Posts tagged…Trade
Australia not at ‘most risk’ of warming
Wed, Mar 18 2009
The Financial Times carries a story on the politics of the Australian emissions trading scheme legislation that makes the usual genuflections to alarmism but manages also to be dead wrong in the second paragraph. It quotes John Connor, head of the Climate Institute, which describes itself as "an independent research group in Sydney" (merely fashionable thinkers however):
"‘We are the developed…
Read more…Teachers’ kits on WTO - Keeping the peace
Tue, Mar 17 2009
The final installment (for now) of my Teachers Kits on WTO, designed to help teachers in junior, middle and high schools deliver classes on WTO as part of, for example, a civics curriculum. The kits were commissioned by the WTO.
This installment concerns WTO dispute settlement: a subject that might be too advanced for junior school, so this kit contains class materials only for middle and high…
Rodrik’s Plan B for global finance
Tue, Mar 17 2009
"[T]he logic of global financial regulation is flawed. The world economy will be far more stable and prosperous with a thin veneer of international co-operation superimposed on strong national regulations than with attempts to construct a bold global regulatory and supervisory framework. The risk we run is that pursuing an ambitious goal will detract us from something that is more desirable and…
Deceptive climate headline
Sat, Mar 14 2009You may have seen the headlines in stories like this from the Sydney Morning Herald, that cites "Alarm at Weak Greeenhouse Targets" coming out of this week's conference on climate in Copenhagen. Most of the stories are based on the same media briefing that underlies the exaggerated account in the Nature Magazine weblog
"Climate experts who met this week in Denmark have warned that the overall…
Asean-Australia-NZ Free Trade Agreement
Fri, Mar 13 2009ASEAN accounts for just under 20 percent of Australia's trade ($81bn in 20087-8), so the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) that has now been submitted to parliaments for ratification is potentially a big deal.
How big it is difficult to say from a quick review. This is an extensive agreement with a lot of details that will take careful evaluation. It is apparently the…
Feb 09 Temperature in Victoria
Thu, Mar 12 2009
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.
Dolphin-Tuna: here we go again…
Thu, Mar 12 2009The Mexican government has called for a reprise of one of the most controversial 'environmental' disputes ever bought to the GATT: the US—Dolphin-Tuna case. The case, then and now, concerns an attempt by the United States to use an import barrier to extend it's own 'dolphin-friendly' fishing regulations in an extra-territorial way to Mexican fishermen… or maybe just to block the entry of…
Would web surveillance of protection work?
Tue, Mar 10 2009
In our paper for the Evenett and Baldwin book on 'murky protectionism', Andrew Stoler and I outline a surveillance mechanism for the G20 that we think will dissuade governments from making regulations that would harm world trade (further, see the graph at left.)
The mechanism we propose has not been used previously to expose protectionism but it is certainly in use in other contexts to bring…
Banana ban breached not broken
Tue, Mar 10 2009Only eight years after the 'import risk assessment' process started, and three years after cyclone Larry's decimation of the local crop combined with the import ban pushed average prices up by almost 90%, Australians have at last the—distant but tantalizing—prospect of access to those wicked Philippines bananas.
Not, mind you, without a 'belts and braces' set of controls that you would expect…
Finding data on WTO Agriculture agreements
Mon, Mar 09 2009The WTO's framework of trade agreements for agricultural policies is complex. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (supplemented by rules in the GATT, the Subsidies Agreement and the SPS Agreement) regulates the external impacts of countries' border barriers and the impact of their internal market manipulation policies on external competition. It's impossible to make useful assessments of the…
Can the G20 halt ‘murky’ protectionism?
Sun, Mar 08 2009
What should the G20 do, when they meet in London next month, to put an end to the growing use of what I've been calling 'wiggle-room' protection? Is 'murky' protectionism causing the coming collapse in trade volumes? Or will protectionism rise as a result? Supposing that they wanted to, could the G20 really crack-down on actions that close markets or discriminate against imports but are not…
Slip-sliding summitry
Mon, Mar 02 2009If regional summits over the past day or so are any guide, the prospects of an effective commitment from the G20, next month, prohibiting protection are weak. At the ASEAN summit in Thailand this week:
"…Asean leaders made a stand against protectionism, [but] defended their own buy-local campaigns, saying those conform with trade rules, and are similar to the ”Buy American” clause in the $787bn…