Rise In Tariff Research Articles

Examining the Smart-Prepaid Metering Systems in Ghana: Implications for Policy Reform

This study examined Smart-Prepaid Metering System deployed by ECG and NEDCo from the technical point of view. The analysis revealed that smart meters are far advantageous compared to traditional postpaid meters that are error prone- reading errors, generate a lot of system losses, and can be bypassed by power theft. The high losses that utility companies make because of non- payment of bills could be reduced to the barest minimum. The resistance to smart-prepaid meter adoption is due to the high bills consumers are experiencing. The rising bills were caused by the use of energy consuming appliances like electric stove, dryers, washers coupled with rise in tariff. The study recommends mass education using various fora like community engagement and electronic media to teach consumers the added values of the new meters and how to use them efficiently. Also, these meters should installed at all government institutions and private industries that have been persistently defaulting in bill payment.

US-Sino Trade War, A Trading Setback Or An Opportunity For Emerging Markets

After trying to nurture positive diplomatic relationships among two major economies in the world, a cold war has been converted into a trade war between China and the United States of America. Massive tariffs have been imposed on Chinese imports by Trump administration due to which china stroked back with its tariff policy for American products. Different Chinese companies like Huawei and Haier must face unforeseen circumstances due to trade war. The market for Chinese products seems to shrank post trump policy; on one side, it is a major setback for the Chinese market as an emerging market. On the other hand, it is a golden opportunity for other emerging markets like India, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines. US-market is a vast market for Chinese electronics, technology, agriculture, leather, furniture, and many more household products since china entered in the race of globalization. A rise in tariff triggered a trade war, resulting in a decrease in Chinese share in US-market. This trade war has offered a golden opportunity for emerging markets to take over Huawei and Haier's market due to trade barriers and bans on them from the US. This paper will study deep-rooted causes of the US-Sino trade war by examining the impact of a trade war on Huawei technologies and Haier; big Chinese firms dealing worldwide and have a large share in the US-market. The research type will be exploratory, and most of the data is based on secondary data sources. It has been found in this article that the US-Sino trade war is causing losses to both economies on international trade forum. The products from other Asian countries are replacing the Chinese products in the USA. On the other hand, the emerging markets like India, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan benefit from the absence of Chinese products from the international market. Hence, the winner of the US-Sino trade wars is emerging economies.

Will Increasing Tariffs on China Really Bring the Manufacturing Plants Back to the U.S.?

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether the recent rise in tariffs on goods produced in China will lead processing trade manufacturing plants now located in China to delocate to the U.S. By using a hypothetical extraction method and examining the global value chains of income, we compare the factor payments in the Chinese and U.S. manufacturing sectors. Our estimates indicate that the average tariff rate necessary to move the processing trade firms is 48.15%, i.e. well above the current 25% rate. However, the average tariff rate needed for shifting China's processing plants to Mexico decease to 20.32%.

From nuclear phase-out to renewable energies in the Swiss electricity market

Liberalisation and the ever larger share of variable renewable energies (VRES), e.g. photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy, affect security of supply (SoS). We develop a system dynamics model to analyse the impact of VRES on the investment decision process and to understand how SoS is affected. We focus on the Swiss electricity market, which is currently undergoing a liberalisation process, and simultaneously faces the encouragement of VRES and a nuclear phase out. Our results show that nuclear production is replaced mainly by PV and imports; the country becomes a net importer. This evolution points to a problem of capacity adequacy. The resulting price rise, together with the subsidies needed to support VRES, lead to a rise in tariffs. In the presence of a high share of hydro, the de-rated margin may give a misleading picture of the capacity adequacy. We thus propose a new metric, the annual energy margin, which considers the energy available from all sources, while acknowledging that hydro-storage can function as a battery. This measure shows a much less reassuring picture of the country’s capacity adequacy.

Tariffs, Offshoring and Unemployment in A Two-Country Model

This paper develops a two-country model that incorporates offshoring opportunities, and analyses the effects of tariffs under economic stagnation in a liquidity trap that causes unemployment. We find that a rise in tariffs on imports of outsourced goods contributes to an increase in employment by inducing a shift in production, but also leads to an appreciation of the real exchange rate that tends to reduce employment. The effect of real exchange rate appreciation dominates the effect of the production shift, and accordingly employment and consumption fall. The effects of tariff adjustments are reversed, however, when there is no liquidity trap and hence no unemployment.

Is Protectionism on the Rise? Assessing National Trade Policies during the Crisis of 2008

To understand the role of trade policies in the crisis of 2008, this paper constructs the overall trade restrictiveness indices for a wide range of countries using their tariff schedules in 2008 and 2009. The index summarizes the trade policy stance of a country, taking into account the share of each good in trade as well as its corresponding import demand elasticity. Results show that there is no widespread increase in protectionism via tariff policies since the global financial crisis has unfolded. While many countries have adjusted tariffs upward on selected products, only a handful of countries, such as Malawi, Russia, Argentina, Turkey and China focus on products that have significant impacts on trade flows. The United States and the European Union, by contrast, rely mainly on anti-dumping duties to shield domestic industries. Overall, while the rise in tariffs and anti-dumping duties in these countries may have jointly caused global trade to drop by as much as US$43 billion during the crisis period, it explains less than 2 percent of the collapse in world trade.

Collateral damage: Exchange controls and international trade

While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To minimize evasion of controls, countries often intensify inspections at the border and increase documentation requirements. Thus, the cost of conducting trade rises. The paper finds that a one standard deviation increase in the controls on trade payment has the same negative effect on trade as an increase in tariff by about 14 percentage points. A one standard deviation increase in the controls on FX transactions reduces trade by the same amount as a rise in tariff by 11 percentage points. Therefore, the collateral damage in terms of foregone trade is sizable.

Collateral Damage: Exchange Controls and International Trade

While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To minimize evasion of controls, countries often intensify inspections at the border and increase documentation requirements. Thus, the cost of conducting trade rises. The paper finds that a one standard-deviation increase in the controls on trade payment has the same negative effect on trade as an increase in tariff by about 14 percentage points. A one standard-deviation increase in the controls on FX transactions reduces trade by the same amount as a rise in tariff by 11 percentage points. Therefore, the collateral damage in terms of foregone trade is sizable.

Collateral Damage: Exchange Controls and International Trade

While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To minimize evasion of controls, countries often intensify inspections at the border and increase documentation requirements. Thus, the cost of conducting trade rises. The paper finds that a one standard-deviation increase in the controls on trade payment has the same negative effect on trade as an increase in tariff by about 14 percentage points. A one standard-deviation increase in the controls on FX transactions reduces trade by the same amount as a rise in tariff by 11 percentage points. Therefore, the collateral damage in terms of foregone trade is sizable.

Implications of private sector participation in power generation—a case study from India

India suffers from widespread shortages of electricity supply. These shortages, among others, are detrimental to the economic growth. The prospects for the next decade do not seem to be much brighter. Efforts in expanding generation capacity by the state-owned electric utilities are hampered by severe resource constraints. Against this backdrop, to mobilize additional resources to help bridge the gap in demand and supply, the Government of India formulated a policy in 1991 with the objective to encourage greater investment by private enterprises in the electricity sector. To study the implications of such an initiative on various stakeholders, viz., public utilities, consumers and private sector, the present paper tries to analyse issues like planned rationing, guarantees to private sector, backing down of existing capacity. Using the state of Karnataka (in Southern India) as a case study, the paper develops multiple scenarios using an integrated mixed integer-programming model. The results show the advantage of marginal non-supply (rationing) of electricity in terms of achieving overall effective supply demand matching as well as providing economic benefits to the state that could be generated through cost savings. The results also show the negative impacts of high guarantees offered to the private sector in terms of the opportunity costs of reduced utilization of both the existing and the new public capacity. The estimated generation losses and the associated economic impacts of backing down of existing and new public capacity on account of guarantees are found to be significantly high. For 2011–12, depending on the type of scenarios, the estimated generation and economic losses are likely to be in the range of 3200–10,000 GWh and Rs. 4200–13,600 million respectively. The impact of these losses on the consumers could be in terms of significant increase in energy bills (in the range of 19–40% for different scenarios) due to rise in tariffs.

04/01907 Optimizing electrical load pattern in Kuwait using grid connected photovoltaic systems: Al-Hasan, A. Y. et al. Energy Conversion and Management, 2004, 45, (4), 483–494

Liberalisation and the ever larger share of variable renewable energies (VRES), e.g. photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy, affect security of supply (SoS). We develop a system dynamics model to analyse the impact of VRES on the investment decision process and to understand how SoS is affected. We focus on the Swiss electricity market, which is currently undergoing a liberalisation process, and simultaneously faces the encouragement of VRES and a nuclear phase out. Our results show that nuclear production is replaced mainly by PV and imports; the country becomes a net importer. This evolution points to a problem of capacity adequacy. The resulting price rise, together with the subsidies needed to support VRES, lead to a rise in tariffs. In the presence of a high share of hydro, the de-rated margin may give a misleading picture of the capacity adequacy. We thus propose a new metric, the annual energy margin, which considers the energy available from all sources, while acknowledging that hydro-storage can function as a battery. This measure shows a much less reassuring picture of the country’s capacity adequacy.

Exporting versus Foreign Direct Investment

In this paper we investigate how strategic aspects influence the choice between exporting and servicing foreign markets by setting up a plant in the foreign country. We show that tariffs on imports in conjunction with the size of the set up costs incurred while setting up plants and the size of the foreign market will determine whether domestic firms which face competition from a foreign firm will choose to deter foreign direct investment (FDI), prevent exports or may accommodate either form of penetration of a foreign firm in their market. Our analysis reveals that there is no simple relationship between the size of the tariff and the propensity of foreign firms to engage in foreign direct investment. Higher tariffs may result in exports rather than FDI. Furthermore, due to actual competition among domestic firms while facing potential competition in the form of FDI, a rise in tariffs may lead to a decrease in domestic output.