Posts tagged…Trade
Eonomic integration of Pacific Islands
Mon, Aug 03 2009It's not surprising to see rhetorical storm-clouds building over this week's Pacific Forum meeting in Cairns and the prospect of a regional economic integration agreement (PACER Plus) in the Pacific. An agreement that entails progressive economic reform and more open markets in the Pacific Islands is bound to threaten entrenched interests.
But this anxiety and pessimism is misplaced:
"'Against a…
Read more…Market and PPP measures of GDP
Tue, Jul 14 2009
In comments on the previous post, Ian Castles AO, the former Australian Statistician, notes that the World Bank and IMF create confusion in their reports by mixed use of market-exchange-rate (MER) and purchasing-power-parity (PPP) bases for estimating output and growth. Simply, using market exchange rates to compare the value of output among countries over-estimates the size of developed…
Carbon tariffs, permits and subsidies
Thu, Jul 09 2009Gary Horlick, Washington trade attorney, former senior official of the Commerce Department and a very fine analyst of WTO law, sets out some of the impossibly tricky technical questions in plain langugage
"Perhaps the biggest international trade challenge -- and one on which a lot more work needs to be done -- is how the mechanics of international trade will work if each of the hundred and ninety…
Global Trade Alert
Fri, Jul 03 2009
Just before the London G-20 Meeting in April, Andy Stoler and I wrote a paper for a booklet published by the Center for Economic Policy Research in which we suggested that the best way to make G-20 governments live up to their promises was to expose their misdeeds on trade policy—including those that nominally complied with their WTO obligation—using a public website.
Specifically, we recommended…
Two strikes from recession, not three
Sat, May 16 2009
Lindsay Tanner's claim reads like part of a narrative that has been prepared by the Rudd government.
"The challenge for the government now is that whereas Hawke and Keating had ’86 terms of trade, ’87 stock market crash, ’90 recession, we’ve had all three, in effect, within the space of about a year and all feeding off each other in various kind of negative synergy ways." Extract from Business…
The impact of Fiji’s devaluation
Thu, Apr 16 2009
It's not hard to understand the motives. But the devaluation is a gamble that is not guaranteed to pay off.
No doubt, the devaluation had to do with the export sector's poor contribution to income (goods only in the accompanying chart). Devaluation will cut the foreign-currency price of Fiji's exports and possibly increase income in $F—if there is a strong export supply response.
That may be a…
Where will Kirk take the Doha entreprise?
Wed, Apr 15 2009Australia's Trade Minister, Simon Crean, is doggedly faithful to the Doha round. He has recently visited Ron Kirk, the new US Trade representative. No doubt, to gee him up.
But the peak United States industry groups have it right in their letter to the new US President. There cannot be an ambitious outcome in WTO negotiations unless there is substantial degree reciprocity from those developing…
India says ‘no’
Wed, Apr 15 2009Even IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri considers India is 'very unlikely' to change its opposition to emissions targets (for India).
"'If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no. It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity,' said a member of the Indian delegation to the…
Illustrated USDA economic research
Thu, Apr 09 2009This 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…
Growth rate of regional trade agreements
Wed, Apr 08 2009
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.
Summary of the copyright trade agreement
Wed, Apr 08 2009The participants in the proposed Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)—one of the few plurilateral (non-regional) trade agreements ever negotiated outside the multilateral trade framework of GATT and WTO—have lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding their negotiations just a little by publishing a "Summary of key elements under discussion".
Although apparently intended to calm civil-liberties…
G20 communiqué an improvement
Fri, Apr 03 2009If you read the undertakings on trade and protectionism—with only a moderately skeptical eye—as a firm undertaking, it is not as "wooly" as the critics claim. On the contrary, it is a substantial improvement on other recent efforts and streets ahead of the wobbly paragraph 13 of their November 2008 communiqué.
The underlined phrases (my emphasis) are the significant parts. They make the…