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Transparency reforms make government contracting more open and amenable to public scrutiny, helping to improve public spending efficiency. But they are also politically sensitive, complex and highly technical, which makes them especially difficult to implement if state capacity is weak. Our research on nine low‐ and middle‐income countries in Africa and Asia systematically assesses progress in improving the legal framework for procurement transparency and implementing systems that allow open access to data, between 2008 and 2019. Through interviews with key informants, we explore the reasons for progress or its absence, finding that success relies on strong leadership commitment, broad coalitions of state and non‐state actors, and sufficient technical capacity. Leadership commitment ensures that implementing bodies have the appropriate mandate and resources, while broad coalitions sustain commitment and harness external technical assistance. Both factors are best achieved by framing the reforms as a way of improving efficiency rather than fighting corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Canadian preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include increased market access for imports of supply‐managed products (dairy and poultry). Such agreements are typically expected to create trade flows and increase supply of relatively low‐priced products in Canada. Industry groups representing Canadian producers and processors of supply‐managed products negotiated to receive approximately C$5 billion in payments from the federal government as compensation for the prospects of facing more international competition and reduced domestic sales. We discuss partial‐equilibrium simulation models that are commonly used by academics and governments to project market effects of new trade agreements, and conceptually illustrate how different assumptions about import supply conditions generate different projected market outcomes. We focus on the quota fill rates of new access commitments—most studies, including those used to inform government policies on compensation payments, assume imports increase in an amount equal to new commitments. This is often not the case, including with recent Canadian trade agreements. We apply a conceptual framework to Canada's supply‐management industry by re‐simulating a quantitative model of the Canadian dairy industry with updated information on implementation and quota fill rates. Projected market effects of trade agreements under the assumption of full import quotas are markedly different from projections that account for unfilled quotas. We discuss the political economy and welfare implications of compensation payments in light of our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liabilities denominated in foreign currency have established a permanent role in emerging market firms' balance sheet, which implies that changes in both global liquidity conditions and in the value of the currency may have a long- lasting effect for them. In order to consider the financial conditions that may encourage (discourage) structural change in a small, open economy, we adopt the framework put forward by the "Monetary theory of distribution" (MTD). More specifically, we follow the formulation adopted by Dvoskin and Feldman (2019), whereby the financial system is intended as a basic sector that promotes innovation (Schumpeter, 1911). In accordance to this, financial conditions are binding only for the innovative entrepreneurs, whose methods of production are not dominant and hence they need to borrow from banks to kick- start their production. Through this device, our model offers an explanation to the technological lock-in experienced by a small, open economy which takes international prices as given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Manufacturing sector in developing countries has been subject to different shocks. • These shocks comprise technology improvement, trade liberalisation, and China. • Trade liberalisation has harmed manufacturing employment on average. • The impact has been strongest in sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries. The manufacturing sector has played an important role in the structural transformation process in the developing world by providing jobs and income opportunities. Using data from 131 developing countries from 1991 to 2020, we estimate the impact of trade liberalisation on manufacturing employment using panel fixed-effects and instrumental variable regression approaches. We find that trade liberalisation – on average – has harmed manufacturing employment in developing countries. There are considerable differences at the regional level; the impact has been most substantial in sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries. At least in these regions, trade liberalisation has contributed to deindustrialisation. Policies that improve labour productivity in manufacturing will increase the competitiveness of manufacturing firms in these countries in the face of growing trade globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of trade liberalisation on the sectoral reallocation of workers, particularly from manufacturing to services. It empirically assesses this relationship using local labour market level data for South Africa, a country that experienced significant reductions in manufacturing tariff protection and declining shares of manufacturing in employment from 1996 to 2011. The empirical analysis draws on population census data covering 234 municipalities fors 1996, 2001 and 2011. Contrary to expectations, employment in both the services and manufacturing sectors grew more slowly in municipalities where manufacturing workers faced large reductions in tariffs. We demonstrate that the relative decline in services employment was, in part, driven by negative spillover effects arising from lower derived demand for services inputs, income and infrastructure investment linked to the weaker growth in manufacturing from tariff reductions. These spillover effects diminished the absorption of labour by the services sector and contributed towards declining participation in the labour force in municipalities where manufacturing workers were exposed to large reductions in tariff protection relative to other municipalities. Tariff reductions have a stronger effect on the employment of women in manufacturing, while the adverse spillover effects on service employment are stronger for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the ways heterogenous firms procure their inputs in the presence of relationship‐specific investments and incomplete contracts. We first consider a closed economy in which firms decide how to structure their organization. Production is sequential and inputs (upstream and downstream) are sourced in the same order as production. While our closed‐economy setup is analogous to Antràs and Chor (Econometrica, 2013), there are two distinct features: (1) The reward to each supplier is determined through bargaining over the full revenue of the firm (as opposed to marginal contribution of the supplier), and (2) The reward structure combined with our sequential bargaining protocol gives rise to linkages across suppliers. The analysis in Antràs and Chor (Econometrica, 2013) identifies a mechanism in which upstream organizational decisions have spillover effects on downstream suppliers' investment incentives. Thanks to our novel features, we identify another mechanism: the spillover effects of downstream organizational decisions on the investment incentive of upstream suppliers. Next, we consider an open economy in which firms not only make organizational decisions but also determine where to source their inputs. We show that these decisions are connected between sequential production stages such that the sourcing location of the upstream input may affect the organizational choice in the downstream stage. We then examine how within sectoral heterogeneity and variations in industry characteristics influence the relative prevalence of firms that choose to form different organizational structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how income inequality among individuals in each country and trade costs depicting geographic distance between countries impact economic welfare and regime choice under representative democracy, comparing three trading regimes: most favored nation, customs union, and free trade agreement. We examine two cases: one in which trade costs are incurred symmetrically among all countries, and the other in which no trade costs are incurred among the potential member countries, but only between them and nonmembers. In each case, we identify the political feasibility of each regime as well as the impact on the average welfare levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kimball preferences possess properties that make them a powerful tool for multi‐sector applied general equilibrium. While they are homothetic, they also can be made arbitrarily close to constant elasticity of substitution (ces) preferences, thereby sharing some of their properties 'by continuity'. We develop a trade model which brings together traded and nontraded sectors, variable markups, and costly trade for this rich class of homothetic preferences. We characterize the consequences—for both sectors—of trade liberalization in traded sector. Numerical simulations for a calibrated version of the model reveal that the elasticity of utility with respect to trade costs is about 25%–27%, depending on whether traded and nontrade goods are complements or substitutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gary Becker's theory of discrimination argues that increasing competition will reduce discrimination by reallocating market share to less discriminatory firms. We develop a simple model in which increased competition can also affect discrimination by affecting firm‐level hiring decisions. We use the 1984–1991 Colombian trade liberalization episode and plant‐level data to investigate this claim. We find that plants in industries that faced the greatest reductions in tariff protection increased the female share of their workforce more than plants in industries that saw little or no reduction in tariffs. In addition, we find that exporting plants tended to employ a higher share of female workers than non‐exporters did. In contrast, we find little evidence that trade liberalization drove discriminating plants from the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how non‐tariff measures (NTMs) affect the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs), using data from 114 countries over the period 1986–2019 and applying binary response models. Splitting NTMs into eight categories, some tend to be restrictive, some promotive and some neutral, in terms of their effects on FTA formation. Technical measures tend to encourage, while non‐technical measures tend to discourage, country‐pairs to join FTAs. Aggregating all NTMs into one variable would give rise to weak conclusions. Our results for the 12 control variables are largely in line with those of previous studies on international trade flows or on FTAs but without considering NTMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Finnish Supreme Court's decision on whether refilling and relabeling carbon dioxide cylinders misled consumers about an economic link between the original and new sellers. Topics include the assessment of consumer perception regarding economic connections, the impact of labeling practices on brand integrity, and the legal considerations of trade mark exhaustion and infringement.

This study examines successful and intensive free-trade policies in Estonia and Latvia, which exist despite the low-levels of domestic welfare in these countries. In contrast to the conventional elite-centric approach, this study uses a survey experiment to explore rationales for positive public opinion toward free trade policy. The results reveal that an individual exposed to the stimulus of a strategic security issue or consumer consideration tends to support free trade. These effects are evident among Latvians and highly-educated Estonians. Furthermore, the favorable international environment enhances the positive public opinion of free trade in Estonia and Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares different environmental policies under free‐trade and carbon tariffs. Our findings are as follows. First, taxes and standards of exporting countries become laxer under carbon tariffs than free trade. Next, if an importing country adopts free trade, its welfare is relatively lower (higher) under taxes when the marginal pollution damage is smaller (greater). Conversely, if an importing country implements a carbon tariff policy, its welfare is relatively higher under taxes. Last, the importing country's free‐trade (carbon tariff) policy leads the exporting country to have lower (higher) welfare under taxes than standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2020 was the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the turning point for the industries poorly affected by the unexpected conditions. This paper focused on the impact of a range of factors on China's exports of metal manufacture in 2020, in particular the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on it. Using cross-sectional data, the paper collected relevant data for 151 countries in 2020. We applied trade gravity model by considering important parameters impacting on China's exports of metal manufacture such as GDP, distance, population, the total number of cases of COVID-19, employment rate, economic degrees of freedom, the political environment and the free trade agreement between China and other countries. Then, by collecting the data set for 2021, this paper compares the models for 2020 and 2021 with the aim of making a comparison of the impact of the pandemic on China's exports of metal manufactures. We also do some analysis about the trend of the effect of COVID-19 in the future. The paper continues with calculation of China's export potential for metal manufacture for its 151 partner countries including 54 of them are at the Trade Potential Untapped level, 38 at the Trade Potential Growing level and 59 at the Trade Potential Mature level based on gravity model. This paper also offers different detailed trade policies for the distinct levels of trade potential in the light of the impact of the COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the unidentified effects of unilateral environmental and trade actions within an international trade framework with two large open economies, transboundary pollution, and Public Pollution Abatement (PPA) activities. When private and public abatement coexists in the exporting country, stricter environmental policy by the importing one magnifies the carbon leakage effect. Pareto efficiency dictates that Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA) should account not only for the difference in carbon taxes between the two countries, but also for the policy's unintended consequences on PPA. More importantly, we argue that a conditional reduction of BCA, subject to stricter environmental policy by the country that exports the polluting good, decreases global pollution and increases countries' welfare. Such reform strategy generates strong incentives for countries with laxer environmental policy to adopt a stricter one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European Union (EU) increasingly seeks cooperation with transit and sending countries to prevent irregular migration and enforce returns. Yet, these countries have little incentives to engage in such cooperation. To overcome interest asymmetries, the EU has sought to link trade and migration control in its preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Drawing on a comprehensive dataset of migration provisions in all PTAs signed between 1960 and 2020 and a qualitative analysis of key policy documents, we show that the inclusion of such provisions does not follow patterns of interdependence and strategic priorities resulting from problem pressure. Rather, the proliferation of migration control provisions in EU PTAs is best explained by the institutional framework guiding the negotiation of these provisions. Whilst reflecting the political will to use PTAs as a 'carrot' to incite third‐country cooperation, these findings also show the limits of targeted action on migration control via commercial policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation of Harriet Martineau's novella "Dawn Island" in the context of free trade and its impact on Britain and the fictional island. The author argues that free trade can be seen as a metaphorical dawn of progress and civilization for both Dawn Island and Britain. The novella explores the transformative effects of trade interactions and the international division of labor, highlighting the benefits and interdependence of global trade systems. The article suggests that Martineau's work contributes to our understanding of economic shifts in nineteenth-century Britain and the broader implications of free trade. Additionally, the article explores the role of women in the anti-corn law movement in 19th-century Britain, focusing on Martineau's novel "Dawn Island." The author examines how Martineau's work challenged traditional gender roles and advocated for free trade. Thorne-Murphy argues that Martineau's novel played a significant role in promoting women's involvement in political and economic issues. This article provides valuable insights into the historical context and the impact of women's participation in the anti-corn law movement. [Extracted from the article]

This research analyses the interplay between trade liberalisation, economic growth, and economic development in South Africa. The research focuses on two distinct periods, pre-BRICS (1991 to 2010) and post-BRICS (2011 to 2021) and aims to assess economic growth and development trajectories which are intertwined with liberalisation. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is used to account for potential cointegration among the variables. The study reports a long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. The study finds that trade openness substantially influences GDP growth in the post-BRICS period and highlights a unidirectional causal relationship between trade liberalisation and economic growth. The research also reveals a positive association between trade openness and economic development, implying that openness fosters growth and facilitates broader development outcomes in South Africa. The research underscores the importance of trade openness as a driving force for economic growth and economic development in emerging economies like South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using global data for around 180 countries and territories and 170 food/feed types primarily derived from FAOSTAT, we have systematically analyzed the changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity (GHGi) (kg CO2eq per kg protein production) over the past six decades. We found that, with large spatial heterogeneity, emission intensity decreased by nearly two-thirds from 1961 to 2019, predominantly in the earlier years due to agronomic improvement in productivity. However, in the most recent decade, emission intensity has become stagnant, and in a few countries even showed an increase, due to the rapid increase in livestock production and land use changes. The trade of final produced protein between countries has potentially reduced the global GHGi, especially for countries that are net importers with high GHGi, such as many in Africa and South Asia. Overall, a continuous decline of emission intensity in the future relies on countries with higher emission intensity to increase agricultural productivity and minimize land use changes. Countries with lower emission intensity should reduce livestock production and increase the free trade of agricultural products and improve the trade optimality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We develop a general equilibrium model of a small open economy with performance-pay worker compensation and occupational choice. We analytically and numerically examine the distributional effects of entrepreneurial talent and performance-pay contracts. Risk-neutral, more talented individuals become entrepreneurs, inducing workers to exert effort through incentive contracts. Entrepreneurial talent and worker effort significantly influence income inequality through complex general equilibrium channels. Economies with higher tariffs, more entrepreneurs, less skilled or more heterogeneous workers, and economies without worker effort, display higher income inequality measured by the top one percent income share and the Gini Coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines William Gladstone's Irish policy through the prism of his commitment to 'sound' finance, a fiscal programme involving low taxation, minimal government expenditure, balanced budgets and free trade. These prescriptions, it argues, served as an unintentional stimulus to Irish nationalism while also encouraging Gladstone's receptivity to Home Rule, because by the 1880s he had become convinced that the cost of governing Ireland within the framework of the Union was imperilling 'sound' finance throughout the United Kingdom. Viewed from the vantage of fiscal policy, it concludes, Gladstone's approach to Ireland was characterized by ideological rigidity rather than political adaptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable growth and the reduction of environmental pressures are important priorities that are issues of concern for both developed and developing countries. However, while carbon emissions and ecological footprint are commonly used by researchers in the context of environmental deterioration, a broader and more extensive metric for ecological quality is considered necessary. From this perspective, the load capacity factor provides a more detailed sustainable environment appraisal by simultaneously considering biocapacity and ecological footprint. Limited studies have examined the determinants of load capacity factor (LCAP). This survey attempts to fill the gap, using the case of Japan. Employing the dynamic ARDL approaches, the present research investigates the effect of renewable energy usage, economic growth, economic complexity, financial development, and trade globalization on load capacity factor in Japan for the period between 1980 and 2017. The empirical evidence indicates that economic complexity, economic growth, and financial development adversely impact LCAP, whereas renewable energy usage and trade globalization positively affect LCAP. Hence, we recommend that it is essential for Japan to attain self‐sufficiency in essential goods and minimize its reliance on the rest of the world. Furthermore, policymakers should capitalize on the benefits of trade globalization by adopting additional measures aimed at facilitating trade liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exclusion of some groups caused by the misuse of government power remains a major problem across the world. We propose that market‐oriented institutions and policies have the capacity to reduce such exclusion. To test this, we use an overall measure derived from the V‐Dem dataset, capturing government discrimination based on political group, social group, socio‐economic group, and gender, which we combine with the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World index. The sample consists of 153 countries for 1970–2020, which we organize in a panel consisting of consecutive, non‐overlapping 5‐year periods, rendering up to about 1,200 observations. Our estimates show a clear negative association between the rule of law and government discrimination in electoral democracies and electoral autocracies but not in single‐party autocracies. There are, however, reasons for not considering the finding for electoral autocracies causal. Two further areas of economic freedom seem to matter: free trade is negatively related to government exclusion in electoral democracies, while regulatory freedom is so in both types of autocracies. Thus, it seems as if a market‐economic system may be able to constrain public officials in the direction of non‐discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consensus on industry policy, state intervention and free trade that have been so central to the neoliberal international order of the past three decades has been fundamentally transformed over the past few years. The Biden administration has coined the term 'New Washington Consensus' to describe these transformations in the global political and economic order. The nub of our argument is that rather than being the start of 'deglobalisation', or a turn away from neoliberalism, it represents the emergence of a form of militarised neoliberalism that repurposes and reorganises security institutions and alliances to enable or facilitate global economic accumulation by states such as the United States and China, such that it leads to new forms of regulatory geographies. We contest the idea that this means a shift back towards more statist forms of development. State activism is an important dimension of the new conjuncture, but we see this as the emergence of a different and more militarised neoliberalism. It is not about disconnecting but reconnecting the global economy in a way that favours certain forms of social forces and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalism has lost its hegemonic status in the global system but neoliberal ideas and practices persist. Post-Brexit UK offers a useful case study of how these operate in a post-hegemonic context. The UK government's vision of free trading ‘Global Britain' crashed against the reality of an increasingly geoeconomic world. Freeports were an initiative designed to boost trade and to develop poorer regions. This paper adapts Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse how the different Freeport discourses interact with material power as the policy develops. It divides this into three levels: national political discourse, national policy discourse and local political and policy discourse (with a case study of one Freeport). At the national level, the Brexiteers forged a discourse that combined neoliberalism, Brexit discourse and ‘levelling up’. When translated to policy this was significantly moderated due to legal commitments and geoeconomic pressures. At the local level, the policy was significantly reframed with little emphasis on trade and more on traditional local development concerns. The contradictions of the initial political discourse opened a space for other actors to reshape the policy. More broadly, this story suggests that global geoeconomic pressures may restrict the role of free trade zones in the developed world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a theory of lobbying by firms for trade liberalization, not through political contributions, but instead through contributions to the litigation process at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this "litigation for sale" model, firms signal information about the strength and value of potential cases and the government selects cases based on firms' signals. Firms play a key role in monitoring and seeking enforcement of international trade law by signaling information and providing a bureaucratic subsidy, which increases a state's ability to pursue the removal of trade barriers and helps explain the high success rate for WTO complainants. The theory's implications are consistent with in-depth interviews with 38 trade experts and are tested through an analysis of WTO dispute initiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased market access through trade liberalization can affect the markups, prices, and marginal costs of exporters. Understanding these dynamics is critical for firms and policymakers, particularly as they formulate export strategies. We examine the impact of China lowering tariffs on Pakistani products under the Pakistan–China Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which gave Pakistani exporters greater market access. Using disaggregated output and price data for textile manufacturers in Punjab, Pakistan, we estimate product-level markups and marginal costs using the methodology of De Loecker, Goldberg, Khandelwal, and Pavcnik (2016) ["Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform." Economterica 84 (2): 445–510]. We then extend this to the firm level by using the methodology of De Loecker and Warzynsksi (2012) ["Markups and Firm-Level Export Status." American Economic Review, 2437–2471]. We find that Pakistani firms exporting to China followed a dynamic pricing strategy by reducing prices to compete with global competitors in the Chinese market. We also find evidence of a decrease in marginal costs as a result of reductions in X-inefficiencies. But because Pakistan's exports to China are relatively homogeneous, the extent of quality differentiation and markup margins was limited. Finally, we find evidence of pro-competitive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese President Xi Jinping has since 2013 advocated for an "Asia-Pacific Community with a Shared Future" (APCSF). This concept has rekindled debates on regional integration. The article begins by critiquing conventional Eurocentric theories of community-building while highlighting fundamental features of the Asia-Pacific approach. It recounts erstwhile proposals put forward by Japan, Australia, and America, drawing comparisons with the emerging Chinese vision. The APCSF envisions an inclusive intergovernmental society of cooperative yet interdependent economies in the Asia-Pacific. Unlike the notion of Indo-Pacific, the idea of Asia-Pacific countries belonging to a community has deeper economic and psychological roots. Furthermore, what sets the APCSF apart from previous proposals is its solid foundation that aligns with its ambitious goals. It can draw upon existing initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership for Trade Liberalisation and the Belt and Road Initiative for enhancing connectivity. Consequently, the APCSF stands a better chance of eventual realisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Economics / Economia Internazionale is the property of Camera di Commercio di Genova and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the prospects for economic growth and integration of the Republic of Azerbaijan into the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the context of globalization and increasing international competition, accession to the WTO is an important step to expand trade opportunities and stimulate economic development of Azerbaijan. The article analyzes how integration into the global trading system can improve the business environment, ensure more stable and transparent conditions for doing business, and attract foreign direct investment. Particular attention is paid to how WTO membership can help Azerbaijan diversify its economy, reduce dependence on the oil sector and develop new industries such as information technology, agriculture and tourism. In a ddition, the article examines the potential challenges and risks associated with the WTO accession process. Possible negative consequences for local producers, who may face increasing competition from foreign companies are also considered. Measures to be taken to protect national interests and support domestic enterprises in the context of trade liberalization are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We seek to investigate the effects of communication by central banks on professional and consumer inflation expectations. Accordingly, we investigate 12 small open economies implementing inflation targeting. The communication tone of the central banks is determined based on their post‐decision releases. We use computational linguistics to quantify this factor. With regard to two subsamples that are identified based on the central bank's experience in inflation targeting, we estimate panel models while controlling for other prospective drivers of expectations. The communication tone of a central bank significantly affects the expectations of professional forecasters from economies with more experience in inflation targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the disparate impacts of Chinese import growth on US workers according to gender and age. I show that Chinese import growth generates larger employment losses for less skilled women than men in manufacturing. The gendered effects vary by age and are most concentrated among middle‐aged workers. The motherhood career interruption may explain the gender‐age disparities. Trade shocks depress labor outcomes more for women with children than for their male counterparts. Moreover, I find that the gender‐age differential effect is alleviated when trade shocks hit industries with longer female job tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper focuses on figuring out the impact of trade openness on FDI inflows, which has received relatively less attention in the literature, specifically in the context of ASEAN economies. The ASEAN region, which is relatively more open in terms of both trade openness as well as FDI inflows, is chosen as a sample. Annual data are gathered from "World Development Indicators (WDI)" and "World Governance Indicators (WGI)". Reported results and findings are based on "Fixed Effect (FE) Modeling", and the "Generalized Least Square (GLS)" is utilized for the robustness check. The results indicated that trade openness matters significantly for attracting FDI inflows. Similarly, institutional quality has also exerted a positive and significant influence on the inflows of FDI. The disaggregated analysis shows that five aspects of institutional quality, such as rule of law, regulatory quality, control of corruption, voice and accountability, and political instability and absence of violence, have positively and significantly impacted the FDI inflows in the case of selected ASEAN economies. The results demonstrated that exchange rate depreciation is harmful for the inflows of FDI. Moreover, FDI inflows responded positively to market size. Furthermore, the results showed that the impact of natural resources and inflation on FDI inflows is insignificant statistically. The present study suggests that the ASEAN policymakers manage their exchange rate effectively, improve the quality of institutions, and adopt vigorous trade liberalization policies to attract more FDI inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis examines the legal consequences of Indonesia's termination of the Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIT) on foreign investment entering or planning to enter Indonesia after the termination date. Bilateral Investment Agreements or BITs are known as a legal umbrella for foreign investors investing in host countries, including legal protection for foreign investors in Indonesia. The Indonesian government has signed BITs with several other countries to strengthen cooperation in the investment sector. However, because the contents of the agreement are no longer to the country's development and the current investment climate and limit Indonesia's policy space in regulating matters related to the protection of national interests, Indonesia has ended many BITs. The consequence of Indonesia's termination of the BIT for foreign investors is that there is the potential for investment disputes to arise. In this situation, the provisions of the survival clause will apply to foreign investments made before the termination date, because even though the BIT has ended, there is a certain period for the BIT to still be valid for investments made before the end of the agreement period so that in other words the agreement remains effective in protecting investors from both countries who previously existed or who had carried out restructuring before the termination date of the BIT. For foreign investments that enter or will enter Indonesia after the termination date, protection can be obtained by creating a new BIT or through a Multilateral Investment Treaty (MIT) and Free Trade Agreement (FTA) where Indonesia as the Host Country is a party to the agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most signatories of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement have submitted tariff concession offers, as published on the AfCFTA Secretariat's website. Over a year since the AfCFTA came into effect, it is time to take stock of these submissions and assess the data with respect to members' stances towards fostering intra‐African trade through openness on the one hand and maintaining protection against competing imports and revenues from import tariffs on the other. Combining the offers with corresponding trade and tariff data, we find that there are both significant data gaps and inconsistencies with the AfCFTA's trade liberalisation modalities and the trade classification standard. Constructing two tariff schedules, one which repairs the offers for compliance with the modalities and another that maximises the import tariff revenue retained as a benchmark, the analysis confirms that the modalities require regions to liberalise strongly, but most opt to liberalise even more and earlier than necessary. Stances towards freer trade, however, differ markedly between regions. Deriving a measure of liberalisation stance from the schedules above and associating it with trade, economic and geographic indicators reveals patterns that suggest potential motivations for the stances of some country groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note explores variation in how political parties and presidents in Latin America responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), we argue that preferences regarding the trade-off between virus containment and maintaining an open economy were shaped by the ideological positions of presidents and parties, particularly for more programmatic ones. This is largely consistent with findings in other world regions. Yet, beyond ideological orientation, populism, also had an important – though heterogeneous – effect on response preferences, with non-populists, particularly highly programmatic ones, more consistently supporting virus containment. In addition, both incumbents and more populist presidents and parties favoured further concentration of executive power to address the pandemic. These findings provide evidence of the importance of understanding how ideology, populism and programmatic linkages interact in Latin America's party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to build and analyze a model of labor market slack considering unemployment along with employment in which the number of hours is limited to a level below that preferred by employees. We thus have "underemployment" along with unemployment. We analyze the need for potential policy action directed at the reduction of unemployment, simultaneous with an autonomous process of labor market job creation and migration. We model delays in labor market responses to past unemployment and vacancies creation and capture the effect on unemployment through a non‐linear dynamic system. We observe not only job separation and matching but also movement into and out of underemployment. The model allows for migration in an open economy context. We analyze the stability behavior of the resulting equilibria for our dynamic system, including Dirac and weak kernels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research delves into the effectiveness of Colombia's trade liberalisation process in boosting its exports at the industrial level. Based on an empirical workhorse approach to international trade, the gravity model, we evaluate the effect of trade openness on Colombian exports at the industrial level following the SITC4 categorisation. For this purpose, panel data on Colombian exports to all its trading partners between 2007 and 2020 were used. The results establish that Colombia's trade openness has boosted the exports of most of its industries, except for exports of the mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials group, which is a group of goods that represents the country's largest exports. Furthermore, the research also confirms the prominent impact of labour productivity in boosting Colombian exports of most product groups. Consequently, Colombian policymakers should support a re-composition of the Colombian export basket in order to take proper advantage of trade integration formulas, within a global energy transition framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic literature on the trade-labour linkage has tended to operate within a methodological nationalism that reifies the nation-state as the unit of analysis and treats labour rights as universally applicable. This paper instead starts from the premise that the linkage spotlights certain types of work and worker, resulting in geographically differentiated modes of labour governance. Focusing on the post-Brexit reconstitution of trade policy in the UK and its party political discourse, the paper details how labour provisions were written into free trade agreements, export finance arrangements, supply chain reporting requirements and unilateral preference schemes. Its argument is that these were constructed and contested through distinctions made between leading and laggard states; acceptable and unacceptable exploitation; and desirable and undesirable exploitation – each of which had a spatial politics in shaping where and how labour ought to be governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact on polluting emissions as a result of manufacturing industries in China offering services as well as products. We merge detailed firm-level statistics covering 2000 to 2011, and use two-way linear fixed effects regression to control for firm and year heterogeneities and a host of control variables. The empirical results show that manufacturing servitization significantly reduces the emission intensity of firms. This effect is achieved by improving the total factor productivity of firms, optimizing the efficiency of energy use, and increasing the share of the highly-skilled labour force. Moreover, the emission reduction effect of manufacturing servitization is more profound in the eastern and central regions, pollution-intensive industries, non-state-owned firms, and processing trade firms. In addition, our extended analysis shows that the emission reduction effects of manufacturing servitization can be strengthened through trade liberalization and cohort study. The major policy implication is that governments should undertake industrial policies that reinforce the positive effects of manufacturing servitization in order to achieve win-win outcomes in manufacturing upgrading and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing demand for statistics to better understand the globalisation that is accelerating due to the removal of barriers in international trade and to technological progress. Key players in globalisation are the multinational enterprise (MNE) groups that have increased in number and complexity and need to be properly represented by macroeconomic and business statistics. To deal with this need, the European Union Member States, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and Eurostat have collaborated to create the EuroGroups Register (EGR). This paper explores the use of web intelligence to improve the accuracy and completeness of the EGR, which makes use of tools for extracting and exploring information from the World Wide Web. Additionally, it presents a methodology to assess the quality of the information retrieved from the web, based on an ex-post comparison with the official information contained in the EGR. The results provide indications about the possibility of using web intelligence tools to support MNE group monitoring and to complete the EGR data in cases where this information is missing. Finally, it dives deeply into the approach to harness Wikipedia as a data source and into the techniques and methodology used to extract data from this source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the U.S. shift towards economic protectionism, termed "friend-shoring," which involves tariffs and trade restrictions aimed at redirecting supply chains from China to benefit the US and its allies. It discusses how this approach, along with subsidies promoting high-tech industries and regional trade agreements, has led to a retaliatory trade war with China and other BRICS members, escalating tariffs and restrictions on both sides.

There is a strong relationship between regional integration and economic performance. This paper investigates the impact of regional integration on macroeconomic indicators in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – a trade block created by the former Soviet republics in 2014. This study compares two types of regional collaboration strategies: first, unilateral trade liberalization with the one-sided opening of market access that does not imply any mutual concessions, and second, reciprocal regional liberalization evaluated as the degree of regional economic integration between the countries. We apply a random effect panel data analysis with the dataset over 25 years since 1995 covering five countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia). We find that, under the current stage, the EAEU positively affects trade flows, negatively affects the level of employment, and has no impact on other economic performance indicators. We also conclude that despite the declared level of economic integration – customs union – Eurasian block functions mainly as a free trade area facilitating mutual trade, which is different from the broader objectives that regional integration aims to achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) free trade agreement (FTA) aims to increase regional trade and major integration between the regions; after decades of negotiations, in 2019, finalization of the agreement was reached. However, there are several blockages from both parties in the ratification process: whilst few EU members the criticize environmental and sustainability issues within the agreement, the Mercosur partners oppose the imposition of sustainability standards onto the region without adequate financial support. On this topic, the literature is still too poor to build a systematic literature review; thus, the present analysis follows a quasi-historical approach considering the major steps of the EU–Mercosur FTA looking both at the scientific and gray literature. The study underlines how environmental and sustainability issues are at the core of the European policies; thus, themes such as deforestation and pesticides could be a dealbreaker in the ratification of the agreement. For the EU, the FTA with Mercosur could mark a new step in the race towards it being a new "global standard" for sustainability and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the endogenous formation of climate coalitions linked to a preferential free trade arrangement. In a multi-stage, micro founded strategic trade and participation game, coalition and fringe countries dispose of a discriminatory tariff on dirty imports as well as emission permits imposed on domestic producers. Permits are traded on a common permit market inside the coalition and on local markets outside, respectively. We provide an analytical solution for the general equilibrium and the policy game, in the three country case, while the participation game is solved by Monte Carlo simulation. Moreover, conditional probabilities are computed for the transition to coalitions of various sizes induced by free trade. Under various regimes analyzed, we find that preferential free trade can create strong incentives for building effective climate coalitions in terms of depth and breadth. This result even holds if fringe countries are given the option of trade cooperation as a retaliation devise and is driven by a favorable shift in the coalition's terms of trade. As a policy implication, negotiations on international climate treaties and free trade arrangements should be interlinked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the EU-US (TTIP) and EU–Canada (CETA) free trade negotiations, large coalitions of civil society organisations were active not only across borders but also within European member states. In several countries, coalitions saw the opportunity to transform their issue-specific group into a general coalition on EU trade policy in order to achieve more sustained engagement. However, in hindsight, only some of the transformed coalitions remained active and visible with the same organisations, while others experienced a decline in visibility, activities, and membership. This study aims to explore the factors contributing to this divergence in coalition transformation, drawing on the literature from social movement and interest group studies. Based on interviews with trade activists in Belgium and the Netherlands, the analysis points to differences in perception of political and discursive opportunities, resource mobilisation, the degree of ideological and cultural overlap between the coalition's actors, and organisational structure as important factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]