Quantitative Import Restrictions Research Articles

Economic Analysis of Article 28 EC after theKeckJudgment

European Union (EU) regulation of the free circulation of goods may be considered an eminent jurisprudential achievement; in fact, it has emerged from and been strengthened by the judgments of the European Court of Justice (hereinafter “the Court”).In particular, the Court's engagement with the prohibition on quantitative import restrictions and other measures having an equivalent effect established by Article 28 European Convention (EC), has paved the road towards integration. This was especially true of the Court's “milestone” decisions inDassonvilleandCassis de Dijon.The judicial parameter established by those judgments was built upon the interpretation of “quantitative restrictions” as encompassing any “measures hindering trade.” Although this has proven to be, for a limited period of time, an efficient instrument in pursuing Treaty goals, like the creation of a single European market, it has also produced a few side effects, including: (a) an excessive broadening of the field of Article 28 EC's application; and, consequently, (b) an increase in the number of claims the Court has had to examine. This has placed the Court in the position of having to weigh, more and more frequently, the content of national policies in order to determine whether the restrictions they impose can be justified.

Trade Policy in Burundi: Reform Without Political Stability

This paper evaluates Burundi's progress with trade policy reform, by comparing earlier analyses of Burundi's trade policies undertaken in the 1980s with that of the WTO's recent Trade Policy Review. Since the mid‐1980s Burundi has been trying to reform its trade and macroeconomic policies against the background of continuous socio‐political tensions and periodic outbreaks of violent tribal conflict. A ‘then and now’ comparison allows us to assess both the extent of the trade reforms and of the economic return to those reforms. It is evident that there has been a significant rationalisation and simplification of trade policy. Burundi has eliminated most quantitative import restrictions and reduced the average level and range of its tariffs. The scope for allocative distortions, undesirable redistributive effects and for impediments to investment and growth has been substantially reduced. However, a return to reform in terms of export growth or diversification and of overall economic growth is not discernible yet. This is unsurprising, given the scale of the economic disruption. Sustained socio‐political stability, among other things, will be required to induce the investment in human and physical capital needed for a positive return to trade policy reform.

Cape Verde: 2001 Article IV Consultation--Staff Report and Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion

In the conclusion of the previous Article IV Consultation, Executive Directors welcomed the elimination of quantitative import restrictions and the liberalization of foreign exchange regulations, and Directors emphasized the need to consolidate the progress made in containing the fiscal imbalances by continuing with prudent expenditure policies and further strengthening the tax system and budgetary procedures. Fiscal slippages occurred in the second half of 1999 and led to pressures on the balance of payments. Structural reforms created an environment conducive to private sector activity.

Quantitative Import Restrictions and Optimal Capital Taxes Under a System of Tax Credits

This paper examines the optimal capital tax policy under quantitative import constraints, and international capital tax credits. For a small capital‐importing country, the optimal capital tax equals the foreign tax under a quota, and equals or exceeds the foreign tax under a VER. For a small capital‐exporting country, the optimal policy towards capital is a zero tax under a quota, and a tax or a subsidy under a VER. Also examined are the welfare effects of capital taxes and trade liberalization, and the joint setting of the two policies, when both instruments are available to the government.

The NAFTA Panel Decision on Supply Management: Gamble or Bargain?

SummaryIn July 1995, the United States requested the establishment of the first Panel under Chapter 20 procedures of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and challenged Canada's duties on its “supply-managed” dairy, poultry, egg, barley, and margarine products. These industries had grown and prospered under supply management – a system intended to establish stability in a domestic market afflicted by unpredictable production cycles. The import restrictions were designed in conformity with the international trade rules as set out in the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT). These rules changed in 1995 as a result of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture under which Canada and WTO members replaced quantitative import restrictions with tariffs and tariff-rate quotas. The United States claimed that the duties contravened the basic NAFTA obligation to not rahe tariffs. Canada countered that the new tariff rates were justified under the new WTO Agreement on Agriculture that had been negotiated in Geneva after NAFTA. The resulting decision in favour of Canada was both praised for its consideration of the case in the context of the complex interplay of relevant trade obligations and criticized for finding “an implied bargain among negotiators … that was never struck.” The Panel assumed that if tariff eqivalents could not be applied – which in effed would render the WTO Agreement on Agriculture inoperative – the result would be that the parties would be entitled to apply Article XI restrictions as if the Uruguay Round had never happened. The logic was impeccable – the NAFTA was “not to be read in clinical isolation from public international law.”

Trade policies, macroeconomic adjustment, and manufactured exports: The Latin American experience

Changes in trade policy, especially in quantitative import restrictions, have played an important role in the macroeconomic adjustment in all six countries. For long periods, trade policy tightenings and occasional liberalizations were the main instruments of balance-of-payments policy. Most tightenings were preceded by a deterioration in the current account. In several cases tight import restrictions had adverse effects on output and, hence, on investment and growth. Since changes in trade policies, referred to here as episodes, were usually part of a policy package, it is difficult to isolate the effects of the episodes themselves. Sometimes they have been followed by current account improvements and other times by deteriorations.

TARIFFICATION OF AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY IMPORTS IN SOUTH AFRICA: A TARIFF POLICY AND STRATEGY / TARIFERING VAN LANDBOUKOMMODITEIT-Invoere in Suid-Afrika: 'N Tariefbeleenid en -Strategie

The objectives of this article are to provide policy makers in agriculture with a tariff policy framework and a tariffication strategy. This is necessary in order to successfully complete the tariffication process and act as a basis for future actions. The Department of Agriculture has officially opted for the implementation of import tariffs on all agricultural products and in so doing signified a dramatic change from the historical policy to protect local industries by means of quantitative import restrictions. It is due to this change in policy direction, as well as South Africa's commitments in terms of the GATT Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations, that a study of the impact of tariffication on local agricultural marketing arrangements and policy is necessary. It is essential that, given the complexity of the tariffication process, the Department of Agriculture officially adopts a tariff policy and formulates a tariff policy framework which is transparent, administratively easy to manage and ca...

Trade Relations Between the EC and Japan:

This article deals with trade relations between the EC and Japan by focusing on the automobile industry. It analyzes the performance of the European and Japanese car manufacturers in the EC market. It examines quantitative import restrictions as well as non-tariff restrictions such as technical regulations, the value-added system, state aid to European car producers, exclusive distribution system, and "rule of origin" requirements. The article also discusses how the Japanese car producers are reacting to the EC-92 program by pursuing at least three strategies.

The Possibility of Inefficient Liberalization Through Tariffication*

AbstractA typical step in trade liberalization under the GATT is tariffication—the conversion of quantitative import restrictions to their ad valorem tariff equivalents. This paper shows that, if there is market power in the protected industry, tariffication may cause a global efficiency loss. In particular, in a small country, if the protected industry is a monopoly that is freely able to export but cannot profitably do so, then tariffication unambiguously imposes global efficiency costs. In a large country, the global efficiency effects are uncertain a priori. In both cases, however, tariffication unambiguously benefits the monopoly and lowers foreign welfare.

Policy appraisal and the structure of protection in a low‐income developing country: Problems of measurement and evaluation in Burundi

The article provides estimates of the structure of nominal and effective tariffs and the tariff equivalents of a set of quantitative import restrictions for Burundi, a low‐income, data‐deficient developing country. It carefully indicates the assumptions and limitations of the analysis. The overall conclusion of the article is that not much significance can be attached to the estimates in a cardinal sense. Nevertheless, recommendations about altering the structure of relative incentives can be justified, where these are directed at increasing transparency and uniformity.

Transnational Across the Border: Mobilizing US Support for the Mexican Maquila Industry

Despite all the talk of protectionism in both rich and poor countries there has probably never been a time when the idea of economic autarchy has been less popular than the 1980s. The so-called “New Protectionism” of the 1980s has several historically novel dimensions but far from being “New” the essential idea is the very ancient one of corporations encouraged by the governments of the countries in which they are domiciled attempting to gain competitive advantages over those from other countries by fair means and by foul. The traditional charges of low cost producers flooding markets with cheap, and sometimes dangerously inferior goods, the use by foreign governments of unfair incentives to exporters (export subsidies), and the imposition of quantitative import restrictions by importing countries, are flying around global commerce to a degree that has some very sober politicians, policy makers and economists publicly worried for the very future of the global system and, by implication, world security. To put it bluntly, the ideologues of “free trade” or “liberalization” as it is increasingly being labelled, argue that the “New Protectionism” if it is permitted to spread will inevitably lead to a “New Depression,” and this may well lead to global anarchy not only in commerce but also in the politico-military relations between nations.

Consistency of Export‐restraint Arrangements with the GATT

ORTY years of stressful history would challenge the capacity of any international agreement on trade and commerce to cope with new developments and practices not carefully enough contemplated by the original draftsmen. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)’ is no exception. Indeed, the lack of an adequate institutional structure for the GATT’ renders it even more vulnerable than many agreements to the problem of ‘relevance’ in a world now substantially different from the one which existed in the immediate post-World War I1 period. Yet few practices have posed as large a problem for the policy objectives and ‘rule’ language of the GATT as those generally called ‘voluntary export restraints’ (VERs), ‘voluntary restraint arrangements’ (VRAs) or ‘orderly marketing arrangements’ (OMAs). In spite of extensive economic and policy criticism suggesting that, as an instrument of trade policy, export-restraint arrangements are usually a fourthor fifth-best choice4 (or worse), these arrangements have proliferated to such an extent that it appears that some countries prefer them to all other trade-restricting devices. Why this is so has been the subject of comment elsewhere. Clearly it relates, inter alia, to the national constitutional structures of governments which inhibit the use of other measures (such as tariffs or quantitative import restrictions, which may sometimes require parliamentary action or prerequisites specified in legislative delegations of power). It also relates to international rules such as the GATT’s Article XIX, its main ‘escape clause’ (providing for emergency protection against sudden surges of imports of a particular product), which requires an importrestricting country to ‘compensate’ exporting countries with new trade ‘concessions’. While economic and other policy considerations surrounding the use of exportrestraint arrangements have been amply explored, there is remarkably little analytical examination of the related legal question of whether such arrangements

NEGOTIATING THE ABOLITION OF NON-TARIFF BARRIERS

This paper illustrates the extent and the cost of nontariff barriers to international trade. It proposes one possible scheme for removing some of them-negotiations between developing and industrial c ountries organized along the principal supplier lines used in GATT tariff negotiations prior to the Kennedy Round. Assuming that gover nments are motivated by mercantilist objectives, it concludes that up to $20 billion of developing countries' exports could be freed from quantitative import restrictions by such negotiations. In return for this, the developing countries would have to reduce nontariff barrier s on a similar value of their imports. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.

Measuring quality change in quota-constrained import markets: The Case of U.S. Footwear

Theoretical models predict that quantitative import restrictions, such as orderly marketing agreements (OMAs), lead to substitution into higher quality products within the quotaconstrained import category. The country specific nature of OMAs results in further substitution among supplying countries. Using index number techniques, this paper measures the impact of product and country substitution on the price of U.S. footwear imports in the period surrounding the 1977–1981 footwear OMA with Korea and Taiwan. Upgrading of the import bundle was observed in most quota categories throughout the OMA period and accounted for 12 percent of the observed rise in the average price of footwear imports.

Protectionism: An analysis from project LINK

The LINK system of world trade is used to examine present tendencies toward protectionism. In protectionist scenarios we increase the prices of manufactured imports into 13 LINK-OECD countries by 5, 10, and 20 percent respectively, for 1978–1979. If a country's import equations do not depend significantly on relative price, we impose corresponding quantitative import restrictions of 5, 10, and 20 percent. Smaller OECD countries, developing countries, and socialist countries are assumed to be nonprotectionist in these scenarios. The discrepancies between the values of leading variables in the protectionist scenarios and in a baseline case show the effects of the different degrees of protectionism assumed. The results describe and validate Adam Smith's principles of the gains from free trade.

Problemi dei contingenti all'importazione (The problem with import quotas)

Today trade policy and the politics of protectionism in Italy, for the most part carried out within the EEC, essentially rely on the Community system of customs duties on imported products and variable taxes on agricultural imports. However, there is also a set of domestic trade policy instruments, among which the system of quantitative import restrictions. The present article analyzes the economic, legal and practical aspects of the complex problem of the allocation of import licenses between national operators. In the first part the authors summarize the main differences between quotas and customs duties. The formulas adopted to date in Italy are then re-examined and the criteria used by the other CEE countries are referred to. Finally, the objectives identified as priorities in the field of Public Administration are specified, the main shortcomings of the current system highlighted and some changes proposed. JEL: F13, F15

Qu’appelle-t-on convertibilité ?

What is called convertibility ? Convertibility has a host of different meanings or degrees whether it refers to residents or to non-residents. For residents, full convertibility implies the freedom to import goods and services and to export capital. The extend of quantitative import restrictions and for exchange control determines the precise degree of convertibility. For non-residents, full convertibility implies the freedom to transfer balances on current and on capital accounts. More or less rigid blocking of balances determines the exact degree of convertibility here too. Besides the limitations on convertibility that depend on the type of financial operation, then may also be geographical limitations : payments’ arrangements may be bilateral, multilateral within a certain area or multilateral over the whole world. Any further move towards convertibility that is not accompanied by a wider liberalisation of trade would be of little value.