Krugman’s take on protection
Tue, Jul 13 2010trade
protection
growth
It seems Krugman will say anything to score a point. He wants to argue that insufficient demand (unemployment) is a problem and that redistribution (trade taxes) is not.
"…the attempt to place blame for the Depression on protectionism is a sort of Noble Lie, an attempt to scare people into trade policy that’s good for other reasons" Extract from Hayek, Trade Restrictions, And The Great Depression - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
An attempt to scare people? I suppose he'd know.
But this is drivel. Opening (and maintaining open) markets is not "good for other reasons." It's good precisely because markets where there is competitive supply sustain surprising (innovative, bigger-than-you-expected) growth. The opposite of depression.
Trade ‘imbalances’ are misleading
Mon, Jul 12 2010wto
china
macroeconomics
statistics
Alexandro Jara, the Deputy Director-General of WTO
"[R]elying on conventional trade statistics gives a distorted picture of trade imbalances between countries. As we saw when looking at the Chinese content of the iPad, what counts is not the imbalances as measured by gross values of exports and imports, but how much valued added is embedded in these flows.
The WTO estimate, based on IDE-Jetro data, estimates that 80 per cent of the value of the goods exported by the US had a domestic content. The comparable figure was 77 per cent in the case of Japan, 56 per cent for Korea. It was about 50 per cent for Malaysia and Chinese Taipei, meaning that half the value exported by these countries originated from other countries.
Using conventional trade statistics would overestimate the US bilateral deficit vis-à-vis China by around 30 per cent as compared to measuring in value added content based on input-out matrices. The official figures for the bilateral deficit would be cut by 50 per cent when the activity of export processing zones in China and Hong Kong, China, re-exports are fully taken into account. By the same token, measured in domestic value added content, the bilateral deficit of the US with Korea or Japan, the main providers of electronic parts in our iPad example, would increase in proportion to the reduction of the US — China deficit. " Extract from Address to the World Input Output Database conference, May 2010 [emphasis added]
Why the Doha Round is failing
Sat, Jul 10 2010agriculture
doha
public policy
services
The usually well-informed ITSCD Bridges Newsletter tries to explain it with a bit of tabloid alliteration: 'Political Paralysis Poisons WTO Agriculture Talks'. Nah! It's a political choice to put the talks on life-support and it will be a political choice to pull the tubes. It's Doha that's in rigor, not the pollies.
The Doha Round fizzer is an embarrassment. The past sixty years of GATT and WTO negotiations have seen a lot of rocky moments but talks have never died. Governments dont't want to damage the brand, so they go on resurrecting their 'determination' in press releases from the G-8 or the G-20. But they've privately calculated the Doha plan doesn't warrant the political effort and attention required to get it done.
Guess what? They're right (yes, the politicians know their own business)! Doha has run out of demand.
Read more…ACTA is an attack on the WTO
Wed, Jun 16 2010wto
trade framework
copyright
India has complained in the recent TRIPS council that the ACTA provisions modify the balance of rights and obligations established by a multilateral agreement (TRIPS) covering the same domain. The secret negotiation of this plurilateral agreement by a cabal that included Australia is an attack on that balance and hence on one of the pillars of WTO.
"Countries excluded from the ACTA process have to come to recognize the serious threat it represents both substantively as well as for the future of multilateral organizations. " Extract from Michael Geist - India Comes Out Swinging Against ACTA at WTO
This agreement was not justified by the claims made on its behalf; the allegations of copyright losses were chimeras if not frauds. Joining the talks has been a shameful turn in Australia's trade policy which has, up to now, been marked by inclusiveness, a respect for evidence in the analysis of policy and for transparency in the representation of commercial interests.
Predictably, it seems that the proposed ACTA agreement will introduce new restrictions on trade—including an obligation to provide for seizure of goods in transit (i.e not in the commerce of the country authorizing the seizure) that are suspected of infringement of a private beneift in some other country. This commercial blagguardry will further undermine the miniscule (possibly non-existent) public benefits of TRIPS to developing countries.
India will not be alone in its objections.
Positions diverge on Doha negotiations
Thu, May 27 2010wto
doha
Another cold shower for WTO: last week's attempt in Geneva to sketch out some 'common ground' failed. National negotiating teams were said to be shocked (yes, 'shocked') by the size of the gaps between national positions.
"... nine years into the multilateral trade talks, it remains unclear whether the inviolable ‘red lines’ of prominent WTO members overlap enough to make a Doha Round agreement possible" Extract from ICTSD
Luckily, the stock market seems unfussed; it gave up not a jot in response.
World Bank opens its data
Wed, Apr 28 2010
This remarkable new web-resource from the World Bank is a big deal.
"The [Wordl Bank] Open Data Initiative marks a change in the way the Bank disseminates data. Previously, it relied on a network of private distributors to get the information to 1,000 sites and 25 million registered users worldwide.
'Now we’re changing course and we’re going to attempt a much different distribution process that relies much more on having people come to us rather than our going out to people and seeing what kind of use they make of the data…" Extract from News & Broadcast - World Bank Frees Up Development Data
Trade researchers everywhere should cheer!
What the ash cloud meant for Kenya
Thu, Apr 22 2010$US12 million in lost fruit, vegetables and flowers exports to Europe as of 20 Tuesday 20 April.
'It is bad. We have lost Sh228 million ($3 million) a night, so that is a total of about Sh912 million ($12 million) as of last night,' Stephen Mbithi, the head of the Fresh Producers Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) told Reuters by phone. Mbithi said the country flies out 1,000 tones of fruit and vegetables every night at this time of the year, and only about 100 tonnes left on Monday morning, destined for Spain." Extract from The [Kenyan] Standard
There were other losses, too, that cascade from the loss of export sales: especially job losses. There's not much of a market in Kenya buys the flowers and fruit that are not shipped.
Counterfeiting data is phoney
Thu, Apr 15 2010evidence
ip
acta
Ottawa University Professor of Law, Michael Geist, points to a new U.S. Government Accounting Office report that concludes the U.S. government—and they might add, other governments negotiating the poisonous ACTA "anti-counterfeiting" treaty —have been inventing their estimates of losses from global counterfeiting.
"Three commonly cited estimates of U.S. industry losses due to counterfeiting have been sourced to U.S. agencies, but cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology. First, a number of industry, media, and government publications have cited an FBI estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to counterfeiting on an annual basis. This estimate was contained in a 2002 FBI press release, but FBI officials told us that it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated.
Second, a 2002 CBP press release contained an estimate that U.S. businesses and industries lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs due to counterfeits of merchandise. However, a CBP official stated that these figures are of uncertain origin, have been discredited, and are no longer used by CBP. A March 2009 CBP internal memo was circulated to inform staff not to use the figures. However, another entity within DHS continues to use them.
Third, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association reported an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit goods and attributed the figure to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The OECD has also referenced this estimate in its report on counterfeiting and piracy, citing the association report that is sourced to the FTC. However, when we contacted FTC officials to substantiate the estimate, they were unable to locate any record or source of this estimate within its reports or archives, and officials could not recall the agency ever developing or using this estimate. These estimates attributed to FBI, CBP, and FTC continue to be referenced by various industry and government sources as evidence of the significance of the counterfeiting and piracy problem to the U.S. economy." Extract from U.S. Government Study: Counterfeiting and Piracy Data Unreliable (emphasis added)
I argued in my submission to the Australian government, opposing their intention to joint the negotiation, that the OECD estimate of global losses—mysteriously the same number as that invented by U.S. agencies—was derived by implausible means and should not be accepted at face value.
Question: could we say that this GAO report signals an "ACTA-gate" (a data manipulation at least as suspicious as that contrived by the "Climategate" scientists)?
Schubert and the GATT
Thu, Apr 15 2010wto
doha
trade framework
From a 1984 speech to the Confederation of British Industry by Hugh Corbet, then Director of the London-based Trade Policy Research Centre.
The situation* puts one in mind of the report prepared by a well-known firm of management consultants commissioned to advise on the commercial difficulties of a famous symphony orchestra. Part of the report that was prepared dealt with a concert performance by the orchestra of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. The comments of the consultants read as follows:
For considerable periods, four oboe players had nothing to do. The number in this section should be reduced and their work spread over the whole of the orchestra, thus eliminating peaks of inactivity. All twelve violins were playing identical notes. This seems to be unnecessary duplication and the staff in this section should be drastically cut. If a large volume of sound is really required, it could be obtained through an electronic amplifier. Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demi-semi-quavers. This appears to be an excessive refinement and it is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest semi-quaver. If this were done it would be possible to use trainees and low-grade operators. No useful purpose is served by repeating with horns the passage that has already been handled by strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to twenty minutes. Finally, if Schubert had attended to all these matters, he would probably have been able to finish his symphony.
Just as the consultants overlooked the purpose of the orchestra, so trade negotiators appear to overlook the purpose of the GATT, which is to provide a stable institutional environment for the conduct of international trade, enabling private enterprises to know where they stand vis-u-vis their governments, and the governments of other countries, so that they can plan for expansion or if need be for adjustment - thereby facilitating the process of economic growth.
* 1984 was marked by rancourous disputes and 'blowups' over problems that were eventually addressed in the Uruguay Round: PWG
The suggestion that the negotiators (now WTO rather than GATT) have lost a sense of what the Organization is for, while building the complex maze of managerialist 'fixes' that is the proposed Doha deal, is still apt.
EU launches debate on farm subsidies
Thu, Apr 15 2010agriculture
subsidies
cap
eu
"Following several weeks of consultations, the European Commission is expected to draw up a report on potential changes to the CAP in mid-summer. " Extract from ICTSD • EU Farm Commissioner Launches Debate on Subsidies
I bet there are no surprises.
The overall strategy for the Common Agricultural Policy beyond the next budget horizon (2013) is already evident in the chart. It shows that nominal expenditure in €billions is being held nearly steady—or rising just slightly— despite the enlargement of the Union. But the value is falling in real terms (and as a proportion of GDP). This strategy plays to the cash illusion of farmers (assuming they still have such illusions) while keeping the lid on their incentive to expand production, which only adds to public stock woes and diverts the budget into disposal expenses (export subsidies).
But At 0.4% of GDP, the CAP still represents sixty percent of all expenditure by the Union. So sixty-years on from its launch, the madness of this giant re-distribution machine continues.
The more 'varigated' distribution of the funds diplayed in the chart—illustrating 'CAP reform'—is a bit of furphy. The 'coupled' and 'de-coupled' payments direct to farms and the 'rural development' expenditure are nearly fungible sources of income for farmers. They all pay to keep farmers in a business where world market prices tell them they should not be (or would tell them were it not for the import barriers).
It's ironic that the Commission has entitled this public consultation as "2013, Your Ideas Matter…". Because ideas have long been junk where the CAP is concerned; only interests have any force.
NZ Apples, at last! But…
Mon, Apr 12 2010agriculture
quarantine
disputes
new zealand
"THE World Trade Organisation has overturned Australia's 90-year-long ban on importing New Zealand apples, according to NZ media reports, which are branding the decision 'a win against Australia" Extract from Australia's ban on New Zealand apples overturned by World Trade Organisation - report | The Daily Telegraph
The Apples Case should never have arisen because we should have welcomed NZ apples into our market decades ago. It should have been settled immediately by the Australian government at the consultations phase of the WTO dispute. The premiss ('fireblight' risk) was implausible and the subject of an earlier, definitive U.S. victory in WTO against similar protection in the Japan-Apples Case.
So, probably, two-cheers for good-sense, the NZ apple industry and Australian consumers.
Whether this is a robust or a pyrrhic victory is still to be seen.The decision (not yet published—so caution is warranted) is appealable by Australia—which could delay the entry of NZ apples onto our market. Also, there is nothing preventing the Australian government eventually adopting import orders just as onerous as the 2007 proposal.
Worse, by the time NZ apples finally hit the Australian shores (nine decades after they first sought entry) they may find that the Chinese have beaten them into the market. It's enough to make a Kiwi weep!
I've argued for years that our Quarantine system was costly, overblown and unnecessarily protectionist. In the past, our quarantine barriers have hurt our rural economy by forcing us to sustain high-cost import-replacement industries (like the banana industry) at the expense of consumers and of more efficient export industries. The latter find their input costs raised by the protection and their export marketing efforts undermined by our trading partners' scorn of Australian agricultural 'protectionism'.
Slowly, following WTO pressure (our loss of the egregious Salmon case, in particular); pressure from our trading partners (e.g. in the Quarantine working groups set up under the Australia-USA Free Trade Agreement); criticism from the Federal Court when it reviewed individual cases, and; as a result of independent reviews, the regulations and implementation of our laws have both improved.
But the carefully (even torturously)-prepared decisions of BioSecurity Australia are prey to crass political manipulation—which is what happened to the 2007 decision from BioSecurity Australia (recapitulating a decision first taken in 2000) to approve imports of NZ apples subject to onerous conditions. The Australian Minister at the time, Peter McGuaran, failed to sign-off on the decision (after strong lobbying from the protected Australian industry and against the advice of his own Department and over the objections of the National Farmers' Federation) for simply protectionist reasons.
Let’s end WTO’s Doha agony
Thu, Apr 01 2010wto
agriculture
doha
critical mass
Just in … some old news from Geneva:
"The WTO's week-long "stocktaking" of the Doha Round trade talks ended on Friday with a whimper, not a bang. The much-touted goal of concluding the negotiations toward a global trade deal before the end of 2010 - an objective laid out by heads of state last year - was quietly set aside, as officials acknowledged that political hurdles continue to block progress in the round, much as they have for the past 18 months … As the negotiations stumble along with no end in sight, some observers – and even some delegates, when speaking privately – have said that it might be time to begin thinking about putting the Doha talks on hold for awhile, or even abandoning them altogether." Extract from Bridges newsletter (ICTSD)
Surely, by now, it's obvious (even in Geneva) that the tortured 'single undertaking' structure of the proposed Doha deal—designed to accommodate every policy option in the spectrum from less protection to more protection by way of elaborate exclusions, exceptions and disguises—is just not going to fly.
Let those who want to open markets find a sufficient number of trade partners to create a globe-spanning 'free trade zone' for traded agricultural products. Once they discover a 'zone' that provides a mercantilist basis for liberalization among the participants, let them form it without excluding others (to preserve non-discrimination in trade).
In our project on Alternative Frameworks for Agriculture Negotiations for the Australian Rural Research and Development Corporation, Andrew Stoler and I demonstrated that at such a free-trade zone can work. A 'critical mass' agreement among 35-or-so WTO members would be both technically and economically feasible and would deliver results comparable to the proposed Doha deal on agriculture.
I've prepared a pre-print (not for citation, please) of our full report to the RIRDC, that you can grab here. As well as our main conclusions, the documents contains papers on the economic modeling; the contributions from research institutions from Brazil, China, India and Indonesia; the results of the Global Trade Opinion Polls, and; analytical contributions from trade luminaries such as Kym Anderson (University of Adelaide), Simon Evenett (University of St Gallen), Ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo (Former Chairman, WTO General Council), Sallie James (Cato Institute), Patrick Low (Chief Economist of WTO), Tim Josling (Stanford University), Peter Lloyd (University of Melbourne), Razeen Sally and Valentin Zahrnt (ECIPE), and Alan Winters (University of Sussex).
Rotten ideas about the renminbi
Thu, Mar 18 2010wto
china
trade framework
protection
The prospect of a U.S.-China clash over currency controls next month when the U.S. Treasury Secretary is supposed to pronounce on China's 'currency manipulation' has prompted hyperbolic fears (Martin Wolf, in the FT says he "wonders whether the open global economy is going to survive..."!) and at least two feeble plans.
One is from the IMF, which wants a new mandate—although it admits that's not really necessary—to undertake explicit multilateral surveillance of Systemic Stability (i.e. imbalances in external accounts). But the Fund does a bad job of justifying its claim for a new role. The Conclusions (on page 12) of the current proposal from the Fund management offer no better reason that that it wants to feel important as the manager of a new 'peer review' process. Ho hum!
A much worse idea comes from Arvind Subramaniam in today's Financial Times. He wants the WTO not only to engage in surveillance but also to enforce the 'right' value for currencies.
"The World Trade Organisation is a natural forum for developing new multilateral rules. First, undervalued exchange rates are de facto protectionist trade policies because they are a combination of export subsidies and import tariffs…:"
Even if we accept that there is an equivalence between currency management and trade measures, we have to ask so what? You'd imagine, wouldn't you, that a trade economist would recall that, in WTO, neither of these trade instruments is necessarily "protectionist" and that neither is illegal (or even deprecated)! This is not much of an argument for WTO intervention.
Second, the WTO has a better record on enforcement of rules. Its dispute settlement system, although not perfect, has been reasonably effective in allowing members to initiate and settle disputes…What is needed is a new rule in the WTO proscribing undervalued exchange rates.
Uh-huh. But does Prof. Subramaniam recall what is needed to add a 'rule' to the WTO? If not 'consensus' (or 'explicit consensus' in the Doha negotiating mandate), then a very strong qualified majority (⅔ of Members according to Article X of the Marakesh Agreement). Furthermore, a new rule adopted by a majority vote applies only to Members that accept it; unless a further another strong majority (¾ of Members) decides to expel any Member that does not accept the new rule.
Now think for a second or two what sort of mess a proposal to penalize persistent trade surpluses would create in WTO. Remember, we're talking about an Organization that—for the present at least—can't decide which way is up (in the Doha round), let alone what constitutes an "undervalued exchange rate"
Imagine, too, that horrible wrangle ending up in a majority vote on the new rule, which will inevitably be aimed at China and possibly Germany. But will also potentially hit a lot of others; Thailand and Vietnam, for example. What we have here is a recipe for a hecatomb of the WTO.
The IMF would continue to be the sole forum for broad exchange rate surveillance. But in those rare instances of substantial and persistent undervaluation, we envisage a more effective delineation of responsibility, with the IMF continuing to play a technical role in assessing when a country’s exchange rate was undervalued, and the WTO assuming the enforcement role." Extract from FT.com / Comment / Opinion - The weak renminbi is not just America’s problem
Fat chance! Even if the IMF could actually discover the 'correct' international price of a currency, the WTO would break if tasked with enforcing it.
Motor vehicle subsidies wasted on Ford
Thu, Mar 18 2010australia
subsidies
victoria
automobiles
Ford Australia made just over a quarter (60,000) of all the cars made in Australia last year and less than one-fifth of all the new cars+light trucks registered in Australia in 2009 (a total of 302,400: see the ABS Motor Vehicle Census)
Ford is not going to be a profit center for its global parent any time soon.
'As soon as choices have to be made, Ford is the next Mitsubishi,' said John Wormald, principal of international consultant Autopolis, referring to the Japanese company's decision to shut down its Adelaide factory two years ago.
Mr Wormald, who is in Australia to advise the Victorian government, said the replacement for the Falcon, due in about five years, could be imported cheaply and the carmaker did not need its Melbourne plant. 'Ford isn't short of assembly capacity in other places,' he said. 'Where's the plan to integrate Australia?'" Extract from Ford will be next carmaker to quit Australia | The Australian
Wormald confirmed what everyone except Kevin Rudd and Kim Carr has understood for decades about the Australian car industry. Referring to the massive $6 billion bribes extended by the Rudd government (including $13 million to prop up Ford's Geelong factory), he said
"Subsidies were doomed to fail because the industry lacked a vision for the future and Ford was most vulnerable because it was isolated from its parent's global operations.
Trade-war not likely
Mon, Mar 15 2010wto
protection
Precisely
"Taking a legal case over exchange rate misalignments to the WTO would probably fail, and take years in any case. The only real route left is to unilaterally slap tariffs on Chinese imports to compensate for alleged currency undervaluation. That would be a nuclear option that really could spark the destruction of the postwar world trading system, and it doesn’t look like the US is quite desperate enough for that yet." Extract from Alan Beattie in the FT - Skirmishes are not all-out trade war
Apple’s patent protectionism
Thu, Mar 04 2010protection
usa
disputes
patents
In an action before the U.S. Federal courts and the International Trade Commission, Apple Inc. is attacking a Taiwanese manufacturer of Google's Android Phone for alleged abuse of 20 software patents. It seems the suits are aimed at slowing the growth of competition for the iPhone and, possibly, aimed at Google's proposed web operating system.
The prosecution of software patents, especially those for 'user interface innovations', is a dubious action at best that is sometimes (often? usually?) an abuse of market-competition principles. Worse, in this case, Apple has chosen to pursue it's competitors under the notorious, protectionist, S.337 of the US Trade Act of 1930 which does not provide damages for infringement of patent rights but prohibits imports of goods likely to infringe a U.S. patent.
Section 337 of the US Trade Act (1930) was the subject of a well-known GATT complaint brought by the European Communities against the USA in 1998. The Panel Report, adopted by the GATT Contracting Parties, concluded:
…that Section 337 of the United States Tariff Act of 1930 is inconsistent with Article III:4 [of GATT], in that it accords to imported products challenged as infringing United States patents treatment less favourable than the treatment accorded to products of United States origin similarly challenged, and that these inconsistencies cannot be justified in all respects under Article XX(d).
The GATT Panel recommended that Member governments ask the USA to amend it's legislation to bring it back into conformity with the GATT. But this was the middle of the Uruguay Round of negotiations, focussing on the TRIPS negotiations on intellectual property. The USA took no action as recommended by the Panel. Finally, in 2000 the EC again requested consultations with the USA over S.337, now citing its concerns about incompatibility with the TRIPS Agreement…but, again, there has been no action by the USA.
The Apple commentariat, is unhappy about the idea of protecting software patents to consolidate what is, already, a dominant postion for Apple in the phone market. Here are two pretty big guns from that world, blasting Apple with both barrels.
" Whatever benefit in the market Apple hopes to achieve by this suit to me seems likely to be worth far less than the loss of good will and prestige Apple will suffer if they vigorously pursue this case (let alone if they initiate more such suits)." Extract from John Gruber: This Apple-HTC Patent Thing
"But when you sue someone for doing something you do yourself, you become one of the bad guys. Can you name a company you admire that spends its time enforcing patents, instead of innovating? Remember the pirate flag you flew over Apple's headquarters when you were building the Mac? Is Apple part of the Navy now?" Extract from Will Shipley: An Open Letter to Steve Jobs Concerning the HTC Lawsuits.
Tea leaves
Fri, Feb 26 2010china
macroeconomics
stimulus
A hiccup? Or a sign that imported deflation—via low-priced Chinese imports—will now start to slow?
"‘Labour availability is tight right now in Guangdong compared to other regions,’ said Paul Hussey, chief executive of Strix. The Isle of Man company, which dominates the global market for thermostatic controls on electric kettles, maintains most of its manufacturing operations in the provincial capital, Guangzhou." Extract from FT.com - Labour shortage hits China export recovery
According to the FT, China's economic stimulus program has increased investment and employment opportunities in the hinterland provinces, reducing the availability of labor in the coastal manufacturing hubs.
If this is not merely a temporary effect of the stimulus but the start of a long-term shift of industrial production away from China's coast it would not be a surprise to find that it was oriented more strongly toward supplying domestic demand than export markets. Transport and handling costs, for example, would make domestic markets a prior target.
EU ramps up farm subsidies
Thu, Feb 11 2010wto
subsidies
eu
Yow!
"The latest official notification to the WTO shows that total EU support levels have returned to levels not seen since the previous decade, with €90.7 billion of support being reported to the global trade body for 2006/2007 - up from €75.6 billion in 2002, when support was at its lowest in the last fifteen years." Extract from ICTSDSo-called 'Green' box subsidies were growing dramatically (see the graph) in 2006/7 as the more distorting 'Amber' and 'Blue' box spend declined. There's no WTO constraint on the total farm subsidy spend, only only spending in a trade-distorting way, essentially by manipulating prices using taxes, quotas or import restrictions.
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How to prepare for FTA negotiations (Part III)
In the third part of my 'checklist' for preparing an FTA negotiation I briefly cover the identification of relevant economic data (including hints on what to do if you can't find what you need), and; some topics that don't fit elsewhere but contain suggestions that arise from my own experience in negotiations including approaches to 'team management' for the negotiators. This section ends with a reminder that the benefits (and the costs) of a credible agreement are often anticipated by business and factored into their plans long before the end of the official 'implementation' period.
...moreOther things
Chinese wage pressures
Straws in the wind?
"Foreign investors are under pressure to increase wages as the country’s manufacturing sector shakes off the effects of the global financial crisis." Extract from FT.com - Strike forces Honda to shut Chinese plants
Mortimer success
Intriguing evidence that the Mortimer Enquiry on Australia's export performance (on which I served as an advisor) was remarkably successful in its efforts to reinvigorate our trade balance. ;-)
Of course, I knew it would be. ('The exchange rate', you say? Really?)
Illustrated USDA economic research
This should be fun. Unfortunately the 'interactive' version loads slowly and has 'panes' that make it difficult to view the info-graphics. The (16.8mb!) downloadable version may be better. But the download crawled, so I gave up.
"This book contains a sampling of recent ERS research illustrating the breadth of the Agency’s research on current policy issues: from biofuels to food consumption to land conservation to patterns of trade for agricultural products" Extract from the introduction to the 'Illustrated Guide' by the USDA's Economic Research Service
Growth rate of regional trade agreements
It is often said that the growth in the number of RTAs has been 'exponential'. Thanks to the WTO's database of RTAs it's now easy to keep tab of the trend. Here's what it looks like as of March 2009.
A climate rebuttal
Volcanic explosion in Alaska
The thousands of tonnes of ash, dust and gasses that volcanos spew into the atmosphere are often a cause of short-run global cooling. The explosive eruption of Mt Redoubt, a large volcano in Alaska, in the past 24 hours seems bound to affect the northern hemisphere climate. The image (click) shows the ash plume shooting into the upper atmosphere.
Lu Kewen given his orders?
How could a meeting, at the PM's official residence, with a top Chinese politburo member be 'private'? This is a bizarre statement!
"[A] spokeswoman for Mr Rudd told The Australian: 'It was a private meeting between the two. It is not the Prime Minister of Australia's role to put out a press release announcing what every visiting politician is doing.'" Extract from The Australian
58 years of Victorian temperatures
A small experiment with the Bureau of Met's record of mean temperature anomalies for Victoria using Hadley Wickham's 'ggplot' library for R. There are 696 observations of monthly means between 1950 and 2008. The Bureau provides 'anomalies' from the monthly 1961-1990 means. How are these anomalies distributed? Are they skewed toward the upper 'tail' of the distribution, pointing to an alarming degree of warming in Victoria?
Well, there's a smidge greater length in the upper tail. But otherwise, looks like a factory-standard normal distribution to me.
Feb 09 Temperature in Victoria
About 1 degree above the average 1960-1991 February temperature, but only the fourth hottest February this decade (despite the cruel record temperatures of 'Black Saturday'). Well below the records in the mid-1950s, the mid-1960s and the early 1980s.
Climate ‘tipping’ points fall down
If you're alarmed by claims—sometimes from official sources—about CO2 from thawing permafrost or cataclysms caused by a slowing or reversal of the "Meridional Overturning Circulation", then relax!
It looks like neither one nor the other of these exotic risks stands up to scientific scrutiny.
The evidence on cap-and-trade
"The problem in Australia is not that the wrong policy won in the battle of ideas. The problem is that the battle never took place. We need to have this debate. If the Government is determined to introduce further climate change policy, there are plenty of reasons a carbon tax may be better than a trading system." Op Ed by John Humpreys in The Australian
Exactly!
Victorian temperature fell in 2008
The updated Bureau of Meteorology data for 2008 show that the 'anomaly' has fallen back to just over 0.3 of a degree. This graph (click the thumbnail) has been created from BOM data using the R code from this post.
Now it’s a competition
"The French government said on Tuesday that it would earmark up to euro;6bn ($7.8bn, pound;5.5bn) to a rescue plan for its car industry hit by plunging demand, the credit crunch and a decline in competitiveness."nbsp;nbsp;from: Financial Times
Every new bailout devalues the last by increasing production of cars that need taxpayer funding.
EC cooling on Global Warming?
"Each of the 35,000 solar jobs in Germany, for instance, is subsidized to the tune of €130,000. According to estimates by the Rhine-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research, green subsidies will cost German electricity consumers nearly €27 billion in the next two years." extract from: Benny Peiser in the WSJ
Rug-man on climate haircut
"On Thursday the Italian premier had repeated a threat to veto the package if Italy's demands were not met, and said in a frank exchange with journalists that he thought it was "absurd" to be talking about carbon emissions in the face of the more pressing financial crisis. "It's like someone with pneumonia thinking about having a hairdo," he said." (extract from ANSA)
Professors prosecute protectionism
Suppose the SWFs got cold feet?
"‘Right now we don’t have the courage to invest in financial institutions because we don’t know what problems we will put ourselves into,’ Lou Jiwei [Chairman of China Investment Corp] said on Wednesday. ‘My confidence should come from government policies. But if they are changing every week, how can you expect that to make me confident?" extract from: Financial Times
The world is not flat
The World Development Report 2009 is a wonderful excursion through economic geography: with some interesting background papers too (like this from Marius Brulhart on trends in intra-industry trade since 1960)
Why ‘Bretton Woods’ bis won’t happen
"In fact, the emerging multilateral, multipolar world – long called for by those uncomfortable with American power – shows every sign of being highly dysfunctional." Gideon Rachman at the FT
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