成部分,外汇管理体制改革必须顺应我国经济金融体制改革和外向型经济发展的趋势。当前,随着世界经济一体化进程的推进和我国经济开放度的提高,外汇管理体制改革面临新的任务,迫切需要进行体制创新,以真正实现外汇管理的简约化和市场化。本文从实际出发,提出了推进外汇管理简约化市场化改革的总体思路,论述了近期的主要措施,并对未来的改革进行了展望。