Percent Of World Trade Research Articles

Should TPP Be Formed? On the Potential Economic, Governance, and Conflict-Reducing Impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries whose joint gross domestic products (GDPs) account for 36 percent of world GDP and whose mutual trade accounts for approximately 24 percent of world trade. As for most proposed free trade agreements (FTAs), trade economists have provided ex ante computable general equilibrium (CGE) estimates to predict the trade, employment, and real per capita income effects of this agreement, such as ITC (2016). This paper-intended to complement these studies-examines the potential impacts of TPP beyond such traditional CGE estimates, taking a broader economic, governance, and historical perspective. First, we contrast these traditional CGE trade and welfare estimates that treat all firms within an industry as homogeneous with more recent CGE analyses that allow firms’ productivities to be heterogeneous. We show that the latter models’ trade predictions are much more consistent with ex post empirical evidence of average trade effects of FTAs. Second, empirical evidence now strongly confirms the existence of FTA “contagion.” We review this evidence and show that predictive models of the evolution of FTAs indicate that the TPP should be formed. With China now having formed 12 FTAs and negotiating five new ones (including a sixteen member Asia-Pacific FTA), the United States would likely face considerable trade diversion without the TPP. Third, we examine empirical evidence on the likely further economic growth implications of FTAs by reducing firms’ uncertainty over trade relations and trade policies. Fourth, we examine empirical evidence on the additional impact of FTAs on consolidating democratic institutions in countries. The TPP would likely help consolidate some of the less mature democracies. Fifth, we examine empirical evidence on the reductions of conflicts (and enhanced peace) between countries owing to the formations of FTAs. We conclude the paper noting that the potential net benefits to member countries of the proposed TPP extend well beyond the real income gains to households based upon traditional CGE models.

National Leadership and Competing Technological Paradigms: The Globalization of Cotton Spinning, 1878–1933

Using the records of British firms that supplied nearly 90 percent of world trade in cotton spinning machinery, we track the evolution and diffusion of spinning technology over more than 50 years. In contrast to scenarios in which modern technologies supplant older methods, we observe two paradigms in competitive coexistence, each one supporting ongoing productivity growth through complementary improvements in machinery, organization, and workforce skills. International productivity differences were magnified under the skill-based mule, British spinners being the world's best. Global diffusion of ring spinning was driven by advances in fiber control, a “directed” technological response to the expansion of world trade.

A North American Community

of January 1994. If one judges a free trade area by the size of its output and territory, North America became the largest in the world, larger than the European Union. Yet that fact escaped all but a few analysts. It is widely known that the United States has the world’s largest economy, but North America also includes the eighth (Canada) and ninth (Mexico) largest economies (The Economist, 2003: 24). Within a decade, trade and investment among the three countries had nearly tripled, and North America had achieved a level of integration (defined as intra-regional trade as a percent of world trade) that approached Europe’s (58 percent as compared to 61 percent). In other words, North America is no longer just a geographical expression. It has become a formidable, integrated region, comparable in some respects to the European Union. And yet few in North America or outside view the region as anything more than three sovereign countries: a global superpower and two uncomfortable neighbors. It is not hard to explain this perception. The United States accounts for 85 percent of the region’s gross output and a much higher percentage of the region’s military power and reach. The other two countries of North America are very dependent on the United States economically, and partly because of that, have used their foreign policies to define their distance and separateness from it. NAFTA, which can be considered a kind of draft constitution for an emerging region, dismantled most trade and investment barriers and accelerated social and economic integration. That compelling fact and the security implications that flow from September 11 brought the leaders of the three North American countries together for a summit in

Microsoft Might Under Microscope: Alternative Approaches to Antimonopoly Regulation

In the increasingly flattening world described by Thomas Friedman, transnational corporations are commanding greater influence and control over the world’s resources. These transnational corporations account for approximately one third of the world’s output and seventy percent of world trade. The profit motive, combined with regulatory differences across countries, provides strategic incentives for transnational corporations to bypass restrictive regulations by placing their headquarters and business units in countries with relatively liberal laws. Thus, there is a growing need for regulation that spans national borders mirroring the markets it aims to regulate. In spite of the work that has been done to address problems created by transnational corporations, no magic solution has been found. For example, the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations was established in 1974 with a mandate to develop a code of conduct for transnational corporations. Work on the proposed code began in 1975 and a comprehensive draft was completed by 1990, but that draft has never been adopted. Similarly, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been unable to reach a consensus regarding trade and competition policy. In an effort to illustrate substantive differences between international antitrust regimes and to illuminate the need for a transnational solution, this paper will present and analyze five antimonopoly suits brought in four different countries against the world's largest software company: Microsoft. The two United States (US) cases resulted in consent decrees requiring Microsoft to end its anticompetitive contractual practices and to hide its Internet browser. The European Union (EU) case resulted in Microsoft having to remove its media player from the Windows operating system (OS), disclose interoperability information, and pay a 613 million dollar fine. In Japan, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) ordered Microsoft to terminate all non-assertion of patents provisions (NAP) in its license agreements. More recently, Korea ordered Microsoft to unbundle Windows Media Service from Windows Server OS, offer two versions of Windows PC OS: one without Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger and the other with user access to competitors’ products. These divergent results can be explained by the application of broadly similar antitrust laws applied differently by each country’s regime. For example, the European Commission’s ruling reveals a more aggressive approach to Microsoft's antitrust violations than does the United States’ decision. Korea’s ruling has been characterized as even more aggressive than the Commission’s. Although antitrust laws involve many aspects of competition policy including merger review, cartel enforcement, antimonopoly regulation, etc., the scope of the analysis in this paper is limited to Microsoft’s anticompetitive license agreements and anticompetitive tying practices. Thus, this article will examine the antitrust litigation Microsoft has faced in the US and Japan relating to its anticompetitive license agreements as well as the antitrust litigation in the US, E.U., and Korea regarding its anticompetitive tying practices to illustrate alternative antitrust regime responses to a perceived monopoly threat within the context of different regulatory environments. Analyzing these five antimonopoly suits against Microsoft allows meaningful comparison across countries within the limited scope of one company’s challenged anticompetitive business practices. Accordingly, the cases involving Microsoft’s anticompetitive contract provisions are discussed in Section II and the cases challenging Microsoft’s anticompetitive tying practices are discussed in Section III below. Section IV examines procedural and substantive differences across countries. Finally, alternative regime proposals are presented in Section V.

South - East Asian Integration in the Context of OIC: Implications of Free Trade among Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh

Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest intergovernmental organization after UN with its 57 members. OIC accounts for 22.48 percent of world population, 6.64 percent of world GDP, and 9.1 percent of world trade as of 2007. When it comes to having world valuable resources, OIC’s potential is even more striking with more than 70% of oil and nearly 50% of natural gas reserves of the world. However, the level of economic integration and volume of trade among OIC members over the last 4 decades has been less than satisfactory. But recently there have been some efforts towards increased economic cooperation among the member countries as a key strategy for higher

Investigating the counterfeit nightmare

In 1998 the FBI predicted that counterfeiting would become “the crime of the 21st century”. Four years on and that prophecy is being dramatically vindicated. The International Chamber of Commerce Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau estimates that the overall cost of counterfeiting is between 5 and 7 percent of world trade. In hard figures that represents over $350 billion in lost revenues for legitimate companies every year.

Governance for Sound Chemicals Management: The Need for a More Comprehensive Global Strategy

The upcoming United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), in Johannesburg, August-September 2002, will be an important occasion to assess global progress in dealing with environment and development issues and to determine future priorities. In the aftermath of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, where new environmental issues were identified for deepened international cooperative actions, the international environmental agenda has undergone significant expansion. One of the most important of the new issues has been enhanced chemicals management, which presents a major challenge to the international community. In addition to the often severe environmental and human health effects of hazardous chemicals, the significance of the chemical industry to politically important sectors such as agriculture, industry, and trade--the products of the chemical industry are worth approximately U.S. $1,600 billion annually and account for around 13 pe rcent of world trade--ensures that chemicals regulation will continue to occupy a prominent place on the international environmental agenda for the foreseeable future. (1) Hazardous chemicals are often divided into three categories: pesticides, industrial chemicals, and unintentionally produced by-products. Such substances are toxic--they can be poisonous, infectious, or corrosive--are often persistent, and as a result have the ability to bioaccumulate (build up in fatty tissues in individual organisms) and concentrate further or biomagnify up food chains. Emissions are almost exclusively anthropogenic in origin from a wide range of both point and diffuse sources, including agricultural use, manufacturing and use of goods, by-products of production, waste incineration, combustion, metal production, and reemissions from contaminated wastes, soil, and surface waters. Once dispersed into the environment, complete cleanup is technically extremely difficult and in some cases not even possible where negative consequences may linger extensively. The need for concerted global action on hazardous chemicals arises from several circumstances where improved chemicals management could limit the negative environmental and human health effects of existing hazardous chemicals and prevent the future introduction of dangerous new substances. First, transboundary transport of emissions through air, water, ice, and migratory species results in widespread transnational dispersal. (2) Virtually all the world's areas and ecosystems are to some degree vulnerable, and there are many cases of substantial environmental accumulation in regions-remote from any emissions source. (3) Second, many of the activities that cause chemicals problems are governed or influenced by multiple international institutions and organizations. The connection, for instance, between environmental and human health protection and trade is very strong in chemicals management. Third, international cooperation is a way of diffusing knowledge about the problem and aiding in the identification of a lternative techniques and substitutes, which is lacking today in many (mainly) developing countries. Fourth, even if developing countries recognize the problem with hazardous chemicals and wish to initiate risk reduction measures, they often encounter difficulties in mustering adequate technical, financial, and/or human capital. Then, international activities can function as catalysts for the diffusion of such resources and lead to domestic actions that otherwise would not have been taken. In this article we focus on international institutional attempts to reduce risks associated with hazardous human-made chemicals that pose a direct threat to human health and the environment. As such, it ties in with a broader academic interest in institutional design and the horizontal interplay between institutions operating at a similar level of social organization. …

Future Directions for U. S. Trade

HE United States now faces a clear choice between alternative trade policies. On the one hand, the AFL-CIO and some others actively support unilateral U. S. imposition of a new regime of comprehensive import quotas. If erected in the form which these groups presently propose, the Burke-Hartke bill, the new regime would reduce U. S. imports by at least $11 billion from the 1971 level and limit their growth to a fixed share of U. S. consumption thereafter.' Any such cutback in U. S. imports would cut back U. S. exports by at least a like amount, in view of foreign income effects, overt retaliation, and emulation by other countries of the U. S. moves. Thus the decline in world trade would be roughly double the size of the U. S. action-about 8 percent of world trade in 1971.2 The Burke-Hartke bill is highly unlikely to become law in its present extreme form. But a new orderly marketing regime, which would limit future import growth to some given share of the U. S. market, implemented either by the U. S. or through the favored new technique of voluntary export by foreign suppliers, is a distinct possibility.3 Indeed, the U. S. has been applying such restraints in several key industries over the past decade (cotton textiles, meat, steel, synthetic and woolen textiles, stainless steel flatware, etc.), and such a generalized approach would in one sense represent a culmination of present trends. On the other hand, the U. S. Administration and numerous private groups have been actively calling for new international negotiations to resume the earlier postwar effort to reduce national barriers to world trade, and to devise new international rules and mechanisms to