Trade openness and government size of small developing countries

This paper examines the causal effect that trade openness has on government size in small developing countries (SDCs). We use the construction of the trade cost variables based on Baltic Dry Index in primary goods as instruments of trade openness to address the endogeneity issue. We find that the increase in trade openness leads to an increase in government size: a 1 percent expansion in trade openness (trade GDP ratio) raises government consumption over GDP ratio by approximately 0.1–0.2 percentage points on average. Its quantitative significance emphasizes the importance of rethinking the costs and benefits of trade openness for SDCs.     

The political economy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: a ‘21st Century’ trade agreement?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the first of the ‘Mega-FTAs’ to be signed. Had it been ratified, it would have created the world’s largest preferential trade area. The negotiators of the TPP aspired to create ‘a next-generation transformative agreement’ that would address a new trade agenda focused on regulatory coherence and business facilitation. The expectation was that this agenda would generate a 21st Century trade politics that would be less contentious, at least among business actors, than traditional negotiations on market access. Studies of another Mega-FTA under negotiation, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that has a similar agenda found unified business support for the agreement domestically and the emergence of transnational business coalitions in support of the agreement. Recent theorising on trade politics suggests, however, that global value chains (GVCs) that involve vertical intra-industry trade introduce ‘traditional’ distributional issues that will divide business interests domestically – and, in the case of GVCs organised on different geographical bases, internationally as well. This cleavage was evident in the TPP negotiations, unlike those for TTIP, as were other divisions among business – both domestically and across countries – over the sharing of existing rents and of new rents generated by regulatory harmonisation.     

THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMPETITION ON SECTORAL GROWTH: A CROSS‐COUNTRY ANALYSIS

This paper examines the impact of competition on the total factor productivity (TFP) of 21 manufacturing sectors in eighteen OECD countries over the period of time 1990–2006. We assume that the source of TFP growth can be either domestic or foreign innovation or technology transfer from the technological frontier. Trade openness, R&D, and human capital can have two effects: a direct effect on TFP (e.g., through innovation) and an indirect effect depending on the productivity gap between a given country and the technological frontier. We find that tougher domestic competition is always associated with higher sectoral productivity. Both import and export penetrations are positively associated with an increase of TFP. However, the channels through which higher TFP is materialized are different: export penetration works through level effect, while import penetration acts mainly when conditional on the level of technological development. The economical magnitude of the effect is not trivial.     

中国企业境外产业园区开发的实践及体会

近几年以来,越来越多的中国企业在全球开发建设产业园、经贸区,为中资企业境外投资拱建良好的平台,以满足日益增长的中国企业对外投资需求。浙江前江投资管理有限责任公司于2007年开始在越南投资兴建了龙江工业园。经过几年发展,龙江工业园于2011年成功被中国商务部核准成为中国境外经贸合作区,为中资企业投资越南提供了一个良好的平台,同时有效地提升了园区所在地的社会经济发展,为加强中国-越南两国的经贸关系做出了贡献。本文以龙江工园的开发实践为基础,提出了在境外进行工业园区开发建设的经验及体会。     

Globalization and trade union strategy: industrial restructuring and human resource management in the international civil aviation industry

For trade unions, the central problematic of globalization is the growing disparity between the mobility of capital and labour. The ability of capital to operate on a trans-national basis is widely perceived to have precipitated a process of cost cutting as international companies seek to cut workers' remuneration and other conditions of employment. However, systematic empirical evidence on the impact of globalization on human resource management is hard to find, as is any assessment of the differential impact of globalization on different occupational groups or the response of trade unions to any deterioration in their members' terms and conditions of employment. Focusing on the international civil aviation industry, we examine the effects of globalization on human resource management and the national and international strategies developed by organized labour in response. Although the evidence suggests that there is indeed a concerted effort by major airlines to cut costs, trade unions have been able to retard the pace of change and effectively defend the interests of some occupational groups. Moreover, the future course of globalization will be contested through new international strategies and repertoires of collective action developed by the trade union movement.     

Trade liberalisation,market competition and wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector

Economic reforms of the late 1980s have contributed to rapid economic growth in China. While the overall standard of living has improved, economic growth has also resulted in an increase in income inequality. Rising income inequality can increase social tensions that can impede further economic growth. By making use of firm level panel data, this paper focuses on the impact of increased market competition and trade liberalisation on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector. A theoretical model is used to argue that trade liberalisation and market competition can affect skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Based on this result, an econometric model is specified. The empirical analysis presented in this paper shows that increased trade liberalisation has contributed to an increase in skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector. However, increase in market competition has the opposite effect.     

Corporate Strategy and NAFTA When Environmental Regulations Are Barriers to Trade

SUMMARY

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), domestic environmental regulations can have the ultimate impact of erecting entry barriers against foreign companies. These actions by domestic firms are part of a corporate “shelter”-seeking strategy. Five recent cases are analyzed out of twenty-four environmental disputes relevant to NAFTA.     

整合工会资源和条件 推动工资集体协商

工会在工资集体协商中起着保驾护航的作用,工会要担当起这一重大历史使命,就必须整合各种资源和手段,争取更多的话语权。具体而言就是要聚集政治资源和手段;强化组织资源和手段;挖掘工会的法律资源。     

Trade,money and employment in intertemporal optimizing models of growth

This paper unites elements of Sidrauski's (1967) monetary model of growth, Ventura's (1997) analysis of the effects of international trade on growth, and some work on the labour market implications of growth by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995). It was shown by Ventura that, for a small economy, free international trade leads to an increase of the de facto elasticity of substitution between the domestic factors of production. The first part of the paper analyses how such an increase in the elasticity of substitution influences the steady state and the speed of convergence. From the Sidrauski model we know that money is super-neutral in the long-run but that monetary policy can have real effects along the transition path as long as the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is not equal to one. In the second part of this paper, it is shown how these results also depend on the elasticity of substitution between factors of production. The results give some important insights into possible interactions between monetary and trade policy in the long and short run. The last part of the paper deals with a modified version of the monetary growth model, which includes endogenous labour supply as in Klump (1993) or Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995). In this context, international trade, by increasing the elasticity of substitution, leads to lower domestic employment in the long run whereas monetary policy may be able to increase employment at least in the short run. Thus, under certain circumstances, trade and monetary policy can be regarded as complementary with respect to their labour market effects.