Imperfect competition,border protection and consumer boycott: The future of the dairy industry in Israel

Recent increases in prices of dairy products in Israel led to consumer unrest and boycotts against dairy producers during the summer of 2011. The Israeli dairy industry is highly distorted with production quotas and administered prices for raw milk, tariff rate quotas and an oligopoly in dairy processing. Since the issue of self-sufficiency and food security is at the top of Israel's national priorities, the future of the dairy industry is generating heated debate. Thus, we use a general equilibrium model to estimate the effects associated with particular alternative policies actually discussed to liberalize the Israeli dairy industry.     

Global adjustment to US disengagement from the world trading system

US trade policy in the Trump administration is protectionist, raising tariffs outside of WTO rules, threatening trade wars, withdrawing from existing trade agreements, and negotiating new bilateral trade deals rather than free trade agreements. The reaction of the rest of the world has been to support the WTO rules-based trading system and to pursue new and expanded regional trade agreements that do not include the US. The result may be US disengagement from the world trading system, with countries diverting trade around the US. We use a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze changes in trade and production patterns for a variety of scenarios, including US trade wars. We find that adjustment to US disengagement is feasible—the changes in trade shares as countries divert trade are modest and achievable, with very little impact on the volume of global trade. If the US engages in trade wars with major partners, the best response for other trade partners is to sit out the trade war, accept higher US tariffs, and gain markets from global trade diversion around the US. Finally, because of indirect effects, widespread tariffs fail to benefit the protected sectors—a fallacy of composition in a protectionist trade policy.     

Commodity prices and the world distribution of income

Some advocates of a new international economic order recommend raising prices of commodities exported by developing countries as a means of reducing the inequality of world income distribution. A simulation model using commodity trade data and income distribution data for 68 industrial and developing countries examines this policy alternative. Initial data compilation reveals that internal inequality is as important as international: The world income share of the poorest 40% of people would be twice as high in the absence of intracountry inequality. Calculations using actual price experience in the “great inflation” of 1972–1975 show that despite the large relative price changes for some commodities (especially oil), these changes left the world size distribution of income virtually unchanged. Separate policy simulations show that even a quadrupling of the price of ali “equalizing” commodities (those mainly exported by LDCs) would leave the size distribution of world income practically unaltered (even under optimistic assumptions about intracountry distributional incidence), although some individual LDCs would gain. Increasing commodity prices therefore appears to be an ineffective means of increasing international equity, quite apart from questions about the feasibility of cartels or commodity agreements.     

Embedded Trade: A Third‐Party Effect*

Objectives. Previous work on trade, mostly from an economic perspective, assumes dyadic independence, and thus that trade can be explained by attributes of such dyads. We critique these contentions from the perspective of structural embeddedness, hypothesizing that sharing common third‐party trading partners encourages dyadic trade. Methods. We analyze international trade data of 78 countries in 1975 and 1996, using cross‐sectional and longitudinal regression. Results. Regression analyses support our hypothesis. A BIC analysis suggests that the structural embeddedness variables significantly improve the model fit. Conclusion. International exchange of commodities, like other social interactions, is shaped and constrained by structurally determined opportunities. Thus, an explanation of economic behavior, including trade, is not complete without reference to the triads in which a dyad is embedded.     

Applied general equilibrium analysis of trade liberalisation on land-based sectors in Malaysia and Indonesia

This paper presents general equilibrium evaluations of forest sector trade for Southeast Asian exporters. The four scenarios examined range from the 1994 Uruguay Round tariff reductions to a complete liberalisation of forest and agricultural products trade. We find that simultaneous reductions in forest and agricultural sector tariffs make Indonesia and Malaysia worse off. For Indonesia, this is due to the fall in forest rent and agricultural tariff revenues. Malaysia has the highest ratio of agricultural imports to total land-based sector imports, the rise in agricultural prices thus hits Malaysian consumers the hardest.We find that terms of trade effect omitted from the partial equilibrium framework may reduce the welfare calculations for Malaysia and Indonesia in the forest sector trade by as much as 106 and 58%, respectively. This points to the importance of general equilibrium modelling in the logging industry. The same applies to other sector specific analyses where trade is concentrated between few countries.     

The impact of the EU sugar trade reform on poor households in developing countries: A general equilibrium analysis

We use a modified version of the applied general equilibrium model GTAP, called GTAP_MH, to evaluate the impact of a reduction in the EU's support price for sugar on income distribution of African households. For LDC countries, non-ACP but participant in the EBA initiative a +2% change is indicated in term of income generation across all ten social strata identified within GTAP_MH framework, with positive percentage changes in supply prices at household level of endowment commodities, and positive percentage changes in price indices for private household expenditures. The big losers will be those countries that would no longer be able to compete at an international level as a result of the lost preferences.     

THE IMPACTS OF DEREGULATION AND AGRICULTURAL RESTRUCTURING FOR RURAL AUSTRALIA

As a leader in the Cairns Group of Nations, Australia has been advancing deregulation in agri‐food trade. Successive governments have assumed that Australia would benefit from a greater deregulation of international trade because this would allow increased access to world markets for primary agricultural commodities. But regulation exists, at least in Europe, to protect the social value of the rural landscape. Australian governments, strongly influenced by economic rationalist ideology, have given insufficient consideration to the rural social landscape. Little critical reflection has taken place about whether Australia, and its farmers, would actually benefit from deregulation, or what the social impacts of this trend might be. Deregulation inevitably invokes structural adjustment, forces farmers out of agriculture, depopulates rural areas, and creates social hardship. There are also environmental ramifications. The exit of farmers from agriculture has not been as fast as was expected by economists and policy‐makers, with many farmers adapting to new situations.     

文化商品的特殊性与文化的经济化趋势

文化商品是指文化产品消费者在交换过程中所得到的文化精神产品的文化娱乐服务的总和.文化商品具有双重属性,同时又具有其特殊性.文化商品的双重属性表现在它具有商品属性和社会意识形态性,文化商品的三个特殊性是指文化商品消费的永恒性、文化商品的复杂性和创新性.文化商品作为一种特殊商品进入文化市场必然要同时发挥其社会效益和经济效益,文化必然要表现经济化趋势.     

“碳关税”对中国经济的潜在影响

近年来,一些发达国家以应对气候变化为由,提出对进口的碳排放密集型产品征收特别的CO2排放关税,并将"碳贸易限制措施"扩大为"碳关税"壁垒。"碳关税"的开征必然对我国经济、出口贸易造成严重冲击。因此,我们应该积极主动参与相关国际规则的制定,优化出口贸易结构,加强低碳技术创新,实现向低碳经济的转型,以便充分地应对"碳关税"壁垒。     

基于"环境优先"贸易保护论的国际营销对策

随着进口关税的下降,国际贸易透明度的提高,传统的贸易保护进一步受到有效限制,贸易保护主义正在积极寻求新的贸易保护手段,以实施其贸易保护战略。新兴的贸易保护手段多种多样,利用环保例外权的合法性进行贸易保护则是近年来发达国家常用的方法。这一保护方式以保护环境为出发点制定了一系列保护措施,以抵消发展中国家在资源与廉价劳动力方面的比较优势,从而阻碍了发展中国家的产品出口,作为发展中国家的中国企业要在充分认识“环境优先”贸易保护理论及其做法的基础上,采取有效的国际营销对策削弱这一贸易壁垒对企业的影响。     

Do healthy diets in Europe matter to the environment? A quantitative analysis

Final consumption of food products figures amongst the strongest contributors to negative environmental impacts in Europe, with the production of beef and pork at agricultural level being the main responsible part of the food supply chain. This article analyses quantitatively the environmental impact of changing European diets. The environmental impact of European consumption is determined with an environmental extended input-output analysis, supplemented by a partial equilibrium model reflecting changes of the agricultural sector to modified diets. It results that agricultural production does not decrease significantly in reaction to reduced food consumption, due to a changed trade balance and substitution effects.     

外商直接投资对广西出口竞争力影响的实证分析

通过外商直接投资对出口竞争力影响的效应分析,对广西FDI对出口竞争力进行了竞争实力与竞争潜力两方面的实证分析,即分别对国际市场占有率、出口促进、出口产品技术水平、TC指数、RCA指数、贸易创造指数、技术外溢效应等进行实证分析,提出了引入价值增值率更高的生产环节的外商投资,利用FDI培育内生技术能力的政策选择,形成贸易、外资与产业政策合力等对策建议,最大限度地利用FDI促进广西出口竞争力的发展。     

Trade policy and the United States labour market

The United States Government proposed a sweeping review of existing trade deals when the current Administration took office in January 2017. This paper reviews the ongoing changes, and considers the potential impact of two strands of the trade policy debate on the United States labour market. First, we consider policy decisions that may impact the location decision of multinational enterprises, especially within the context of the renegotiation of NAFTA. Second, we review the policy debate related to the steel industry, and the potential channels through which an import tariff on steel imports may impact the labour market.     

论文化产品国际市场的开拓

文化产品是一种特殊的商品,有着商品和精神产品的二重属性。近年来我国经济实力的快速增长为文化产业的不断发展提供了条件;国外文化产业发展的成功经验亦可资借鉴;应采取主动出击的文化产业发展战略,积极开拓我国文化产品的国际市场。     

United States trade and possible restrictions in high-technology products

This paper assesses the changing U.S. competitive position in high-technology products, and examines reasons for changes. It then inquires into the potential value of restrictive trade policies for promoting the U.S. interest in this sector, including mutual restrictions between the U.S., the EC, and Japan. The paper shows that the U.S. market share in most high-technology products, while still high, is declining. While industrial policy in other countries may have been a facilitating factor in this adverse development, the main explanation appears to lie in changing factor endowments, particularly the marked increase in the human capital/labor endowment ratios of Japan and Germany relative to that of the United States. When considering all the criteria relevant to trade policy, the differences between the high-technology industries bring into question the validity of lumping them into one sector for the purpose of strategic trade policy. Each industry needs to be treated separately. Their main common characteristic is intensity in human capital input. When they are viewed as one sector, a move to redress the declining U.S. lead calls for a domestic rather than a trade policy: massive U.S. investment in human capital and in research and development of the post-sputnik variety.     

Transmissions of real economic shocks across the Pacific Rim economies

We use Asian International Input–Output Tables 1995 in measuring trade dependencies of 10 Pacific Rim economies within a regional general equilibrium model. We develop two sets of metrics in measuring the trade dependencies of the economies. First, we use final demand elasticity of exports in measuring the sensitivities of the economies in the model to autonomous changes in the final demand in any other economy in the region. Second, we use a final-demand-weighted index of export elasticities that are induced by variations in the final demand vector of any economy in the model as indicators of the strength of the shocks transmitted across countries.The estimated coefficients have important policy implications. First, these coefficients identify the most vulnerable sectors of the economies in terms of the export/import dependency. Second, these coefficients may be readily used in bilateral and regional trade negotiations. Using these coefficients, policy makers can provide mutual trade concessions in dampening the effects of real and financial shocks transmitted from the trading partners.     

The optimal adjustment to mineral-supply disruptions: The case of aluminum in Taiwan

Although most primary commodities seem to be in over supply, a basic question remains: what is the impact of critical mineral-supply restrictions on the economies of mineral-importing nations? This article develops a framework that can be easily used to analyze the potential impact of a mineral-supply restrictions and to formulate an adjustment pattern of a small-size, Taiwan-type economy on a sector-by-sector basis. The model presented here generalizes I-O analysis through a linear-programming framework. An iterative solution procedure is incorporated into the model so that the results are more practical and flexible for use by policy makers. A corresponding restricted resource-allocation function is derived the LP-model solution, which allows the policy maker to readily construct an adjustment strategy.     

Tariffs,the terms of trade,and national product differentiation

The assumption of national product differentiation is a common feature in many computable general equilibrium models currently used to evaluate trade policy. The results of these models tend to be dominated by changes in the terms of trade, rather than the efficiency effects of the policy concerned. In this paper we use a theoretical n-country general equilibrium trade model to evaluate how national product differentiation relates to the terms-of-trade effects of a tariff. We conclude that monopoly power implicit in national product differentiation is the source of the strong terms-of-trade effects in Armington-type models, and can be exercised with the imposition of a tariff. These results are independent of country size, thus yielding a nonzero optimal tariff even for a small country. Theoretical results are then illustrated using the importdisaggregated version of the Michigan model of world production and trade. We find that strong, tariff-induced terms-of-trade changes emerge over a wide range of import demand elasticities. These results suggest that the assumption of national product differentiation may prejudice the case in favor of maintaining existing levels of protection, and, therefore, may not be appropriate for commercial policy analysis.     

South African quotas on textile imports from China: A policy error?

In August 2006 the South African government announced quotas on the imports of clothing and textile products from China. Three questions arise. What are these expected benefits? What will be the most likely impact of the import quotas on the South African economy? And what are the policy implications? In this paper we answer these questions by using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. We find that, contrary to the motivations apparently underlying the quota implementation, the macro-economic, sector and household effects are negative and result in greater inequality between poorer and richer households. We refer to modeling results elsewhere in the literature which report results consistent to ours. The policy implications are that the imposition of these quotas could come to be seen as a policy mistake, and that South Africa may benefit more from considering a free trade agreement with China.     

The cost of war: Impact of sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine

We use a computable general equilibrium model of world trade to quantify the possible impact of economic sanctions imposed by Western and other countries in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If sender countries chose 100 % import tariffs and export taxes on trade with Russia, Russia’s GDP would decline by 3–7 % due to the resulting significant reduction in exports. By contrast, the GDP loss for those countries would be 0.2 % for the European economies, but only about 0.05 % for Japan. Although unlikely, the effect of China’s participation in the sanctions would be more significant than that of India. There are concerns about food and energy crises due to economic sanctions against Russia, but the effect on food supplies would not be a serious problem for either senders or third parties. The impact on energy supplies would affect all senders to some extent; for example, there would be a 3% reduction of energy consumption and a 3–4 % rise in electricity and town gas prices in Japan.