Trade Protection Research Articles

The Demand for Trade Protection over the Business Cycle

AbstractWe build measures of the demand for trade protection, and relate them to permanent productivity and transitory monetary shocks identified from U.S. data. The demand for trade protection is countercyclical conditional on productivity shocks and procyclical conditional on monetary shocks. A two‐country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with trade in intermediate and final goods, sticky prices, and incomplete financial markets is proposed, in which tariffs are determined in a repeated noncooperative policy game. The resulting trade policies are consistent with the empirical evidence about the cyclical pattern of trade protection demand.

The Impact of Government Policy on Brazil Economic Miracle’s Failure

From 1968 to 1973, Brazil experienced unprecedented economic growth thanks to the reform policies in the political and economic spherespolicies of the military government. However, after 1974, due to changes in the domestic and international environment and multiple subjective and objective reasons, coupled with the impact of the global oil crisis, Brazil’s economy gradually declined. And after 1980, it entered what was known as the "lost decade". The article analyzes the policy-level causes of Brazil's economic miracle recession in a comparative manner, using data from the statistical yearbooks obtained from the Brazilian National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI) for the period 1970 to 1980. The analysis shows that a large part of the reason for the gradual decline of the Brazilian economic miracle came from the policies implemented by the Brazilian government during this period, such as debt development strategy, industrial-based industrial structure, trade protection and state intervention. The article further notes that the late decline of Brazil's economic miracle is precisely due to its policy nature of short-term overdraft and unsustainability. By inference, if a country implements policies during economic transition that are not based on its own national conditions, ignoring its own resource advantages, focusing on economic development and neglecting social and livelihood protection it may repeat the bad consequences of the policy backlash suffered by Brazil.Through the compilation and analysis of data, the article explores and summarizes the deep-seated reasons behind the decline of Brazil's economic miracle from the policy level, and provides lessons for other countries to learn in the process of developing their own economies.

Reescrever saúde global

Abstract The concept of global health has become popular even though its origins have come under critical scrutiny: namely, its origins in colonial medicine, its links to the protection of international trade and capitalist exploitation and its Orientalist assumptions. To what extent is the concept still adequate or useful? Is it possible to rewrite global health while recognizing and tackling its multiple forms of violence? I reflect on the potentiality of the concept of global health based on an ethics of writing that intends to be analytical (concerning its ability to reflect social tensions, the multiplicity of experiences, the social actors’ justifications and claims, the oppression, and the unrealized potential); critical (concerning its ability to identify the contradiction between what social arrangements ostensibly proclaim and what they actually produce); and political (concerning its potential for emancipation and for the reparation of historical injustices). Five important aspects are identified toward rewriting the concept of global health: the global as planetary; the global as collective; the global as public; the global as peripheral; and the global as everyday.

ВПЛИВ ПРОТЕКЦІОНІСТСЬКИХ ЗАХОДІВ НА ТОРГОВУ ВІЙНУ МІЖ США ТА КИТАЄМ

The article provides the analysis of the development of trade relations between the two largest economies in the world – the United States of America and China and the impact of protectionist measures on their course, and in particular on the period from 2018 – trade war and its consequences for both states. The main stages of the formation of trade between the USA and China and the role of the WTO in this process are studied. The positive and negative consequences of deepening trade relations between the United States and China are considered. Trade protection measures applied by both countries, in particular during the trade war between Washington and Beijing are taken into account. Important components of the study are statistical data on changes in trade volumes between states and trade volumes to which protectionist measures were applied, which makes it possible to assess the scale of the impact of the US-China trade conflict on the economies of both countries and on world trade. China's protectionist policy has always forced the US to turn to the WTO to settle dumping and subsidizing issues. Trump administration began to overprotect the American economy and this resulted in what the whole world still calls the biggest trade war in recent history. A particular concern about Beijing's "national leader" policy forced Washington to act. According to research by American experts, such a policy will create unrealistic competition in the market and establish China's monopoly in many areas of trade. The fact that the world economy is gradually recovering from the effects of COVID-19 adds relevance to this, as the reduction in domestic production has collapsed the volumes of US domestic production, threatening a wave of unemployment, the general decline of the United States economy and a potential recession. The issue of settling the dispute between the two giants of the economy falls on the WTO that cannot resolve the conflict and shuts down in attempts to find a solution. The ability of political leaders of both countries to step over national pride for the sake of global trade could be the way, but this way does not seem possible.

Research on International Trade Problems and Improvement Plans of China’s Photovoltaic Industry

In the context of global energy transformation, China’s photovoltaic industry has experienced explosive growth and two major crises. It has ushered in stable development amidst ups and downs, and has the advantages of industrial clusters, economies of scale and latecomer advantages. However, under the post-epidemic global new cold war situation, China’s photovoltaic industry is also facing many problems in international trade, such as international logistics obstruction, green trade barriers, low-price competition, local trade protection in target countries, and so on. This article will start from the comparative advantage theory to analyze the problem, and propose how to transform the comparative advantage into a competitive advantage to solve the problem, so as to enhance the competitiveness of China’s photovoltaic industry in international trade.

Immunization of systemic risk in trade–investment networks

By constructing trade–investment networks and modeling the contagion of systemic risk in trade and investment channels within different countries, we design three immune strategies, namely, Random Immune, Target Immune, and Neighbor Immune, and compare the inhibitory effect of these strategies on the shock contagion of multilayer networks. Using bilateral trade and portfolio investment data between China and OECD countries from 2003 to 2019, results show that first, independent of the source of contagion, the network system with a self-healing capability always reaches the steady state after a certain period of the risk transmission process. The investment network is more resilient to systemic risk than the trade network. Second, Random Immune is inferior in intervening on important countries and currently provides weaker protection for trade–investment​ networks than two other types of immunization strategies because of the high concentration of trade and investment events in the networks. Third, Target Immune aiming at controlling the most important country, the US, is not optimized for improving risk resistance of countries cooperating scarcely with the US, but its optimization efficiency continues to increase as the significance of the US in the system keeps rising. Fourth, among the four Neighbor Immune approaches, Asset-Neighbor Immune provides the superior and consistently enhanced protection for the trade–investment networks, and Liability-Neighbor Immune has the dominant position in terms of the enhancement for risk resistance of each country’s trade and investment channels. Investment Asset-Neighbor Immune or Investment Liability-Neighbor Immune, which effectively reduces the negative impact of systemic risk on the whole system and all countries, is proposed to be implemented in trade–investment networks.

Openness, Institutions, and Policies: Determinants of Globalisation and Economic Growth in Developing Countries(Distinguished Lecture)

Globalisation describes the increasing integration of national economies through international trade, capital transfers, and the exchange of information or knowledge. This paper focuses exclusively on trade integration. Most economists hold that reducing trade barriers has a decisive positive effect on economic growth and poverty reduction (“openness hypothesis”). However, some economists diagnose deficient or weakly enforced non-market institutions as the major cause of slow growth. The main goal of this paper is to show that these two seemingly contrary points of view do not exclude each other. Openness is not only influenced by trade policy but also by other policies and the quality of institutions. Available data show a high negative correlation between the logarithm of tariff rates and indicators of the quality of institutions. Cross-national growth regressions demonstrate that the explanatory power of trade protection and a combined measure of openness, on the one hand, and institutional quality, on the other hand, is comparable. Therefore, it is concluded that liberal trade policies are recommendable, but must be complemented by sound macroeconomic management, micro-policy to strengthen domestic competition, and institutional improvements.

STRATEGI PROTEKSI EKONOMI PASAR SAMPANG DALAM MENGHADAPI MONOPOLI DENGAN PRAKTIK KOLABORASI


 
 
 Sampang District is the only area in Cilacap Regency where citizens of Chinese descent are not allowed to have their own business to protect native traders from the monopoly of citizens of Chinese descent. The purpose of this study was to determine the trade protection model applied by Sampang residents in dealing with trade monopoly efforts from residents of Chinese descent. The research methodology used is the mix method. Collecting data by conducting surveys, observations, and interviews. The research location is Sampang District. Withdrawal of samples using purposive sampling method by interviewing people who know the trading system that applies in Sampang District. Analysis and processing of data using descriptive analysis. The results of the study show that the non-involvement of citizens of Chinese descent in the Sampang economy has been going on for a long time, namely when Sampang residents tried to protect their territory from the direct involvement of citizens of Chinese descent in economic activities. Sampang residents allow a business collaboration system between residents of Chinese descent and indigenous residents but using the names of indigenous people. With this strategy, the people of Sampang can develop the economy of the indigenous people without being dependent on people of Chinese descent.
 
 

More transparency in clinical research: How are the new transparency regulations assessed from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry?

The year 2014 was aturning point for transparency in clinical research. Two regulatory innovations comprehensively changed the rules in the EU. For one thing, Regulation (EU) No.536/2014 on clinical trials of medicinal products for human use (Clinical Trials Regulation - CTR) came into force, and for another thing, Policy 0070 of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on the publication of and access to clinical data was published. While the policy has been occupying the pharmaceutical industry in practice since 2015, the requirements of the CTR came into effect at the end of January 2022.The main innovation of the CTR is public access to the majority of documents and records that are created during the application process as well as during the course and after completion of aclinical trial. The special feature of Policy 0070 is the possibility for EU citizens to inspect the essential parts of amarketing authorisation application, such as the Clinical Study Report.This contribution to the discussion describes the completely new challenges in the area of transparency that the pharmaceutical industry is facing as aresult of the new requirements. In principle, transparency is to be welcomed in order to achieve the goals of the EU in the development and availability of medicines and vaccines. However, the protection of trade and business secrets of the pharmaceutical industry would be jeopardised. In the worst case, this could lead to adecline in investment in research and development within the scope of this regulation and to an international shift of clinical trials, including developing or emerging countries. Germany could lose more and more its leading role in conducting clinical trials in the EU.

Wheelwrighting today: transformation and sustainability of the craft in Central Europe (an example of Czechia, Slovakia and Poland)

The study deals with the transformation and current form of wheelwrighting in three Central European countries - the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. The introductory section informs about the research on the theme in the above territory, and using the example of the range of products, manufacturing technology and producers, it points out that traditional crafts can exist even today without maintaining their viability artificially. However, the text also takes into consideration how the craft has developed recently, and while evaluating its viability the author argues that the sustainability of wheelwrighting is affected not only by the economic purpose, but it is also its entertaining and tourist role and the nostalgia that begin to prove successful in addition to the former purely financial aspect. The original financial aspect shifts from the use of the wheelwright´s products for transport and livelihood to the modern use of tradition and heritage concept in business, especially in emphasizing the symbolic value of the products of traditional craftsmanship for both the producer and the consumer. Moreover, it is not only the vision of economic profit but also the element of remembering and evoking the past that are being pursued. Institutional protection of wheelwright's trade is equally important for the existence and sustainability of the craft.

Trade protectionism and the manufacturing sector: a review of border closure policy in Nigeria

This study empirically investigates to ascertain the impact of trade protection vis-à-vis border closure policy on manufacturing sector in Nigeria between January 2018 and June 2021 using monthly secondary data. The study employs traditional theory of protectionism as its theoretical framework. The chow breakpoint result revealed that there is a significant change in the parameters of the model in July 2019 which coincides with the time the policy implementation started. It employs dummy variable to investigate the impact of the policy on manufacturing sector output as against use of two regression model. The regression analysis revealed that in the short run, the impact of the border closure on manufacturing sector was positive but later became adverse in the long run. Also, the interaction of the border closure with the inflation rate revealed that the inflation rate became high during the period but the government generated income from tariff increased. This revealed that there are leakages through the land borders that needs to be curbed through legislation. Sequel to these findings, the study makes the following recommendations: government should not consider closing the borders again as it closures constitute a drag to the manufacturing sector growth; rather than closed border, government should formulate policies to enforce trade protection; lastly, should it become exigent for the government to close the border, they should allow moderate inflation rate that the economy can tolerate in order to spur manufacturing output.

Legal diffusion as protectionism: the case of the U.S. promotion of antitrust laws

Prior research on the global diffusion and harmonization of antitrust (competition) laws mainly focused on the motivations of countries newly adopting or reforming their national laws. This article instead inquires about the motivations of the powerful states promoting these laws internationally, primarily focusing on the United States. It finds that trade protectionist —rather than globalist— interests and ideas prompted the United States’ promotion of strong international antitrust norms in the 1990s. Analyzing Congressional documents and debates in the 1980s, it shows that American import-competing companies framed foreign industrial policies as cartelization to legitimize their demands for trade protections within the dominant framework of free markets and domestic antitrust laws. The political salience of this narrative in Congress contributed to the preparation of the 1988 Trade Laws and the 1990 trade negotiations with Japan, which formalized the United States’ preference for strong international antitrust norms during the 1990s. These findings highlight that, ironically, ‘anti-market’ reasons can also motivate ‘pro-market’ norm diffusion.

Trade protection and firm innovation in China

PurposeThe author investigates the effect of trade protection on domestic firm innovation in China and explores the channel through which trade protection affects corporate innovation.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of Chinese A-share manufacturing companies from 2003 to 2019, the author starts with a univariate analysis by examining the innovation output after trade protection for all samples. The author uses the natural logarithm of one plus the number of trade protection cases received by the industry to which the firm belongs in a particular year to proxy for trade protection.FindingsThe author finds that trade protection significantly encourages firms’ patent application, particularly substantive patents, which is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the mitigation of financial constraint is plausible channel that allows trade protection to promote innovation.Practical implicationsFor practitioners, they should seize the dividends of national policies. In the process of implementing trade protection, they should concentrate on improving their innovation level and enhancing their core competitiveness. When they are not subject to trade protection, they can also make profits and develop in the long run.Social implicationsFor policy makers, in the early stage of industry development, trade protection can be used to ease the companies’ financing constraints and improve the companies’ profits, which will help them concentrate their efforts, promote innovation and further develop. However, in the mid-term development of the industry, policy makers should reduce trade protection. Through the entry of foreign capital, companies face increased competition, which can enhance the companies’ motivation for long-term development.Originality/valueOverall, this paper sheds light on the real effects of trade protection and the determinants of innovation. First, the paper sheds light on the impact of international trade on firms’ innovation. Second, this study also contributes to the emerging literature on the effect of trade policy uncertainty on financial constraint. Third, the paper adds to the stream of literature on the drivers of innovation.

Akteure im Hintergrund

Summary Already since the emergence of supra-national trade, merchants and trading companies have made use of so-called Faktoren (factors) to establish and expand their business networks. The increasing differentiation of the factor activity was first taken into account by the case law and commercial expert opinions, so-called pareres, which were subsequently received and finally led to the commercial codifications by constituting their own legal figures for dependent and independent action, in particular the assistants, the power of attorney and the commission. As part of this consolidation process, the special need for protection of trade and its trust in the persons appointed by the principal, who bore the risk of having used third parties for his interests, was implemented. Long before this risk distribution led to the ALR and subsequent trade laws, this fundamental trading ethos was established and further developed by merchants and lawyers alike. Only this further training and transfer to new constellations and legal figures formed the basis for the distinction between a commercial and civil law obligation of the represented person for his representative.

The long‐term impact of trade protection

AbstractA sunset review policy requires that antidumping orders be removed after 5 years unless petitioners could prove that removing protection would likely lead to the resumption of dumping. Initial sunset victories are greeted favourably by the shareholders of petitioning firms, while subsequent five‐year reviews are viewed less optimistically. Securing long‐run protection through affirmative sunset reviews appears to increase CEO compensation. Overall, we find no evidence that obtaining long‐run protection actually reduces the likelihood of exit; however, steel firms that secured trade protection for 10 years+ actually observed a higher probability of exiting, indicating that long‐run trade protection failed to save these firms. Finally, we find that more innovative firms tend to survive at a higher rate with long‐run trade protection.

Industry Size and Trade Protection in the Presence of Environmental Regulations: An Empirical Investigation of the Indian Manufacturing Sector

AbstractThis paper tests the hypothesis pertaining to the interdependencies between trade and environmental policies in the presence of industry/firm lobbies, which is captured through industry/firm size. For an unbalanced panel of manufacturing firms in India at the five-digit National Industrial Classification (NIC), 2008 for the period 2008–2019, I find that firm size has a positive and significant impact on trade policy. The same holds true for a subset of firms that are polluting in nature (based on the Central Pollution Control Board classification). It is found that larger firms have a greater influence on those trade policies that are set unilaterally by the government. Also, there is no empirical support in favour of trade and environment linkages in the Indian context. This could be due to the fact that these two policies come under the domain of independent ministries of the government. Moreover, environmental safety assumes less significance and tends to adversely affect the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector. Notwithstanding the fact that environmental regulations are in place, the enforcement and monitoring mechanisms are remarkably weak on account of weak environmental institutions.

The Political Economy of American Exchange Rate Bill Voting: From the Perspective of RMB Appreciation

Abstract Under the theoretical framework of international trade political economy, this paper examines whether interest groups can dominate the voting of the US Exchange Rate Manipulation Act in 2015 from the perspective of RMB appreciation. Taking 100 senators as samples, this paper makes model estimation by using Full Information Maximum Likelihood Method (FIML), and quantitatively investigates the deep-seated driving factors behind the voting results of the US Exchange Rate Manipulation Act. The empirical results show that the influence of political donations from different interest groups on the voting behavior of parliamentarians is different. The political donations from American labor organization significantly affect the voting behavior of parliamentarians, but business groups and ideological organizations do not play a significant role in the voting results. In addition, senators’ personal characteristics affect the political donation of the bill to a certain extent, but do not affect the voting results. In the future, China needs to continuously pay attention to the latest progress of US exchange rate policy, correctly evaluate its impact on China’s economy, and maintain communication and coordination with important US interest groups to reduce the negative impact on related industries in China. JEL classification numbers: F14, F50, F31. Keywords: RMB Appreciation, Trade Protection, Bills Voting, Political Donation, Interest Group.

Cross-Border Trade Policies and Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria: A Critique

The creation of artificial boundaries by colonialist generates desire for cross-border trade as potential instrument for economic integration and development in West Africa. There appears, however, contradictions in states’ policies in Africa which tend to overlook the inviolable boundaries compelling the need for economic interaction across the border for economic development. Paradoxically, neighboring states in Africa, more often than not, capitalize on the trade differences along the border to restrict economic interaction rather than promoting it. Nigeria has recently found itself in the dilemma of either outright trade protection for her economy or liberalizing its trade in the midst of smuggling-induced neighboring countries. Consequently on August 19,2019 President Muhammadu Buhari closed Nigeria's borders with Benin and Niger, declaring that the time had come to end rampant smuggling from those countries. This paper offers a critique of Nigeria’s Border trade policies over the years. The paper intends to challenge the predominant protectionist tendencies among the policy makers in the country. It argued that policy makers in Nigeria should first take measures to refurbish our national economy and then engage all the stakeholders in regional decision making and implementation mechanisms for proper regional trade policies. This will go a long way in providing a framework for intra-regional trade so that the regional environment will encourage more of Nigeria’s trade with its ECOWAS neighbours vis-à-vis sustainable economic growth in the region. If ECOWAS is to succeed in achieving sustainable development in the region, then Nigeria will be the biggest beneficiary; hence, her need to sacrifice more.

From islands to territorial empire: The French colonial administration at Gorée and the environmental causes of continental expansion after the Seven Years War

This article explores the relationship between islands and the continental shore through the lens of the French colonial administration at Gorée after the Seven Years War. In this period, the French Ministry of the Marine deliberately sought to check French territorial expansion across the globe in order to favor France’s lucrative plantation complex in the Caribbean. As part of this official policy, Gorée was deemed critical for the protection of the French slave trade, but not seen as a point of departure for colonial empire on the African continent. Unreliable provisioning from the metropole, labor shortages, and environmental conditions at Gorée, however, pushed local French administrators to rely on the African mainland for resources, nourishing expansionist ambitions in the process. Focusing on the environmental, geo-political, and commercial dimensions of island-continental interaction at Gorée and the Senegambia’s coast, this article brings into view unaddressed tensions among official French imperial policy, colonial provisioning, and territorial expansion.

Talk About the Root Cause of China’s Repeated Anti-Dumping

Anti-dumping as a trade protection measure has been recognized and protected by the world organization and countries around the world, and is a legal and stable form of measures that can be applied by countries around the world when facing domestic dumping of foreign goods. The approach is conducive to the protection of domestic industries and services, and is one of the tools used by countries to deal with unfair competition. China’s economy has gradually recovered since the reform and opening up, and on the basis of meeting domestic demand, enterprises seek other ways to expand production and obtain benefits. Foreign trade is a necessary condition for the development of a country’s economy. In recent years, China’s economic development and foreign trade momentum is rapid, China’s trade gradually into anti-dumping dilemma. In the face of such problems, first of all, we must have a grasp of the essence and purpose of the dumping problem, followed by a certain understanding of the current form of trade, dumping forms and means and methods, and then analyze the root causes of the high number of anti-dumping in China. In this paper, we will focus on the root causes of anti-dumping in China and propose solutions to this problem.