Protectionist Barriers Research Articles

Overcoming barriers to solar and wind energy adoption in two Asian giants: India and Indonesia

Solar and wind electricity generation technologies have become cost competitive and account for a growing share of global investment in new electricity generation capacity. Both India and Indonesia have ambitious targets for adoption of these technologies, and India has an impressive current rate of uptake. Substantial obstacles exist, however, including the entrenched positions of coal and other fossil fuels, regulatory barriers to market access, and weak abilities of electricity utilities to manage intermittent renewables. This paper reviews these obstacles and discusses strategies to overcome them. We focus on the use of reverse auction processes able to deliver low-price solar and wind contracts, as are being successfully employed in India, on tax and subsidy reform options, on regulatory and incentive-design strategies, on approaches to bolster grid management capacities, and on the importance of minimizing protectionist barriers. Our analysis covers both small-scale and large-scale systems.

Branching Out: How Canada’s Forestry Products Sector is Reshaping its Future

The external forces buffeting Canada’s forest sector – price swings, US trade protectionism, and shifting market demand for its core products – have challenged the sector to become an innovation leader. As a natural resource-based sector, it also has had the come to terms with the challenges of sustainability and associated changes in the regulatory environment. Today, Canada’s forest sector shows potential as a leader in innovation, environmental sustainability and international trade. Among key exporters of forest products, Canada has been more exposed to the dwindling demand for newsprint than many of its key competitors, who have been able to expand more rapidly their exports of other types of paper and related products. More generally, investments in new capacity have languished in Canada, while expansion (including by Canadian companies seeking to diversify and jump over protectionist barriers) has proceeded in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. However, wood products are now being used as the base materials for tall buildings, such as condo towers, and as an important component to the nation’s fuel supply. Meanwhile, bioplastics made from wood are being turned into everything from airplanes to product packaging. While many of these applications are in a somewhat nascent phase of development, they are fast evolving and show significant potential. Even though the forest sector is already a leader in many parts of the emerging bio-economy and accounts for 12 percent of Canada’s manufacturing sector GDP, it has the potential to do even better. Given the rapid growth in applications for wood products, supporting the forest sector directly reinforces Canada’s desire to provide world-leading opportunities to its citizens in STEM professions. Moreover, sound forest management practices lead to better environmental and economic outcomes, including greater levels of carbon sequestration and increased biodiversity. Key recommendations include: • Scale up the government contributions to FPInnovations, a non-profit innovation hub for the forestry industry, and other vehicles with a successful track record of commercialization. • Consolidate the early product and process innovations supported by the federal government in partnership with the industry to make Canada a global leader in the emerging “tall wooden building space.” • Endeavour to ensure “regulatory neutrality” for the use of emerging wood and wood-based products. • Create a window supported by carbon tax revenues to drive innovative local solutions to forest management, adaption and utilization; and • Develop a sectoral arrangement on trade in forest products with China, focused on the construction sector.

Innovative development of the socio-cultural sphere of the region

The paper discusses the features of the socio-cultural sphere in conjunction with the trends of economic development. For example, such as organizational and technological, creating a system to support their development and implementation. The paper presents the factors influencing the appearance of innovations in the socio-cultural sphere. The analysis of innovative activity of regional organizations is carried out. The assessment of existing gaps in innovative development is given. The prerequisites for the enhancement of regional differences in the innovative development of socio-cultural organizations have been identified. Based on the conducted analysis, the problems of innovative development are systematized, associated with globalization, the presence of protectionist barriers, and the underdevelopment of tools for goal-oriented planning of innovative development.

International trade Importance trends and Approaches

Though international trade has history from time immemorial, China and India were the torch bearers of international trade. Briton played a crucial role in promoting international trade after industrial revolution with its strong economy. The colonial policy of Briton further promoted global trade. After World War-II, the aggressive economic measures required for recovery of many economies further encouraged trade among nations. In the process of emerging global trade, different growth poles emerged as potential forces. Belatedly, the developing economies emerged as vital growth pole with higher economic growth rate. It is anticipated that the emerging economies are going to play a more important role in the international trade compared to other economic blocks by 2025. Conversion of GATT into WTo and emergence of other world bodies like World Bank and IMF with more effective policies and programmes provided an effective platform for international trade among nations. It helped to reduce the protectionist policies and trade barriers and encouraged more and more free trade across borders. The increasing global trade is the emerging trend in world economy.

The Upward Redistribution of Income

This paper examines the extent to which the growth in rents can explain the upward redistribution in income since 1980. It examines and provides preliminary estimates for the growth of rents in four main areas: increased patent and copyright rents, the growth of the financial sector, the increase in CEO pay due to the failure of the corporate governance, and the increase in pay for the most highly paid professionals due to protectionist barriers.

Dual Use of Standardization Strategies: Promoting Regional Integration and/or Global Markets

This chapter discusses how the instruments of standards and standardization, international trade agreements, and government or public policy could collectively help foster economic growth, enhance prosperity through productivity increase, and drive innovation, without raising new protectionist barriers. These instruments should be used in an effective way to empower innovation across borders for an ecologically and socially sustainable prosperity, as — in the same time — the technological, social, and economic landscapes are undergoing tectonic shifts through:the rapid rate of technological development and convergence, particularly in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector;increased competition and blurring of boundaries in the digital economy, driven by extensive global connectivity as well as the emergence of global innovation networks and new innovation hubs;national and regional policies having moved to coordinated broader digital approaches aiming at integrating social and economic priorities; andgrowing challenges affecting cross-border goods and information flow and their impact on individuals’ rights to a minimal respect of their private sphere in a world of data-driven innovation.This chapter will illustrate a potential path for improvement, taking into consideration the current state-of-play of standards regimes, international and megaregional trade agreements, and government policies paradigms. One example that this chapter will discuss is that open technology platforms, such as standards developed in a globally open and inclusive, collaborative, and consensus manner, that could be voluntarily adopted and be thus applicable globally, should be explicitly considered in megaregional agreements. Temptations to use megaregional dynamics to promote “regional standards” and “export” them globally or use them as a tool to seal the regional market from competition, would create counterforces and could eventually lead to the end of the current globalization era. So, while megaregionals could pose a threat for the openness of future ICT platforms, including open compatibility, and interoperability standards, they offer also an opportunity for the above-mentioned types of standards and processes to be recognized. They could foster an evolution in the definition of what constitutes an “international standard” and “international standards body.” The current definitions stem from an era where only a nation-centric standardization model existed, perpetuating thus a concept that predates and is not adequate for the Internet era, and which may lead to national or regional industrial policies with new forms of structural discrimination and protectionism. The chapter will discuss how international and megaregional trade agreements could be used to promote globally open standardization processes and their outcomes, as well as supportive regulations, as means to increase economic activity and social inclusiveness in several regions by enhancing cross-border innovation and trade without — at least formal — discriminations across regions.

Dillemas of Modern Motherhood (Based on Research in Russia)

IntroductionThe concept of globalization is probably one of the most successful frameworks for explaining the dynamic changes within modern societies. Most frequently, the discussion is centred around its positive and negative consequences, and in relation to in the context of globalization, new forms, dilemmas and possibilities to lose unique cultural identity are discussed.This article aims at analysing the opportunities and risks that globalization offers to the institute of family through presenting mothers with unfamiliar dilemmas and influencing the nature of new scenarios. To specify the scale, this work proposes several indicators of the impact of globalization on the private sphere of in three dimensions: economic, sociotechnical and cultural. We will also analyse several local responses to the challenges of globalization.This article is based on ten-year long participants' observation that was held in Moscow and online research through Russia. Being mother of three children herself, the author was able to actively interact with respondents: interviews in kinder gardens, schools, children's educational centers, etc. Gradually the research that at first was substantially qualitative acquired some characteristics of quantitative study. This study covered the analysis of 178 journals made available for public access; 321 semi-structured interviews, conducted by the author via social network www.babyblog.ru over period of time from June 2010 to December 2014. interviews were conducted with Russian women aged from 19 to 64 years from various regions of Russian Federation; non-probability random sampling was used. choice of online method was grounded on the fact that during the maternity leave many women find themselves in social isolation and virtual communications become of great importance for them. Virtual publics and counterpublics provide support, advice and knowledge to women transitioning to motherhood (Johnson, 2015). Author made her own blog with more than 300 followers and it gave chance to start discussions on different questions. For example, on the way of celebration of the first Birthday, time structure, consumption templates, etc. As the result of the research, 321 of semistructured interview were made.Although we understand that this approach can lead to low accuracy in particular indexes due to insufficiently representative sample of respondents, the main goal of the article is to identify the main issues and methods for future research.We start by an attempt to highlight several indicators of the impact of globalization on the private sphere of in three dimensions: economic, sociotechnical and cultural. Thorough analyses of all the globalization tendencies is subject for number of articles, so we will focus just on some of them.We should notice that the participants of our observation choose different strategies, so we summarized them in several Scenarios of motherhood, based on different aspects of Globalization influence on motherhood. The practice of mothering furthers identity changes, particularly because women are faced by the realities of in juxtaposition with their ideals of motherhood (Laney et al., 2015).To date, there is no single, universally accepted definition of globalization. For example, P. Sztompka wrote that ...local norms and values, customs and morality, religious beliefs, models of family life, modes of production and consumption seem to be vanishing beneath the pressure of modern western institutions... Current global scale of cultural unification is determined, mainly, by the mass-media, especially television. Imperialistic means of mass turn our planet into big village, inhabitants of which consume the same cultural product. A. S. Panarin (2003) defined globalization as a process of creating united interconnected world where nations are not separated from each other by usual protectionist barriers and borders that obstruct their communication and at the same time guard them from chaotic external influence. …

Migration as International Trade: The Economic Gains from the Liberalized Movement of Labor

Although those who currently seek to reduce the level of employment-based and family-based immigration into the United States often advance the economic welfare of natives and distributive justice as reasons to restrict such immigration, neither objective provides a sound justification for reductions in such immigration. This article argues instead that the maximization of national economic welfare would more likely require levels of employment-based and family-based immigration that are higher than those allowed by current U.S. immigration laws. This article sheds light on this issue by taking economic principles commonly applied to international trade and applying them to trade in labor services. This analysis derives the optimal immigration policy from the standpoint of national economic welfare, including both economic efficiency and distributive justice as objectives, and draws upon the latest empirical studies of the economic impact of immigration. In particular, this article describes the immigration policy that would maximize the welfare of natives. Trade principles indicate that the United States should eliminate its immigration quotas and other nontariff protectionist barriers and use immigration tariffs instead. A tariff could take the form of an income tax that discriminates between citizens and aliens. The optimal tariff is positive for immigrants with low incomes but is likely to be negative for immigrants with sufficiently high incomes. These results suggest that skilled immigration should be permitted (indeed encouraged) without quantitative or other protectionist restrictions and that unskilled immigration should be permitted without quantitative restrictions but subject to less generous fiscal policies than those applied to natives. The article concludes with proposals for liberalizing U.S. immigration laws. The article suggests that reciprocal concessions in international negotiations for liberalized trade in services can help overcome the political obstacles to the liberalized movement of labor into the United States.

Doctors with borders: occupational licensing as an implicit barrier to high skill migration

Research on the political economy of immigration overlooks the specificity of human capital in skilled occupations and its implications for immigration preferences and policymaking. Conclusions that skilled Americans are unconcerned about labor market competition from skilled migrants build on a simple dichotomy between high and low skill migrants. In this article we show that natives turn to occupational licensing regulations as occupation-specific protectionist barriers to skilled migrant labor competition. In practice, high skill natives face labor market competition only from those high-skill migrants who share their occupation-specific skills. Licensure regulations ostensibly serve the public interest by certifying competence, but they can simultaneously be formidable barriers to entry by skilled migrants. From a collective action perspective, skilled natives can more easily secure sub-national, occupation-specific policies than influence national immigration policy. We exploit the unique structure of the American medical profession that allows us to distinguish between public interest and protectionist motives for migrant physician licensure regulations. We show that over the 1973–2010 period states with greater physician control over licensure requirements imposed more stringent requirements for migrant physician licensure and, as a consequence, received fewer new migrant physicians. By our estimates over a third of all US states could reduce their physician shortages by at least 10 percent within 5 years just by equalizing migrant and native licensure requirements. This article advances research on the political economy of immigration and highlights an overlooked dimension of international economic integration: regulatory rent-seeking as a barrier to the cross-national mobility of human capital, and the public policy implications of such barriers.

Foreign investment multinational companies and economic development

There is no universal answer on the question whether foreign investments stimulate economic development. The positive effect of foreign direct investments will follow when the investments is carried out under normal conditions of competition. That means, above all, low barriers for foreign trade and the low level of restrictions for foreign owned companies. In such circumstances, multinational corporations can assist the economies of penetration to make its businesses more efficient. Foreign investors bring with them brand new types of economic activities and in that way shifting the limits of business opportunities in the countries of penetration. But if the investments are implemented in markets protected with protectionist barriers of various kinds, then they could have negative effects. The negative effects are in particularly reflected in the inefficient use of domestic resources. Foreign investments depend on the macro and micro institutional reforms, low inflation, real exchange rate, and reasonably efficient legal system that protects the property rights and encourages savings and investment. The low level of corruption, together with the foregoing conditions is a prerequisite for the creation of a stimulating environment for foreign investments.

Doctors with Borders: Occupational Licensing as an Implicit Barrier to High-Skill Migration

Research on the political economy of immigration overlooks the specificity of skills in high skill occupations and its implications for immigration preferences and policymaking. Assessments that skilled Americans are unconcerned about labor market competition from skilled migrants build on a simple dichotomy between high and low skill migrants. In this article we show that natives turn to occupational licensing regulations as occupation-specific, protectionist barriers to skilled migrant labor competition. In practice, high skill natives face labor market competition from only those high-skill migrants who share their occupation-specific skills. Licensure regulations ostensibly serve the public interest by certifying competence but they can simultaneously be formidable barriers to skilled migrants’ labor entry. From a collective action perspective, skilled natives can more easily secure subnational, occupation-specific policies than influence national immigration policy. We exploit the unique structure of the American medical profession that allows us to distinguish between public interest and protectionist motives for migrant physician licensure regulations. We show that over the period 1973-2010 states with greater physician control over licensure requirements imposed more stringent requirements for migrant physician licensure and, as a consequence, received fewer new migrant physicians. By our estimates half of all US states could resolve their physician shortages within five year just by equalizing migrant and native licensure requirements. This article advances research on the political economy of immigration and highlights an overlooked dimension of international economic integration: regulatory rent-seeking as a barrier to the cross-national mobility of human capital, and the public policy implications of such barriers.

International business in China vis a vis the global economic crisis: introduction

Chinese management is in transition, as China increasingly becomes a major economic player in international business. While not completely immune from the effects of the ongoing global economic crisis, China is still contributing to world economic growth. The Chinese Communist Party leaders have staked their legitimacy on rising living standards and consequently foreign policy is economically driven, reflecting in its practice both the ‘realist’ and ‘liberal’ views of international relations theory. China, as the workshop of the world, has benefited from foreign direct investment but protectionist barriers in Western countries are forcing a move from labour intensive to high tech products. To remain competitive, Chinese industry must move up the value chain, a process that requires innovation leading to independent product development. Here, however, and, more especially in service sectors like banking, foreign investors can still find lucrative opportunities. Finally, as China's outward investment advances, a distinctly Chinese management style may evolve, as we shall see in this Symposium, combining native and foreign elements.

The power of social innovation: how civic entrepreneurs ignite community networks for good

Acknowledgments. The Author. Foreword. Preface. Part I: Catalyzing Social Change. Chapter 1 Igniting Civic Progress. Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Change. So Many Ideas, So Little Progress. Civic Entrepreneurship as the Solution. Igniting Civic Progress. The Mandate and Caution of Engaging Government. Conclusions. Chapter 2 Innovation as Catalytic Ingredient. Discovering the Missing Ingredient. Choosing the Right Catalyst. Bringing It All Together: The Nehemiah Foundation. Conclusions. Part II: Market Maker as Civic Entrepreneur. Chapter 3 Open Sourcing Social Innovation. Breaking Down Protectionist Barriers. Opening Space for Innovation. Leveling the Playing Field. Inviting the Exceptional. Forcing Cultural Change. Bringing It All Together: The Enlightened Monopolist. Conclusions. Chapter 4 Trading Good Deeds for Measurable Results. Current Funding Limitations. What Public Value Are We Purchasing? Are the Funded Activities Still the Most Relevant? What Change Does the Community Want and What Assets Can It Mobilize? Are We Funding a Project or Sustainable System Change? What Will We Measure? Bringing It All Together: Linda Gibbs. Conclusions. Part III: Service Provider as Civic Entrepreneur. Chapter 5 Animating and Trusting the Citizen. Balancing the Professional with the Public. Building a Public. Leveraging Social Media for Change. Client Choice. Curing the Expectation Gap. Bringing It All Together: Family Independence Initiative. Conclusions. Chapter 6 Turning Risk into Reward. Seeing Opportunity Where Others See Liability. Taking First Risk. Fully Calculating Cascading Return on Investment. Political Risk and Reward. Bringing It All Together: Wraparound Milwaukee. Conclusions. Chapter 7 The Fertile Community. The Fertile City (and the Entrepreneurial Mayor). Civic Entrepreneurs and School Reform. Entrepreneurial Community Solutions. Staying Entrepreneurial: Saving Yourself from Success. The Future. Notes. References. Index.

The National Customs Brokers Course: An E-Learning Model

The liberalization of Australia's economy began in the 1980's by the abolition of protectionist trade barriers. Changes to tariff barriers and duty rates had a significant impact on international trade facilitation service providers, such as licenced customs brokers. In Australia, to operate as a customs broker, an individual must firstly complete a course of study prescribed under the Australian Customs Act 1901, and additionally pass a national examination. This paper discusses the introduction of a revised national customs brokers course, and in particular, the development of an e-learning method of delivery by a private education provider. The main benefits and possible shortfalls of the specific e-learning approach pursued are outlined, together with a summary of feedback from students across a number of units of study. The paper concludes that the e-learning approach offered through this course of study may assist in the development of communities of practice, thereby potentially offering additional benefits to those available through traditional classroom based studies.

State Economic Development & International Investment: Virginia & Globalization

The field of economic development has undergone a tidal shift, yet state organizations and strategies have not adjusted accordingly. Growth is not coming from the domestic economy. Future growth is in the global marketplace. Foreign firms and countries have significant liquidity. In the current global economic crisis, the optimum approach for state economic development is to focus on attracting foreign investment. Given the rise of actual or perceived protectionist barriers in the United States, foreign firms will want to avoid these risks. Today’s situation is similar to that in the 1980s, when Japanese and other foreign auto manufacturers began to locate throughout the southeastern United States. As a result of the global economic crisis, there is now a shift of greater economic power to Washington, which is helping to create a true global city with unprecedented commercial significance. Foreign firms will want to be close to this nexus of global economic and business power. A declining dollar is an additional incentive for foreign firms to establish operations. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) is the principal government entity in Virginia that is responsible for economic development. Through the International Division, the focus is on export promotion and foreign direct investment (attracting foreign firms to relocate to the Commonwealth).If Virginia intends to “embrace globalization,” the Commonwealth must reorganize its domestic efforts and formulate new strategies. It needs to take advantage of its local assets (universities and foreign students in the Commonwealth). For example, to have the Virginia universities to better cooperate among themselves and with the state government. Globalization will be embraced by leveraging local assets. Embracing globalization increases local transactions, economic development and jobs. There is a need to revitalize the Virginia Economic Development Partnership by making it a truly public-private partnership. This requires meaningful private sector participation, which would include finding new ways for the private sector to more deeply support and cooperate with the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Globalization and the new international trade environment

The combination of profound technological change and the emergence of powerful competitors such as China and the other bric countries has led to dramatic shifts in competitiveness and a tendency for production to be structured around global value chains. Against this background, traditional protectionist threats have reappeared and others have arisen in connection with new security requirements, private-sector quality standards, good practices and climate change. These issues are integral to the new competitive environment but could turn into protectionist barriers in the absence of the right multilateral approach. In view of this and of the current global crisis, the present paper offers some policy proposals oriented towards the adoption of an internationalization strategy in the region’s countries, emphasizing the importance of innovation and on issues that can be addressed from a regional cooperation standpoint.

Risking regulatory capture at the UK's Food Standards Agency?

The delivery of safe food and health governance is challenging and contested,1 and knowledge and institutions independent of vested interests are essential for public health. [2], [3] and [4] In the 1990s, new institutional architectures for food and health regulation were created to serve two purposes. First, governments sought to rebuild public confidence in both food safety and policy making in the wake of crises, including salmonella, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, pesticides, dioxins, hormones, and antibiotic residues. Second, in response to commercial pressure to liberalise international trade, which portrayed differences in national food regulations as protectionist barriers, ostensibly scientific bodies were created to provide a uniform international regime. A decade on, how is the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) doing? The FSA, set up in 2000, despite undoubted progress in some domains, struggles in others. One such tussle is about front-of-pack nutritional labelling. The FSA along with British consumers and their representatives favour a traffic-light system, but food-industry heavyweights prefer a quantitative percentage system with guideline daily amounts. After intense lobbying from the industry, European Commissioner Markos Kyprianou proposed to adopt percentage guidelines, a decision viewed by some as potentially compromising public health.5 The FSA and the European Food Safety Authority have, however, also been criticised for failing to respond robustly about additives and hyperactivity, toxic effects of aspartame, trans fats, and acrylamide.

Why Hospitals also Need Benchmarking Marketing Capabilities?

The reduction in protectionist barriers in India has made the Indian business environment more competitive. In order to obtain competitive advantage health service providers (hospitals) should inculcate a market-based learning approach where they can identify and monitor value sources of competitive advantage, such as marketing capabilities, which can provide fact-based evidence to help managers recognize the need for capability improvements. Such a scenario demands an empirical study in India with regard to hospitals marketing. Keeping the factors in mind researchers conducted the study to know whether the hospitals in Chandigarh and surrounding areas formulate the strategies with respect to various marketing variables, viz., Product Development, Pricing, Customer Management, Marketing communication Staff, Marketing Information Management, Marketing Planning, Marketing Implementation, and Marketing Outcomes (Market-effectiveness and Current Profitability). In order to answer the question 'Do hospitals need benchmarking marketing strategies?’ the researchers have also tried to find out the impact of these marketing variables on Marketing Effectiveness and Current Profitability. From the analysis, the researchers have come to the conclusion that there is a preference for type of patients segments by the hospitals. The strategies followed by hospitals are strongly and positively related to the market-effectiveness and current profitability.

Textiles and Clothing in South Asia

Phasing out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) have had different degrees of impact on the South Asian countries depending on their level of competitiveness, factor endowment and marketing calibre. Based on the data available for the first two years after the phasing out of quotas, it can be inferred that temporary safeguards imposed on China have provided some breathing space for the relatively less competitive countries in the region. However, the entire landscape of the Textiles and Clothing (T&C) sector in the region will change after the elimination of these safeguards in 2008. This article argues that despite several constraints, the South Asia region has a potential to develop itself as a global T&C hub. Therefore, concerted efforts need to be made at three levels to realize this potential. First, to form a common position at the international negotiations forum to overcome protectionist market access barriers. This should be done in tandem with the use of the regional cooperation platform to remove barriers to trade, investment and technology transfer within the region. Second, to make investments in addressing supply side constraints in order to enhance the competitiveness of the South Asian T&C sector in a phased manner. Third, to adopt strategies used successfully by countries within and outside the region to ward off competitive pressures, which are likely to ensue when the T&C trade becomes free from all restrictions.

International trade and global poverty

i n the light of the extent of global poverty and the challenge presented by the Millennium Development Goals for its reduction, this article analyzes one of the clearest and most effective ways of reducing poverty: trade liberalization —especially agricultural trade— by the industrialized countries. 75 percent of all the poor worldwide are in the rural sector of the developing countries, and the agricultural products that these countries could sell face protectionist barriers —tariffs, nontariff measures, subsidies— imposed by the industrialized countries. This article examines the topic in detail, both globally and as to specific products, and presents —based on several studies— the benefits that trade liberalization in industrialized countries would bring to developing countries, emphasizing the great impact that this liberalization could have on poverty reduction.