Major International Trade Research Articles

Other-Than-Industry Representation on Industry Trade Advisory Committees

This article covers the often-overlooked framework for developingtrade policy in the United States. With two major international trade agreements currently in the midst of negotiations, the stakes are high for industry groups and other-than-industry actors looking to have their interests manifested in the final texts of these plurilateral pacts. Historically, the voices of other-than-industry actors have been restrained by their underrepresentation among the highly-influential Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs), the most powerful cohort of committees in the trade policy framework. While the Obama Administration has sought to increase the potency of other-than-industry actors by creating additional opportunities for participation elsewhere in the trade policy framework, it is unclear that this solution provides the most effective remedy for groups seeking to exert greater influence in the trade policy arena.

A study of resource dependency: the coal supply strategy of the Japanese steel mills – 1960‐2010

PurposeThe development of the Pacific seaborne coal trade since 1960 has been central to East Asia's economic expansion. In exploring the growth of this trade this paper seeks to understand why Japanese steel mills (JSMs), the world's largest coal importers, used few of the strategies that one would expect in the light of resource dependency theory, relying instead on market exchanges.Design/methodology/approachThis study relies primarily on archival sources, held by the Departments of Mines and Natural Resources in Victoria (British Columbia) and Brisbane (Australia) to reconstruct changing patterns of supply and price in the Pacific coal trade.FindingsIt is found that by relying on a strategy that amounted to “vertical quasi‐integration” JSMs were able to use their combined power to dictate the terms of market exchanges with buyers during the 1980 and 1990s. By 2000, however, this strategy had become counter‐productive, as low prices fostered the emergence of a powerful Australian‐based selling oligopoly.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes towards the growing study of transnational events, experiences and institutions in management history, filling a noticeable gap in resource dependency theory, which has not previously explored the long‐term consequences of strategies aimed at reducing dependency.Practical implicationsEast Asia has become the major engine for world economic growth and manufacturing output since the 1970s, and this study explores for the first time the genesis and development of the Pacific coal trade that has underpinned this growth.Social implicationsThe study demonstrates the long‐term adverse consequences of attempts to manipulate buyer‐supplier relationships to minimise cost inputs. By creating a low‐cost environment, coal buyers ensured the emergence of a sellers' cartel that eventually forced up world coal prices to the detriment of consumers.Originality/valueNo previous study has attempted a study of a major international commodity trade over such an extensive timeframe. It is likely that similar attempts to manipulate supply and price in other commodity trades will, over time, result in similar outcomes.

Air Transport Association of America V. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

In a landmark decision, on December 21, 2011, the Court of Justice upheld the extension to international aviation activities of the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS) of the European Union (Union or EU) against a challenge that it violates several treaties and principles of customary international law. In addition to its broader significance in the context of global versus unilateral approaches to tackling climate change, and its related role in fueling a major international trade dispute, the ruling pronounces on important aspects of international aviation law and clarifies the principles governing conformity of EU internal legislation with international law.

A Computational Approach to the Real Option Management of Network Contracts for Natural Gas Pipeline Transport Capacity

Commodity merchants use real option models to manage their operations. A central element of such a model is its underlying operating policy. We focus on network contracts for the transport capacity of natural gas pipelines, specific energy conversion assets. Practitioners commonly manage these contracts as portfolios of spread options. Although computationally fast, we show that this approach in general is heuristic because of the suboptimality of its operating policy. We propose a different computationally efficient real option approach based on an optimal operating policy, integrating linear optimization and Monte Carlo simulation. We use our approach to benchmark the spread option approach in a numerical study based on market data and realistic instances. We find that our approach can substantially improve on the contract valuations computed by the spread option approach, especially for contracts with flexibility in their allowed capacity usage. We also show that the optimal operating policy of contracts with this flexibility is of the greedy type, whereas the one of contracts without it in general is not. However, we observe that greedy optimization yields a near-optimal operating policy for the latter type of contracts with a substantially reduced computational effort. A version of our model was recently implemented by a major international energy trading company. Our model can also be employed to efficiently estimate the contract value sensitivities (the “Greeks”), which merchants use for financial hedging purposes. Potentially, our work has wider significance for the merchant management of other commodity conversion assets with payoffs determined by solving capacity constrained optimization models.

Nigerians in China: A Second State of Immobility

AbstractChina’s rapid economic development has been accompanied by new forms of immigration. Investors and professionals from developed countries are increasingly joined by a diverse group of immigrants from around the world. While there is a large body of academic literature on Chinese emigration, China’s new role as a country of immigration has received less scholarly attention. This paper addresses the dynamics of South–South migration to China through a study of Nigerians in Guangzhou, a major international trading hub. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews and participant observation among African traders and migrants in Guangzhou. The paper contends that Nigerian immigration to China epitomizes global migration trends towards a diversification of migration flows, commercialization of the migration process and increased policing of foreigners within national borders. China was rarely the preferred destination of this study’s Nigerian informants but, rather, a palatable alternative, as their aspirations to enter Europe and North America were curtailed by restrictive immigration regimes. They escaped a situation of involuntary immobility in Nigeria through short‐term visas obtained with the help of migration brokers. However, opportunities for visa renewals are scant under the current Chinese immigration policy. Undocumented migrants find their mobility severely inhibited: They must carefully assess how, when and with whom they move about in order to avoid police interception. This is a business impediment, as well as a source of personal distress for migrants who engage in trade and the provision of trade‐related services. The situation can be described as a “second state of immobility”: the migrants have succeeded in the difficult project of emigration, but find themselves spatially entrapped in new ways in their destination country.

Spatial Measurements of Ultrafine Particles Using an Engine Exhaust Particle SizerTMwithin a Local Community Downwind of a Major International Trade Bridge in Buffalo, New York

Ultrafine particles (UFP) can be defined as having at least one dimension that is less than 100 nanometers. Because of their dimensions, they exhibit unique properties that affect atmospheric transport, exposures, and possibly health endpoints. Freshly generated Diesel particulate matter (DPM) is predominantly in the ultrafine particle size range size range, which in practice is defined by the detection characteristics of the sampling instrument. During two seasons, an Engine Exhaust Particle SizerTM (TSI, St. Paul, MN) detects particles over a range of 5.6–560 nm was used to continuously measure real-time particle size distributions along several streets that extend from the Peace Bridge (PB), a major international trade bridge, into a the nearby adjacent neighborhood that has reported a high prevalence rate of asthma (Lwebuga-Mukasa 2000). The Peace Bridge connects Buffalo, NY, USA to Fort Erie, ON, Canada. During summer 2004, one minute average particle number concentrations were continuously monitored along neighborhood streets near the Peace Bridge Complex (PBC) plaza out to about 2 km. Ultrafine particle counts as a function of bridge traffic showed downwind UFP levels at 300 m ranging from 60,000–70,000 p/cm3. Upwind background UFP levels at the shore line of Lake Erie were typically 8,000–10,000 p/cm3 under similar traffic and meteorological conditions. During winter 2006, additional measurements were conducted in front of several homes that were part of a separate indoor-outdoor exposure study (CitationMcAuley et al. 2010). Sampling at the homes was done during the weekdays when heavy diesel truck traffic was highest. Results showed that most of the UFP number concentrations fell between 10–20 nm in front of homes with UFP levels ranging from 59,000 p/cm3 at couple hundred m downwind to 81,000 p/cm3 several hundred m directly downwind of the Peace Bridge under similar diesel trucks traffic and meteorological conditions.

The Termination of State-Run International Trade Programs in California: Perspectives on Contributing Factors and Future Policy Options

The paper examines developments that led to the termination of California’s major state-run international trade programs managed by the now defunct Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency and provides perspectives on future policy options. Study findings indicate that what the academic literature refers to as “theory failure” and “implementation failure,” along with deficiencies in leadership and organizational culture, must be seen as the major reasons for the programs’ elimination.

Exhaustion of Intellectual Property Rights and International Trade

The exhaustion doctrine in intellectual property law generally limits the rights of a patent, copyright or trademark owner (“IP Owner”) to control the disposition of an article after the article has been sold by or under the authority of the IP Owner. In theory the doctrine enables the IP Owner to receive fair reward for surrendering its right to withhold a product from the market but thereafter permits free disposition and movement of chattels, preventing IP rights from unduly disrupting distribution systems.Under a strict territorial application of the doctrine, a sale in country A under a country A patent (or copyright or trademark) would exhaust the IP Owner’s rights only in Country A, and the IP Owner could rely on its separate patents in other countries to enjoin sales, seek damages or possibly even require customs officials to halt infringing imports at the border. This principle would hold even though the IP rights in all the countries are essentially the same. A strict territorial exhaustion doctrine is arguably consistent with the nature of IP rights, which are granted by each individual nation as an act of sovereignty and are strictly territorial in effect; while its impact will vary with other trade conditions (relative exchange rates, for example) and across different categories of goods, a strict territorial approach can serve as a barrier to free movement of goods and cause IP rights to act as private trade barriers.Opposed to the territorial principle is the historically more widely applied principle of international exhaustion. Under this version of the doctrine a sale by or under the authority of an IP Owner anywhere exhausts its right under all counterpart IP anywhere in the world. This doctrine has always seemed difficult to reconcile with the underlying systems of national IP rights but avoids the practical problems and trade barriers of a territorial principle.Court decisions in the last few years in three major trading areas -- the EU, Japan and the US – have rejected a strict international application of the exhaustion doctrine for some forms of IP, with the result that sales of some products by an IP Owner outside Country or trading region A do not necessarily prevent the owner from using Country A IP rights to prevent imports or sales there. This is an issue which the major international trade treaties leave to individual signatories’ local law. Subject to possible limits imposed by competition laws in what will probably be relatively rare cases, IP Owners in these three major trading areas may, with greater or lesser effort, now restrict parallel trade and discriminate in sale of some goods between markets with different levels of pricing.These recent decisions, while suggesting some degree of convergence among the three trading areas, do not necessarily correlate closely with the notion suggested by Guzman* (in connection with competition laws) that such legal regimes should be supported by net exporting nations, not net importers. It is possible that as the implications of these decisions become clearer and their possible effects more evident, they will eventually lead to further consideration and possibly further international trade negotiations on the subject of parallel imports.

Planning for Open Storage of Containers in a Major International Container Trade Centre: An Analysis of Hong Kong Development Control Statistics Using Probit Modelling

The authors describe the nature of the planning policies relating to the container industry of Hong Kong, a major international container trade centre, at territorial and district planning levels. Informed by the concepts of transaction costs, the authors attempt to ascertain whether the planning permission system in Hong Kong is promarket, antimarket, or market-neutral with respect to the container industry, and whether the stated statutory district planning policy of permitting and concentrating open storage in specifically designated Open Storage (OS) zones has been followed. A probit model is developed to evaluate 195 sets of nonaggregate and cross-sectional data regarding planning applications to the Town Planning Board for the years 1991 to 1998. The evaluation is conducted in terms of two refutable empirical hypotheses regarding the container industry. The findings suggest that the Hong Kong planning permission mechanism is market neutral towards the container industry and that the statutory district forward planning policy for that industry has not been followed in the development control process.

A Proposal for the Restoration of Kobe's Economy

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which occurred at dawn on January 17, 1995, caused unprecedented damage, due mainly to the closeness of its epicenter to urban areas. In Kobe city alone, the disaster claimed the lives of as many as 4, 512 people (as of January 8), and destroyed industrial facilities and urban infrastructure, including port facilities. The total cost of the damage is estimated at approximately 6, 900 billion yen.The damage to facilities has adversely affected facility operation and production. In addition, distribution capacity has greatly decreased, due to damage to the Port of Kobe, a major distribution center in Western Japan and one of the major international trade ports in Japan. Ultimately, the slowdown in economic activities in Kobe has adversely affected Japan's economy and industries nationwide.To restore the daily life of citizens, we must first restore economic activities, an essential element of urban life. At the same time, it is important to consider various structural problems revealed by the earthquake. To name a few, structural challenges faced by Kobe include inner city problems, growing competition with other cities in Japan and abroad, and problems caused by economic globalization and the high appreciation of the yen. We cannot separate such structural problems from other problems caused by the earthquake. Through our efforts in restoring Kobe, we must also address these kinds of structural problems; in other words, it will not suffice merely to restore the city as it was before the earthquake.In the city of Kobe, in addition to carrying out urgent restoration measures, we intend to revitalize enterprise activities and to create jobs, as part of measures to address structural problems. For this purpose, we plan to designate a “Kobe Business Start-up Zone”, which will include an “Enterprise Zone”, where deregulationa and tax incentives will be provided.This report explains the earthquake damage to Kobe's economy, and discusses the concept and potential effect of the “Kobe Business Start-up Zone”, with reference to the United Kingdom's Enterprise Zone as an example.

Interregional Trade in Producer Services: Review and Synthesis

ABSTRACTThis paper reviews some of the past decade's studies of producer or intermediate‐services exports from local regions. After a discussion of conceptual and methodological problems and inconsistencies, we present these studies according to the three basic methodologies: surveys, location quotients, and input‐output. Overall, our sense is that these studies support limited but important conclusions: (1) If intermediate services are defined broadly, certain of these activities have as their major function interregional or international transfer or trade. By nature, these distributive services have widespread clients, and benefit from locations with substantial physical and communications infrastructure. (2) Among most business‐and financial‐service activities, most offices are established to serve a local region, but may derive some revenues from beyond this expected zone. (3) The exceptions—the activities and establishments that derive much of their revenue beyond such “normal” zones—are particularly specialized, particularly large, or parts of multiregional enterprises. (4) Such firms tend to locate in larger or more specialized urban places, probably because of the labor force, the corporate connections, and the rapid dissemination of ideas, contacts, and information within and among the largest metropolitan areas. These conclusions lead to some general policy recommendations.

Properties Around Damascus in the Nineteenth Century

HE CITY of Damascus is surrounded by a perennially irrigated region known as the Giuta, watered by the Barada river and its branches. Historically the Guita has been well known for the abundance and variety of its fruits and vegetables, contributing to Damascus's reputation as a verdant paradise. The Guita's boundaries are well defined to the north, west and south by hills and mountains, but no natural barrier separates it from the Syrian desert to the east. Between the GuiCta and the desert is a transitional region called the Mar' ( ), irrigated by the Barada only part of the year, and known principally for its grain. Over the centuries the Guita and Mar' have been integral parts of Damascus's economy. Although the city's periods of greatest prosperity have been linked to its role in international and regional trade, the existence of the Giuta explains Damascus's historical continuity. This irrigated hinterland has been a guarantor of Damascus's survival even when trade became depressed or trade routes shifted away from it. The Gluta provided Damascus with a variety of foodstuffs, as well as raw materials for the city's artisanal production, for which Gu-ta villagers were a major market. At the very least, the raw and processed products of the G(uta ensured that Damascus would be an important market for its own central Syrian hinterland, and that Damascus would have a regional trade even when major international trade routes bypassed it. Therefore, the Gu-ta and adjoining regions (including the Mar', the Barada river valley and some smaller river valleys) have been significant in the economic history of Damascus. The rural

The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

Maritime Southeast Asia is one of those parts of the world destined by geography to be an international marketplace. Not only is it the largest of the world's archipelagos, penetrated throughout by sea and river, it also lies athwart one of the major international trading routes, between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean on the one hand and China and Japan on the other. These factors have always given to maritime Southeast Asia a role akin to the Mediterranean world, in which sea-borne trade was the vital factor in urban growth and in political power. In addition, however, Southeast Asia was the principal source of the items in greatest demand in the world's markets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and camphor.

Foreign-Trade Zones of the United States

IN THE world pattern of international trade routes the United States has long occupied a chiefly terminal position. Until recently we apparently have not had the desire to alter that status quo. Endowed with power and resource materials, possessing an unparalleled capacity to produce and to consume, unchallenged by effective competition from other parts of the hemisphere, this country has shown little interest in importing or re-exporting merchandise on a grand scale. The pivot of global trade, the primary entrepot to which materials gravitate, has remained on the shores of Northwestern Europe. It now appears, however, that the United States may be seeking to compete more actively in re-export trade: within the past i5 years six foreign-trade zones have been established on or near the coast. In concept, a foreign-trade zone' is a device designed to stimulate the import and re-export trade of a country that maintains protective tariffs. Inasmuch as the bulk of international trade is oceanic, foreign-trade zones are almost invariably in seaports, though a few may be found in favorably located railroad or airline centers. The zone is an areally segregated and patrolled district where certain foreign goods may be stored temporarily without payment of customs fees and without customns inspection. Regulations of some zones permit manipulation (grading, sorting, mixing with domestic products, etc.) and exhibition of the warehoused merchandise; limited manufacturing privileges may also be granted. If the goods are eventually brought into the country, the usual domestic duties must be paid and customs inspection administered; if they are reshipped to a foreign land, they are exempt from both. Although the device of the foreign-trade zone has been utilized for nearly eight centuries, few nations possess the economic and geographic requisites for its establishment. Paramount is a national policy of substantial tariffs, without which a zone obviously would have no reason to exist. Of slightly less significance is location. A customs-free district should occupy an advantageous position on a major international trade route, and/or in proximity to a group of economically active sovereign states. Within the