Global Trade Policy Research Articles

Improving Regional Trade to Support Pakistan’s Economic Growth

Regional trade has been an important factor in the economic success of many countries. Within most trading blocs, intra-regional trade comprises 40 percent or more of each member country’s individual trade. However, for the regional arrangements of which Pakistan is a member, intra-regional trade accounts for less than 5 percent. Pakistan’s strategic location is its greatest asset, but it has not leveraged this to its advantage. Although it was a relatively forward-looking country until the mid-1960s its policies have not been favorable to promoting trade and economic development since then. While other successful developing countries have espoused liberal trade regimes since the 1980s—resorting to protectionism only on a selective basis—Pakistan continues to rely on import substitution policies. Clearly, the country needs to revisit its regional and global trade policies.

Commercial breakfast cereals available in Mexican markets and their contribution in dietary fiber, β-glucans and protein quality by rat bioassays.

The beneficial effect of dietary fiber (DF) consumption has long been recognized. The global economy and open market trade policies have increased the availability of food products in Mexican markets, resulting in a wide variety of ready-to-eat commercial breakfast cereals classified as 'high fiber'. This research was aimed to evaluate the total dietary fiber contents, its fractions (soluble and insoluble) and β-glucan in 13 commercial 'high-fiber' breakfast cereals, as well as to evaluate their protein quality by rat bioassays. Commercial 'high-fiber' breakfast cereals had 7.42-39.82% insoluble dietary fiber, 2.53-12.85% soluble dietary fiber, and 0.45-4.96% β-glucan. These ready-to-eat commercial 'high-fiber' breakfast cereals differed significantly in their total dietary fiber, their soluble and insoluble DF fractions, and also in their β-glucan contents. When supplied as experimental diets, in 14-day rat feeding trials, the 'high-fiber' breakfast cereals showed an adverse effect on the % N digestibility but protein utilization, as measured as net protein ratio (NPR), was not significantly affected. The consumption of these commercial breakfast cereals, especially those made of oats as the basic ingredient, is highly recommended, since these products, being a concentrated source of dietary fiber, do not affect their protein quality.

Global trade policy: questions and answers

Global trade policy: questions and answers

Faith, fear, and free trade

In October 2013, Canada and the EU announced the conclusion, in principle, of a comprehensive economic trade agreement (CETA). Canada's prime minister described the agreement as historic, “the biggest deal our country has ever made,” and assured Canadians there would be major economic benefits. Not all Canadians share the prime minister's confidence. Concerns about job loss, affordable health care, farm production, and national sovereignty are central to criticism of the agreement. Why has this free trade agreement, and others before it, elicited a polarized reaction, with the champions and opponents of free trade squaring off against one another? Using the history of global trade and Canadian trade policy since 1945 as a guide, this essay examines the motivations, concerns, assumptions, and meanings that animate debates over free trade in Canada. Faith and fear are central to the way people understand and respond to free trade. This essay also explains how domestic and international factors and interests have shaped free trade since 1945, and how it blends economic, political, and geopolitical considerations.

Global Supply Chains and Trade Policy Responses to the 2008 Crisis

The collapse in trade and the contraction of output that occurred during 2008–9 was comparable to, and in many countries more severe than, the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, it did not give rise to the rampant protectionism that followed the Great Crash. The idea that the rise in the fragmentation of production across global value chains – vertical specialization – may be a deterrent against protectionism is underappreciated in the literature. Institutions also played a role in limiting the extent of protectionist responses. World Trade Organization discipline raises the cost of using trade policies for member countries and has proved to be a stable foundation for the open multilateral trading system that has been built over the past 50 years. Using trade and protection data for seven large emerging market countries that have a history of active use of trade policy, the influence of these and other factors on trade policy responses to the 2008 crisis are empirically examined. An instrumental variables strategy is used to identify their impact. Participation in global value chains is found to be a powerful economic factor determining trade policy responses.

What place for international trade in food sovereignty?

International agricultural commodity trade is central to the livelihoods of millions of farmers across the globe, and to most countries' food security strategies. Yet global trade policies are contributing to food insecurity and are undermining livelihoods. Food Sovereignty emerged in part as the articulation of resistance to the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and the imposition of multilateral trade disciplines on domestic agriculture policy. While not explicitly rejecting trade, the food sovereignty movement is identified with a strong preference for local markets. It challenges existing international trade structures, and on the whole its official position on trade remains ambiguous. We argue that trade remains important to the realization of the livelihoods of small-scale producers, including peasants active in the Food Sovereignty movement. It also matters for food security. That it remains underexplored by the movement risks marginalizing millions of smallholder producers, and risks overlooking opportunities to shape trade rules along more food sovereign lines. The authors suggest further development of the movement's position on trade is strategically important.

English

The sericulture industry is unique for many reasons; is a highly valued textile fibre of animal origin based on agricultural output including, cocoons and cottage based labour intensive in nature is used almost entirely for the production of high quality textiles. In this paper, the present status of the sericulture industry in India and sericulturally advanced countries in Asia, their pace of trends in mulberry area and raw silk production, position of global silk scenario and marketing behavior have been reviewed and analysed. Besides, debating issues like potentiality of higher concentration of raw silk production; its comparative study among traditional and major producers of silk, reasons of fluctuations in production and productivity, impacts of global trade policy including imports and exports competitiveness and the emergence and application of new synthetic fibres as a fashion material have been identified. An attempt has been made to formulate a strategic model to recognize the potential strength and challenges of sericulture in India and Asian Region to enhance productivity and quality of silk products. Key words: Silk worms, Cocoons, Mulberry, Textile fibre, Synthetic fibres, Intensive agro-based industry.

Impact of Globalization on Environmental Health

Environmental health practitioners need to be aware of the conjecture attached to globalization and the future health of community dwellers. This paper focused on globalisation and its impacts on environmental health as an aspect of public health. It discussed the role of the key international institutions such as World Bank, World Trade Organisation and World Health Organisation in ensuring environmental health. The impact of global trade policy on environmental health, global health inequalities and emerging environmental health risks and challenges for environmental health were also investigated. It was therefore recommended that environmental health practitioners should be concerned with the threats the global society posses to environmental health and therefore find means of curbing this menace.

Recent cases of invasive alien mites and ticks in Japan: why is a regulatory framework needed?

Japan's economy depends on the importation of natural resources, and as a result, Japan is subjected to a high risk of biological invasion. Although Japan has quarantine systems to protect ecosystems, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and human health against alien species, economic globalization has resulted in an ever-increasing risk of invasion. Mite invasion is no exception. Alien species that impact natural ecosystems are regulated in Japan by the Invasive Alien Species Act. However, the law focuses only on visibly recognizable species, so that species too small to see, such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and mites, are beyond the scope of this law. The Plant Protection Law has limited the introduction of alien pests, including mites, that are harmful to agricultural crops. Recently, the liberalization of global trade policies have increased pressure to loosen regulations on various pests, including spider mites. Infectious diseases and their causative species are quarantined under the Rabies Prevention Law, the Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control Law, and the Human Infectious Diseases Control Law, but these laws do not cover wildlife diseases. The most serious problem is that wild reptiles, which can be carriers of ticks and tick-borne diseases, can be freely introduced to Japan. These loopholes in Japan's regulatory system have resulted in mite and tick invasions, which affect not only wildlife communities and human society but also endemism and biological diversity of natural mite populations.

Effects of Serbian accession to the European Union

In this article, the global simulation model (GSIM) of Joseph F. Francois and Keith H. Hall (2009) for analyzing global, regional, and unilateral trade policy changes was applied to Serbia. This was to measure the effects of full trade liberalization with the EU after Serbian accession to the EU. As anticipated, most of the changes in welfare after full liberalization of trade between Serbia and EU can be expected in sectors where Serbia has specialized; protection against imports from the EU is strong. However, losses could also occur in sectors that currently face strong protection against the rest of the world and this protection is lost after EU accession. Trade liberalization will lead to a substantial loss of tariff revenues. Reduced consumer prices might, on the one hand increase consumer surplus but on the other hand decrease producer surplus and output in certain industries.

Concilier les politiques commerciales et les politiques climatiques

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Copenhagen showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because the global climate regime and the global trade policy regime appear to be on a collision course. Following a review of the challenges ahead, the paper argues that trade will have a second-order contribution to world-wide CO2 emissions. Evidence shows increasing carbon transfers through trade, but the magnitude of carbon leakage effects may be less than feared in some circles. Trade policy, however, will play a role in implementing climate mitigation policies in three areas: maintaining an open trading system and hence boosting growth and facilitating technology diffusion; leveling the playing field for countries that do not mitigate and as a strategic instrument to bring compliance and participation. The paper concludes that a climate agreement with a few guiding principles and leeway where much initial mitigation would first take place unilaterally or in small groups, as under the early days of the GATT, is the most promising way ahead. This would help preserve an open trading system as well as environmental integrity.

Backtracking from Globalization

This paper offers a global perspective of the political economy of the liberal trading system since the Great Depression and examines four major intellectual and socio-political challenges facing international trade and globalization going forward, including: (1) income redistribution, (2) the rise of Asia and a potential shift in comparative advantage, (3) the rise of China and the national security argument, and (4) the lack of compelling dynamic evidence supporting free trade. Given the growing domestic and global discontent with free trade, and the fact that these exacerbating issues remain, this paper suggests that U.S. and global trade policies may shift away from the liberal trading system.

Food politics: what everyone needs to know

One of the most persistent and startling news stories of the past year has been the global crisis in the world's food supply. Reduced stockpiles have led to panic buying and hoarding, a sharp rise in prices, food riots, the virtual collapse of portions of the food industry, and dire warnings about food and water shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has forecast prices to remain high for the foreseeable future, and the World Bank has predicted that this rise will push an additional 100 million people into poverty around the world. Theories about the roots of the crisis are many, diverse and contradictory: from increased production of biofuels, to rising populations, climate change, and environmentally harmful and inefficient farming practices. In Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, Robert Paarlberg, one of the most prominent scholars writing on agricultural issues, maps out and demystifies the phenomena that newspapers and magazines have variously labelled as causes of the food crisis, often in highly alarmist tones. Over the course of the book, Paarlberg addresses, in straightforward terms, questions about global food trade policy, agricultural subsidies, the factors contributing to famine and malnutrition, the green revolution, the effects of climate change on farming, the pros and cons of biofuels, food safety and regulation, pesticide use, organic farming, and genetically modified crops. Focusing on the world's most vulnerable populations and couched within a firm historical understanding of farming practices, nutritional standards, and food movements, what he uncovers will surely be surprising to many readers and stand as a corrective to reactionary takes on the state of global agriculture. Paarlberg concludes with a revealing chapter on common assumptions about the food crisis and the future of food, pointing the way toward socially and environmentally sustainable--and attainable--practices in agriculture and the wider food industry.

Carbon, Trade Policy and Carbon Free Trade Areas

This paper discusses both the potential contribution that trade policy initiatives can make towards the achievement of significant global carbon emissions reduction and the potential impacts of proposals now circulating for carbon reduction motivated geographical trade arrangements, including carbon-free trade areas. We first suggest that trade policy is likely to be a relatively minor consideration in climate change containment. The dominant influence on carbon emissions globally for the next several decades will be growth more than trade and its composition, and in turn, the size of trade seemingly matters more than its composition given differences in emission intensity between tradables and non-tradables. We then note that differences in emissions intensity across countries are larger than across products or sectors and so issues of country discrimination in trade policy (and violations of MFN) arise. We next discuss both unilateral and regional carbon motivated trade policy arrangements, including three potential variants of carbon emission reduction based free trade area arrangements. One is regional trade agreements with varying types of trade preferences towards low carbon-intensive products, low carbon new technologies and inputs to low carbon processes. A second is the use of joint border measures against third parties to counteract anti-competitive effects from groups of countries taking on deeper emission reduction commitments. A third is third-country trade barriers along with free trade or other regional trade agreements as penalty mechanisms to pressure other countries to join emission-reducing environmental agreements. We differentiate among the objectives, forms and possible impacts of each variant. We also speculate as to how the world trading system may evolve in the next few decades as trade policy potentially becomes increasingly dominated by environmental concerns. We suggest that the future evolution of the trading system will likely be with environmentally motivated arrangements acting as an overlay on prevailing trade and financial arrangements in the WTO and IMF, and eventually movement to linked global trade and environmental policy bargaining.

NIFA-II or ‘Bretton Woods-II’?: The G-20 (Leaders) summit process on managing global financial markets and the world economy – quo vadis?

Since November 2008, there have been four historic G-20 Leaders meetings (with a fifth scheduled for Korea in November 2010), in lieu of the traditional G-8 Heads of State meeting format, to address the current Global Financial Crisis and other related economic matters of global concern. This new global governance rubric has been denominated by the G-20 Leaders (representing 80 per cent of the world's population and 90 per cent of world GDP) as the ‘premier’ forum as to future international economic cooperation. This new governance model is rooted in a short and medium-term ‘Action Plan’ and within a broader and longer-term ‘Global Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth’ (a new global growth model under the G-20 Leaders’ direction).This article considers retrospectively the roots of this new economic governance paradigm and prospectively whether and in what ways this framework/process might signal a new international collaborative approach to global economic governance for securing ‘financial stability’ as a ‘global public good’ (that is, a ‘new international financial architecture’) and otherwise for better rationalizing the policy management of the global economy and the underlying globalization processes. Will this G-20 (Leaders) process prove to be able to function constructively and on a consensus basis as the G-7/8 tried to do previously; and, will it provide the global platform and umbrella framework within which a ‘new Global Deal’, and ‘Grand Bargain’ – a new ‘Bretton Woods II’ economic, monetary and financial World Order – might evolve so as meaningfully to direct and coordinate global monetary, financial, development, investment, trade and other related global policy considerations (for example, labour, energy, and environmental issues)? Or will this process prove to be merely an ad hoc enhancement of existing global instruments, institutions and arrangements that were put into place in the mid-to-late 1990s by the G-7/8 in addressing the various financial crises of the 1990s – the so-called ‘New International Financial Architecture’ (NIFA-I)? Also, in this article, the makeup and nature of the range of informal global financial ‘network’ arrangements, institutions and instruments generated in advance, otherwise related to NIFA-I, or being generated under the new governance framework will be considered, along with the newly envisioned roles of the IMF, Financial Stability Board, World Bank and OECD. Also, a brief discussion will be undertaken as to whether the G-7/8 forum will continue, and if so, in what context and in what relationship to the new G-20 Leaders framework.

Virtual water content of temperate cereals and maize: Present and potential future patterns

Knowledge of the virtual water content (VWC) of crops and especially its possible future developments is helpful for improvements in water productivity and water management, which are necessary at global scale due to rising demand for food, the necessity to ease present and future water scarcity, and the reduction of poverty. Using a dynamic global vegetation and water balance model (LPJmL), this study quantifies the VWC of two of the most important crop types worldwide, temperate cereals and maize, at high spatial resolution (0.5°). We analyzed present conditions (1999–2003) and also for the first time also for scenarios of future climate and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (2041–2070; HadCM3, ECHAM5 and CCSM3 climate models, A2 emissions scenario). VWC presently differs significantly among regions: highest values are common in large parts of Africa (>2 m3 kg−1), and lowest values were found e.g. for Central Europe (<0.5 m3 kg−1), indicating that water-use efficiency of crops is much higher in the latter region. The regional patterns of VWC result from complex and interactive processes; the dominant factor is the crop yield level (high VWC values occur most frequently in regions with low yields). Climate change and rising atmospheric CO2 concentration will have non-uniform effects on crop yields and evapotranspiration. Worldwide VWC patterns will change significantly, with a pronounced regional pattern that reflects primarily the changes in yields as driven mainly by regionally decreasing precipitation, increasing temperature and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Although globally the water-use efficiency is projected to increase, many regions—including parts of the US, East and Mediterranean Europe, South Africa, Argentina, Australia and South East Asia—are projected to become less water efficient (higher VWC) for at least one of the crop types. CO2 fertilisation was simulated to generally reduce VWC, though realisation of this effect in the field will depend, for example, on the intensity of nutrient management in the future. The potentially adverse future changes in VWC found here pose a challenge to water management efforts and eventually global trade policies.

Food Security and Emerging Infectious Diseases: The Unsustainable Case of the Andes-Amazon Region, due to Large Scale Crop Production and Global Trade Policies

ISEE-0704 Background and Objectives: Food security embraces, among other dimensions, food production and distribution, which are related to changes in land-use and cover and biodiversity, therefore in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. The ongoing infrastructure development policies for the region, allowing increasing international commerce (especially the exportation of Soya-bean from Brazil to Asia), include the paving of the 1,000 miles “Pacific Highway”, as well as the resulting 2,500 miles of hydro-ways from the building of hydroelectric dams. The vicious cycle (roads and dams building–LUCC through logging/forest fires–biodiversity loss) affect vectors’ ecology and bring people, vectors, and wild reservoirs into overlapping areas, fostering the (re)emergence of vector-borne diseases. This work was aimed at assessing these linkages and understanding this complex process to help breaking this vicious cycle. Methods: Case Study methodology enabled the investigation to retain the characteristics of real-life events and coped with the situation in which there were multiple variables of interest and sources of evidence – such as documentary sources, interviews, analysis of changes in land use and cover and in the region’s epidemiology – while assessing what can be learned to mitigate societal suffering and environmental loss when developmental policies are aimed at promoting food production and trade. Results: The (re)emergence of American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis and Bartonellosis (Carrion Disease) are two seminal examples of how infectious diseases in the Andes-Amazon Region can be linked to LUCC and to biodiversity loss from deforestation, road paving and dams building, fostered by distant food production and distribution. Conclusion: It is fundamental to make explicit the linkages between “development” policies, LUCC, forest and biodiversity losses, and, ultimately, food security, if we are to increase the awareness about ecosystem services to regulate the (re)emergence of infectious diseases.

Welfare and Poverty Effects of Global Agricultural and Trade Policies Using the Linkage Model

This paper analyzes the economic effects of agricultural price and merchandise trade policies around the world as of 2004 on global markets, net farm incomes, and national and regional economic welfare and poverty, using the global economy wide Linkage model, new estimates of agricultural price distortions for developing countries, and poverty elasticity's approach. It addresses two questions: to what extent are policies as of 2004 still reducing rewards from farming in developing countries and thereby adding to inequality across countries in farm household incomes? Are they depressing value added more in primary agriculture than in the rest of the economy of developing countries, and earnings of unskilled workers more than of owners of other factors of production, thereby potentially contributing to inequality and poverty within developing countries (given that farm incomes are well below non-farm incomes in most developing countries and that agriculture there is intensive in the use of unskilled labor)? Results are presented for the key countries and regions of the world and for the world as a whole. They reveal that, by moving to free markets, income inequality between countries will be reduced at least slightly, all but one-sixth of the gains to developing countries will come from agricultural policy reform, unskilled workers in developing countries the majority of whom work on farms will benefit most from reform, net farm incomes in developing countries will rise by 6 percent compared with 2 percent for non-agricultural value added, and the number of people surviving on less than US$1 a day will drop 3 percent globally.

Agricultural protection and poverty in Indonesia: a general equilibrium analysis.

A general equilibrium modeling approach is used to estimate the effects within Indonesia of unilateral and global trade liberalization, including effects on poverty incidence. It is concluded that global reform of trade policy in all commodities is a significant potential source of poverty reduction for Indonesia. The poor rural and urban have a strong interest in global trade policy reform. If Indonesia were to liberalize unilaterally, poverty incidence also will decline but the effect is small. If liberalization is confined to agricultural products, the effects are similar but the declines in poverty incidence within Indonesia are much smaller.

The Effect of Global Development on the Labour Section and the Position of Turkey's Labour Section in this Process

In this study, the effect of global development on labour and position of Turkey’s labour section throughout this process were examined. Primarily, in this study, the effect of global trade policies on the labour section was considered as a centre-neighbour country focus. The heterogenous effects of trade on labour were examined by focusing on the technological changes as well as income differences it creates between workers. The effect of these differences was examined in the scale of Turkey. In the study, the effects of global trade on centre-neighbour countries were considered within the framework of macro economic trends and in theoretical frame of labour’s heterogenous structure. Its effects on labour was discussed. In this sense, it was discussed whether the hypothesis “that the labour is globalized with trade” which was claimed by liberal groups is realistic or not. By focusing on this discussions, the employment structure of Turkey was analysed; it was discussed within the scope of global development.