Fishing Technology and Optimal Distribution of Harvest Rates

This paper examines the problem of the optimal management of a joint-ownership fishing exploitation, where agents use different fishing gears. We consider a model in which the fishing activity may affect resource growth, not only through the harvest function but also through the natural growth rate of the resource. This allows us to capture the fact that some fishing gears alter the natural growth rate of the resource. We find that when the natural growth of the resource is altered by the fishing technology, the optimal stock is not independent of how harvest quotas are distribute among the agents. As a result, a fishing policy that firstly determines the optimum stock and, secondly, decides how to distribute the harvest among the different agents, will not be efficient. We also analyze the joint determination of optimal stock and harvest quotas and show that positive harvest quotas will only be optimal when countries are characterized by certain asymmetries.     

A “quota silo” or positive equality reach? The equality impact of gender quotas on corporate boards in Norway

10 years after its implementation, we explore the equality reach of the 40% Norwegian gender quota regulation for boards of public limited companies (PLCs) using a multi‐strategy approach (administrative data and interviews with women directors) to capture interrelated macro and meso changes. We employ Acker's (2006) inequality regimes as our analytical framework, augmented by the “equality reach” concept. We found strong compliance with the 40% Quota. However, there was little evidence of voluntary spillover to limited companies as envisaged by Quota proponents; instead Quota coverage reduced as some PLCs changed status to avoid the Quota requirement. We reveal that positive equality reach in one of the most equal countries in the world is confined to a PLC “quota silo,” which has shrunk over the life of the Quota. Moreover, we suggest that PLC high levels of compliance may be a defensive strategy seen as necessary in the regulatory/high sanction context of the Quota. We demonstrate the need for further political and organisational interventions to improve equality reach beyond the quota silo. We also show the value of the equality reach concept for research on equality interventions and warn of the dangers of an intervention leading to an equality silo.     

基于销售定额的信息甄别模型和差别工资

根据不同能力类型的销售人员具有不同形状的效用曲线这一假设．建立了信息甄别模型来研究销售人员的报酬激励机制，证明了分离均衡是该模型唯一的均衡，并且优于混同均衡，得出以差别工资制取代统一工资制可以提高管理效率，减少了雇佣双方由于信息不对称带来的无谓损失，其结果具有一定的理论和实际意义。     

中美纺织品贸易摩擦及解决机制研究

2005年1月1日纺织品配额取消后中美纺织品贸易摩擦不断升级。中美纺织品贸易磨擦根本原因是中美贸易的不平衡,深层次原因是产业结构不相配。要想扭转纺织品出口的被动局面,必须改变以往以量取胜的理念,提高产品质量和自主品牌价值,通过产业升级、出口市场多元化等分散贸易风险。     

Trade Liberalization in Textiles and Clothing and Developing Countries: An Analysis with Special Emphasis on the US Import Market

This article examines the role and importance of the textiles and clothing sector in the economies of the United States and developing countries as well as the qualitative changes in the dynamics of the industry. After briefly looking at the history of protectionism in the industry, the article addresses the impact of quota elimination on developing countries' exports to the United States. It also discusses the role of China as the dominant supplier. It suggests that with the elimination of quotas, most of the benefits will probably accrue to a handful of efficient suppliers, notably China and India. The article concludes by providing some recommendations to enable many developing countries to cushion the sudden effects of trade liberalization.     

Is the pragmatic response to International Monetary Fund quotas and credit limits favourable?

Under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s recently developed pragmatic response, the amount a member can borrow is not determined by its quota. We consider two pragmatic responses that produce a Pareto improvement, compared with the IMF rule: one mandated by the IMF and the other related to the trade of the additional credit limit in the market. Both these responses indicate that the additional credit limit on top of the IMF rule should be positive (negative) for a country whose investment return is larger (smaller) than the average investment return across all IMF member developing countries. The rule for the IMF credit limit does not reflect the demand for credit, which induces inefficiency. The first pragmatic response, which has an appropriately small negotiation and distribution cost per unit incurred by the IMF, may dominate the second one.     

Taxation, Migration, and Pollution

This paper analyzes optimal fiscal, environmental and immigration policy for a single jurisdiction. In the presence of immigration quotas, taxes on the output of externality-producing industries should be higher than indicated by the standard rule for Pigovian corrective taxation. Immigration quotas are not optimal if fiscal instruments can be used to control immigration, and relaxation of immigration quotas generally increases domestic welfare. If optimal taxes are imposed on immigrants, no immigration quota should be imposed, and a version of the traditional Pigovian rule characterizes optimal taxation of domestic externalities. If production in the immigrants' country of origin causes trans-boundary spillovers, domestic welfare can be improved by lighter taxation of immigrants or by further relaxation of immigration quotas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Market power and compliance with output quotas

This paper examines the compliance behaviour of a dominant firm in an output quota market when the firm is able to exercise market power in both the quota and the output markets. Provided the firm has an initial quota endowment which is strictly positive, under some circumstances the firm may find it profitable to comply or even over-comply in its quota demand, even in the absence of enforcement. The results are compared to those found in the pollution permit literature for a firm with market dominance only in the permit market, to which some additional observations are also added concerning efficiency outcomes under non-compliance.     

Causes of Growth and Decline in Mexico’s Maquiladora Apparel Sector

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) beginning in 1994, the maquiladora sector was the dynamic manufacturing sector in Mexico, and its apparel subsector was especially so, more than quadrupling in employment from December 1993 to July 2000. Yet NAFTA’s influence on apparel employment is hard to find in a careful time series econometric analysis. Instead, much of employment growth is explained for 1980 to the present by changes in US demand as measured by real US gross domestic product or by real US apparel spending, by US/Mexico relative labor cost as proxied by the real peso‐dollar exchange rate, and by the relaxation of quotas on US apparel imports from Mexico in 1988–1990. In equations including these variables, tests for a structural break at the time of NAFTA find an effect which is either insignificant or else quite small and in some models negative. Possible explanations for this surprising result are discussed, along with the implications for cost–benefit analysis of free trade agreements.     

欧盟非关税壁垒措施分析

欧盟是世界上经济最发达的地区之一 ,多年来一直是中国重要的贸易伙伴。但近年来为了保护本地区内部市场 ,欧盟采取了一系列的贸易保护措施 ,尤其是非关税壁垒措施更是大量的使用。这些措施的实行在一定程度上对我国商品对欧盟的出口产生了诸多不利的影响。文章就欧盟非关税壁垒措施包含的内容以及欧盟出台的相应政策进行了详细的分析 ,并对中国与欧盟近期贸易前景进行了预测。