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Why has US commercial policy become increasingly politicized in the twenty-first century? We argue that this politicization reflects an interaction between elite rhetoric on unfair trade practices and American meritocratic values. As the twenty-first century progressed, elites increasingly argued that economic malaise was a result of predatory practices by US trading partners. This "trade is unfair" rhetoric resonated most strongly with meritocratic Americans: individuals who believed in principles of market fairness but also worried about future economic prospects. To evaluate the argument that trade policy frames resonate differently among Americans, we draw on data from several survey experiments as well as a large, original panel data set with repeat observations of the same individuals. Individuals who are most tied to the myth of the classic American Dream are the most likely to respond to a frame blaming unfair trade for America's economic problems, and this contributes to rising antiglobalization sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'International Relations & Regional Studies' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages 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 paper examines the attitudes of multinational corporations (MNCs) toward the U.S.-China trade war through an original survey of China-based MNC subsidiaries in the manufacturing industry. Our argument is in two parts. First, firms that have relocated production outside of China or are considering such moves should be less likely to oppose the trade war as they possess outside options that reduce their vulnerability to trade restrictions. Second, firms' tendency toward production relocation can in turn be explained by their local sourcing dependence, as measured by the level of such dependence and the degree to which their operations require supplier certification. This is because firms more heavily embedded in local supplier networks face stronger resource dependence that increases organizational inertia, reducing their ability to switch to alternative suppliers and therefore relocating production to other destinations. Our findings corroborate our hypotheses, highlighting how the heterogeneity in MNCs' supply chain relationships may influence both their manufacturing relocation decisions and trade policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most trade agreements are ratified with overwhelming support by legislators throughout the world. This lack of opposition is surprising given the strong distributional consequences of trade and the expectation of conventional political economy theory that parliamentary votes on trade policy should be closely contested between winners and losers of globalization. To analyze the driving forces behind legislators' voting behavior while avoiding the obscuring effect of party discipline, I analyze under which circumstances legislators decide to rebel against their party's position when voting on the ratification of trade agreements. I put forward two hypotheses: First, rebellions are more likely when the trade agreement is with a larger trading partner and when the liberalization through the agreement is more comprehensive. Second, legislators will rebel when their party's position does not align with their constituency's economic interests. These hypotheses are supported by a series of multinomial regression analyses based on an original dataset comprising votes of several thousand legislators from multiple countries on the ratification of trade agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing theories of individual trade preferences do not satisfactorily explain how security concerns should affect American support for the US–China trade war that began in 2018. Although existing theories of public attitudes toward international trade—economic self-interest, sociotropism, partisanship, reciprocity, and xenophobia—all help to explain initial support for the trade war, these hypotheses do not adequately explain citizen attitudes in the context of an increasingly adversarial and securitized bilateral US–China relationship. In particular, they do not address how rising security tensions affect trade preferences. Using nationally representative original survey data (n = 1,016) and a nonrepresentative survey with an embedded experiment (n = 1,015), this article argues that securitization of the bilateral economic relationship has spurred threat perceptions and given rise to a Cold War narrative that has in turn caused a substantial share of Americans to become less concerned with the economic outcomes of trade and more concerned with trade's effect on security. These Americans demonstrate an instinctive "commercial peace" response, seeing trade liberalization as a potential deterrent to conflict. The results challenge conventional wisdom on political support for the trade war and add depth to existing theories of individual trade preferences regarding the interaction between economic, security, and psychological motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do voters reward politicians for trade liberalization? We examine this question by analyzing voter responses in South Korea to the US-Korea Trade Agreement. Exploiting a change in party positions on the FTA over time, we examine the effects of different party positions on outcomes in the legislative and presidential elections. We find that voters who expect direct gains (losses) specifically from the treaty increase (decrease) support for the pro-trade party. However, voters in export-oriented industries do not reward politicians for a free trade agreement that does not directly affect their well-being. Our analysis of seven waves of individual-level panel survey data also demonstrates that a short-term change in a candidate's position on the FTA influences voter decisions in the upcoming presidential election. The findings suggest that voter preferences with regard to trade can materialize into voting behavior when voters have a clear ex ante expectation of specific gains or losses from the trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of market liberalization in Asian countries, how do people see trade, mainly imports, as potentially hurting domestic production? Do they consider them a threat to their societies' less privileged groups? Using survey data of China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and citing Thailand as a comparative case representing a liberal economy in the Southeast Asian region, we examine the effect of economic interests, collectivist ideology, and political trust on trade preferences. Empirical results indicate that economic optimism is only weakly related to attitudinal openness to imports, while income has a mixed effect. Collectivism and political trust in the central government and the elite stimulate antipathy against imports. The findings shed light on the sources of protectionist attitudes in Asian authoritarian regimes undergoing socialist market transition among the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether localized trade shocks from China influence Brazilians' views on integration with the country. We test the following hypotheses: (1) as trade shocks are localized, views on trade should form at the local, rather than at the individual level, and (2) as localized trade shocks affect both workers and companies in a same region, they should also influence legislators' views on China. Our analyses find support for both claims, but only among losers from Chinese trade. Residents and legislators from localities hurt by import shocks tend to hold negative views about economic ties with China, whereas neither residents nor legislators from localities benefitted by export shocks exhibit more positive views about the country. Our paper contributes to the literature on the politics of trade by incorporating meso-level theories of trade preference formation and by establishing the conditions under which the interests of constituencies should shape legislators' views on international trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine to what extent developing countries export more as a result of having the official Least Developed Country (LDC) status. We estimate a gravity model of trade over the period 1973–2013, in which identification is achieved by exploiting the particularities and asymmetries of 'inclusion' and 'graduation' criteria of LDC status. As mechanisms through which LDCs might benefit, we evaluate the effectiveness of individual trade preference schemes for LDCs of the European Union, United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Turkey and the impact of LDC status on exports. We find that first, individual trade preference regimes are not always beneficial in terms of increased export values. Export promoting effects are found for the individual schemes of some developed countries and some sectors. Second, a country's official designation as a LDC is associated with higher aggregated exports. This is particularly the case for LDCs that export agricultural goods and light manufacturing products, including textiles and leather after 1990. Third, the positive effect of LDC status is significant and sizable even when controlling for specific trade preference schemes suggesting that there are other benefits of LDC status that play a role in promoting exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a market economy, countries seek to maximize the benefits of international exchange within their capacities. Small countries, unable to change world trade conditions for their benefit, liberalize markets in anticipation of benefiting from increased economic efficiency. Meanwhile, different countries choose different ways of foreign trade liberalization. After studying the international experience, two main ways of foreign trade liberalization have been distinguished - mutual and unilateral trade liberalization, each of which has its own varieties. Mutual liberalization of trade is carried out on a bilateral, regional and multilateral basis, and unilateral liberalization is manifested in two ways: autonomous and unilateral preferential liberalization. Mutual multilateral and unilateral autonomous forms of foreign trade liberalization are favorable in terms of ensuring free competition in international trade, whereas differentiated approaches to bilateral, regional and privileged forms of liberalization have patronage elements.

American discontent with offshore production features heavily in trade policy debates. But Americans more typically encounter offshore production in apolitical contexts as consumers. We argue that these ostensibly apolitical encounters with offshore production are, in fact, freighted with political consequences. This paper asks: When and for whom does consumer-based exposure to offshore production reduce support for free trade? This is an important in its own right, but also sheds light on the contexts in which more overtly political references to offshore production are likely to find the most fertile ground. We answer these questions using a survey experiment that embeds an offshoring "prime" into an advertisement for pet furniture, varying the location of production across different treatment groups. We find that our experimental exposure to offshore production depressed enthusiasm for free trade, but only when production occurred in China, and mainly among white men living near trade-related job loss. That heterogeneity resonates with work on the economic and social aspects of the decline in American manufacturing employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use an empirical gravity equation to study how non‐reciprocal trade preferences (NRTPs), enacted mainly through the Generalized System of Preferences, affect the exports of the beneficiary nations. In line with existing studies, the average trade effect stemming from non‐reciprocal preferences is highly unstable across specifications. However, once we allow for heterogeneous effects, results become robust and economically important. Specifically, NRTPs have a strong effect on the exports of beneficiaries when they are members of the World Trade Organization and are very poor. Not‐so‐poor beneficiaries also expand foreign sales, but only if they are not WTO members. For all others, the average export effects of NRTPs are mute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new evidence supporting the hypothesis that patriotism and nationalism influence personal trade policy preferences in addition to the typical economic determinants. It also examines the interaction of the 9/11 terrorist attacks along with patriotism and nationalism on policy preferences. Using the Heckscher-Ohlin model as a theoretical framework, ordered probit estimations were applied to survey responses from an International Social Survey Program survey question about preferences towards limiting imports. Extensions of the model were sequentially estimated to investigate the impact of national identity on policy preferences. The model was augmented to test how feelings of nationalism and patriotism influenced personal trade policy preferences. Data from the International Social Survey Program surveys administered in 1995/1996 and 2003/2004 also allowed us to reflect on the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on trade preferences in the U.S. We found that prior to the 9/11 attacks, nationalism was associated with increased inclinations towards limiting imports while patriotism had no statistically significant impact on trade preferences. The 9/11 attacks made U.S. survey respondents less open to imports. Further, the 9/11 attacks served to reduce the impact of nationalism on the tendency to limit imports while it enhanced the desire to do so through patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic self-interest has been central to explaining individual trade preferences. Depending on the theoretical trade model different variables influence individuals' attitude towards globalization and existing research has come to different conclusions as to whether individuals' preferences are dependent on skill level, income or the sector of employment. Other studies depart from economic self-interest by arguing that it is not self-interest that motivates individuals to form their preference, but country-level economic factors (sociotropic considerations) instead. We argue that one needs to approach trade preference formation from an information-based perspective and we test experimentally how people react if they are aware that they personally or nationally will gain or lose from trade and which of the two aspects are more important. By using survey experiments embedded in a representative national survey in the U.S. we are able to differentiate whether a person was triggered by ego- or sociotropic benefits/costs of free trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the factor endowment (FE) of trade partners influence mass support for free trade agreements (FTAs), and if so, how? Preference models based on factor endowment expect that individual attitudes toward trade partners should systematically vary by factors of endowment and respondents' skill level. This paper provides the first systematic examination of the effect of trade partner's FE on mass support for FTAs. Using a conjoint analysis design on a sample of respondents from developed and developing economies (the US and India), the findings show that respondents consistently favour trade partners with a highly educated workforce and a higher level of gross domestic product per capita. Moreover, preferences for these country attributes hold regardless of respondents' skill level or their country's FE. Data from a nationally representative survey on Canadian trade preferences offer additional corroborating evidence. Together, the findings offer limited support for economic preferences derived from factor endowment trade models, indicating that individuals, within and across countries, may share a common bias against trade with lesser-developed states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, motivated by the so-called North–South problem in trade, analyzesex antetrade preferences and the source of potential political conflicts regarding trade liberalization. Developing a dynamic extension of the traditional Heckscher–Ohlin model with imperfect labor mobility and tracking overall dynamic paths from the autarky to free-trade steady states, we demonstrate that in the presence of inter-sectoral migration barrier, bilateral free-trade agreements can be welcomed (opposed) by the majority of workers in a capital-abundant (labor-abundant) country, which is inconsistent with the welfare prediction by Stolper and Samuelson. This paper also proposes a numerical algorithm to solve for the entire transition path of the model under rational expectation. Our simulation experiments further reveal that preannounced and delayed implementation can facilitate a bilateral free-trade agreement by partially neutralizing short-run transitional gains and losses so as to persuade the losers to support the reform without affecting the beneficiaries’ trade preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

South-South trade has become a core component of the contemporary trade debate, but the idea of using preferential trade agreements among developing countries to foster industrialization and diminish dependence on the North has a long history. This article examines the North-South and South-South politics surrounding two efforts to operationalize this idea-the Protocol Relating to Trade Negotiations Among Developing Countries in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Global System of Trade Preferences Among Developing Countries within the UN Conference on Trade and Development. It argues that the rich world has been somewhat obstructive in these efforts, but ultimately the primary cause for the weakness of these agreements is traced to failure by the Global South to make good on the rhetoric surrounding economic cooperation and South-South solidarity. Lessons from this history must be learned if current efforts to extend the GSTP are to bring greater benefits, particularly to the least developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les principales huiles faisant l’objet d’échanges internationaux sont les suivantes, par ordre d’importance : l’huile de palme représente à elle seule 42% des échanges mondiaux d’huile végétale en 1998, devant l’huile de soja (24%), l’huile de tournesol (11%), les huiles de coco et colza (6,5%) et l’huile d’arachide (1%). L’évolution des échanges d’huiles tropicales est très contrastée : – l’huile de palme connaît un boom soutenu de ses échanges depuis le début des années 80 (80% des exportations mondiales sont assurées par la Malaisie et l’Indonésie); – les huiles lauriques (coco, palmiste) ont une croissance stationnaire de leurs échanges; – l’huile d’arachide a connu un « coup d’arrêt » important suite au développement du colza et du tournesol en Europe à partir de la fin des années 70. Les trois produits tempérés leaders dans l’échange sont le soja et le tournesol, avec une forte croissance du commerce de l’huile de colza dans le monde. L’Union européenne est le premier importateur mondial d’oléagineux et le premier importateur d’huiles et graisses. Elle est également le deuxième triturateur, si bien qu’elle réexporte sous forme d’huile une partie des oléagineux importés au préalable. La mise en place d’une politique d’autosuffisance en oléagineux à partir de la fin des années 60 s’est traduite par le fort développement des productions de tournesol et de colza. Une OCM oléagineux et un tarif douanier discriminatoire à l’encontre des produits triturés et raffinés pour la protection de l’industrie de transformation européenne sont toujours en vigueur. L’Afrique est en retrait sur les marchés extérieurs; elle perd des parts de marché pour toutes les huiles tropicales, passant, entre la période 1988-1990 et la période 1996-1998, de 52 à 42% des exportations mondiales d’huile d’arachide, de 2,3 à 1,6% de celles d’huile de palme et de 1,9 à 1,1% de celles d’huile de coprah. L’Afrique est, de plus, menacée sur son marché domestique par les importations des huiles du Sud-Est asiatique.

This paper examines the impact of CBERA (Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act) trade provisions to determine whether the program has achieved its stated goals. A major program enhancement had a negative impact across small beneficiaries, but countries with large manufacturing sectors were able to expand preferential export shares with negligible increases in total exports relative to GDP. Additional evidence supports the view that tariff preferences did not promote economic development in CBERA-eligible countries. Greater utilization of CBERA trade provisions will require expanding coverage to include all products of export interest to beneficiaries and reducing costs associated with administrative regulations and rules of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Freedom of international trade implies an unobstructed flow of goods and services between countries. Its content was built up over years of commercial practice, and in modern times it was emanated in national and international normative rules, primarily in the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Freedom of Trade is based on minimal government interference in the international trade relations, which are developed on the basis of the law of supply and demand in the market. On the other hand, the purpose of the rules of origin is to prevent a country that is not a contracting party to a preferential trade agreement to take benefits that this kind of agreement provides to the contracting parties. If a product contains materials originating outside of the member parties to the agreement, or if the part of the manufacturing process was conducted there, it is necessary to define the limits of the amount of material that is used or the level of production process outside the territory of a certain trade agreement that must not be exceeded if the product is to obtain originating status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy-related discussion on assisting countries to make use of trade preferences tends to focus on the provision of hard infrastructure to facilitate external economies from modern-sector exports. This is as opposed to harnessing potential knowledge spillovers. This omission is emblematic of tensions within new trade/new growth theory. Using two country case studies in Asia - Bangladesh and Cambodia - this article shows how different approaches towards making use of trade preferences have resulted in divergent industrial structures and firm-level technological capability indicators. Less stringent rules of origin requirements may offer new opportunities for late industrialisers in sub-Saharan Africa to tap into the modern export sector, but a more interventionist approach towards harnessing knowledge spillovers may also be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WTO is witnessing an increasing intrusion of its remit into areas that hitherto were the preserve of the state. This makes the legitimacy of its law creation process critical. The article engages in analyses of the conditionalities in developed countries’ Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) schemes, notably those of the EU. It argues that the maintenance of conditionalities in developed countries’ GSP schemes can result in extra regulatory burdens for developing countries and can have the effect of creating WTO law by stealth. The analyses centre on the Appellate Body decision in the EC – Tariff Preferences case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu 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 erosion of preferences due to multilateral tariff reductions is a long-standing concern for many developing countries. This paper focuses on the erosion of the preferences granted by the EU in the rice industry. Since 2004 there has been a sharp decrease in border protection for the EU rice industry. Because the EU grants trade preferences to a considerable number of rice exporting developing countries, the reform implied preference erosion as well. By addressing the impact of preference erosion on developing countries rice exports to the EU, this paper contributes two original insights to the literature: first, by proposing a new empirical approach to compute the preference margin when tariff rate quotas are in force which is based on the assumption of the existence of fixed costs and economies of scale in international trade; second, by estimating the trade elasticities of preferences by means of a dynamic panel gravity equation to deal with the issues of endogeneity of preferences and persistency in bilateral trade flows. The results show that the way preference margins are calculated matters significantly when assessing the existence and extent of their erosion and the values of trade elasticities. Finally, the estimations highlight the fact that the impact of preferences is still very strong for some of the countries concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economics / Ekonomia is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu 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 apply a spatial price equilibrium model of the world sugar market to simulate an abolition of the European Union (EU) quota system in 2015/16. To overcome the normative nature of the approach, we calibrate the model by attaching a non-linear cost term to each trade flow. This is in some regards similar to positive mathematical programming. We suggest an economic interpretation and an econometric specification of the cost term. EU sugar production is simulated to increase from 13.3 to 15.5 million tons in case of quota abolition by 2019/20. Ten member states increase production, nine reduce it. Preferential imports are significantly reduced. Simulated effects are found to be more pronounced the higher the world market price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper provides a quantitative assessment of the impact on the banana market of the expansion of trade preferences the European Union granted Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and of the possible erosion of these preferences as a result of different possible conclusions, if any, of on-going WTO negotiations. The results of the simulations performed suggest that the impact of the EPA on production and consumption of bananas in the EU will be limited, while benefits for ACP countries will be significant (at the expense of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) exporters). An agreement between the EU and MFN countries to end the outstanding WTO disputes on bananas and/or the conclusion of the WTO Doha round may bring an erosion of the preferential margins currently enjoyed by ACP countries of such an order of magnitude as to cancel out most of these benefits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Something fundamental is missing in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) research: an account of how North-South relations have shaped the institutionalization of this policy regime. This article examines the points of contact between developing countries' mobilization and CAP development over the last 40 years. Several points emerge from this comparative historical analysis. With regard to the CAP, developing countries have acted not as one South, but several Souths. The European Community (EC) has helped shape these Souths through an intricate system of trade and development cooperation agreements. In turn, parts of the South have helped sustain the CAP both as a necessary price to pay for the development of privileged relations with the EC and as a consequence of developing countries' international advocacy of managed trade and preferential trade agreements. Recent CAP reforms attest to the erosion of these historical ties and the deployment of new North-South logics. The article makes a call to place developing countries on the CAP research agenda and concludes by sketching out a strategy for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a preferential trade agreement between the United States and approved African countries, allowing duty-free and quota-free access to the U.S. market. Following AGOA's implementation in 2000, several African countries experienced a dramatic increase in exports to the United States. Nevertheless, AGOA exports, employment, and other benefits may prove to be short-term gains. As a form of temporary trade diversion from Asian countries, the increased exports may arise less from competitive advantages than from trade preferences that will erode over time. This paper focuses on garment exports from the African countries most affected by the preferential access with the United States under AGOA. An analysis based on ten-digit HS trade categories shows that African apparel enters the United States at sharply lower unit prices than similar products from China and India. Given Africa's higher costs, it is believed that this disparity results from specialized production in low-quality garments. We argue that export value and growth, often used to gauge the success of preferential trade agreements like AGOA, can be misleading. To assess the local contribution to the African economy of AGOA benefits, our paper examines value added in Kenya. Given information for each investment in Kenyan EPZs, we calculate local inputs as a percentage of sales and other measures. The results suggest that the real benefits of AGOA in apparel may be smaller than commonly believed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the economic effects of the trade policies for fresh fruit and vegetables adopted by the European Union (EU) after the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). The new import regimes are based on entry prices that in effect work as minimum prices. At the same time, the EU has signed trade preference agreements particularly with Southern Mediterranean countries that are important suppliers of fruit and vegetables to the EU. The management of the import regime is a balance between two conflicting objectives: to support internal producers and to preserve trade flows from preferred countries. On the side of export subsidies, to handle the reduction commitments under the URAA the EU has introduced rationing trough tender procedures. The analysis shows that such subsidies do not seem able to boost the exports of eligible products. Therefore, EU policy makers should ask whether the EU should continue to offer such subsidies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]