Migration, unemployment and trade

Migration, Unemployment and Trade focuses on the issues of migration, welfare and unemployment in a trade and development framework. Several chapters of the book analyze the implications of internal labor mobility in a model designed to highlight its implications for regional welfare, urban unemployment, rural-urban dichotomy and structural adjustment. An important innovation in this work is the disaggregation of the economy and the use of separate utility functions to highlight non-homogeneity of preferences. The book also deals with international mobility of factors in different frameworks. In particular it concentrates on the highly emotive issue of legal and illegal migration. Thus this work incorporates interesting and important features of labor economics and factor mobility into trade and distortion theory.

The desirability of criminal penalties for breaches of part IV of the trade practices act

Following the introduction of criminal sanction, including jail terms, for hard core cartelisation in the United Kingdom, the Dawson Review has recently recommended that criminal penalties be introduced in Australia for individuals and corporations found to have engaged in hard core cartels. A number of reasons have been advanced to justify the introduction of criminal sanctions for this type of conduct, the most common of which are that it would bring Australia in line with other competition regimes and that criminal sanctions are more likely to provide an effective deterrent. This article evaluates those reasons, and others, to determine whether there is any adequate justification for the proposed criminal regime.

Bridging the gap between anecdotal and empirical evidence in the international education market : insights from the US and UK

Education is an industry which has seen rapid growth in its trade over a short period of time. From the import and export of textbooks to international examinations such as the British Advanced and Ordinary levels and the American GMAT, GRE, LSAT, TOEFL and others, international trade in education has truly become a multidimensional phenomenon (Liston and Reeves, 1985). While all these aspects have largely contributed to the development of the so called “academic trade” (McMahon, 1988), it is the cross-border migration of international students which however remains the most visible aspect of this trade (Bourke, 2000). Indeed, recent estimates by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggest that nearly 1.9 million students were abroad in 2002 (OECD, 2004). There are probably thousands more foreign students involved in lower level education, language training and the like, but at the time of writing, no comprehensive statistics is yet available on international students enrolled in non-tertiary level institutions (Knight, 2002). As a result, it is vital to stress at the outset that this paper focuses exclusively on cross-border tertiary education but parallels can be drawn for lower level education.

In defence of the CISG

In this article, the authors respond to certain criticisms made against the 1980 Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the ‘CISG’) and explain what they perceive as the shortcomings of, and impediments to, a particular model of a proposed new global code. A goal of both the CISG and the proposed global code is to create an environment which promotes international trade. Predictability in the law is a fundamental element to achieve such an environment. The CISG has been criticised as failing to provide such predictability. It has been suggested that it has not been uniformly interpreted, contains internal inconsistencies and allows countries to establish varying mini-codes. While there may be some merit in some of these criticisms there is also much that is overstated and wrong. The CISG may not be a perfect instrument. However, it has been widely accepted and that alone makes it a strong basis from which to develop. A global code applied with absolute uniformity throughout the world might provide predictability. However, such a uniform law is unrealistic and, in any event, undesirable. The authors propose a more realistic solution. The law should be the framework upon which individually nuanced contracts could be built. Predictability is obtained by developing and establishing avenues of communication. It is also obtained by developing and establishing means of explaining and understanding the concepts upon which the framework has been built. The CISG allows for all of this.

Monitoring the impacts of trade agreements on food environments

The liberalization of international trade and foreign direct investment through multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements has had profound implications for the structure and nature of food systems, and therefore, for the availability, nutritional quality, accessibility, price and promotion of foods in different locations. Public health attention has only relatively recently turned to the links between trade and investment agreements, diets and health, and there is currently no systematic monitoring of this area. This paper reviews the available evidence on the links between trade agreements, food environments and diets from an obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) perspective. Based on the key issues identified through the review, the paper outlines an approach for monitoring the potential impact of trade agreements on food environments and obesity/NCD risks. The proposed monitoring approach encompasses a set of guiding principles, recommended procedures for data collection and analysis, and quantifiable 'minimal', 'expanded' and 'optimal' measurement indicators to be tailored to national priorities, capacity and resources. Formal risk assessment processes of existing and evolving trade and investment agreements, which focus on their impacts on food environments will help inform the development of healthy trade policy, strengthen domestic nutrition and health policy space and ultimately protect population nutrition.

Free Trade Agreements and US Foreign Policy

The United States has completed numerous free trade agreements (FTAs), but the pattern of these agreements defies conventional explanations. Arguments that are based on domestic interests and economic gains cannot explain the comparative under-performance of US trade agreements. The pattern of US trade agreements is also inconsistent with explanations that focus on state power, which depict FTAs as a “reward” for loyal clients. This article finds a better explanation for the pattern of the United States’ FTAs by consideringthe systemic level of analysis, and in particular the dynamics of the international economic order. It illustrates that strong competition for bilateral trade agreements has resulted in patterns of agreements that the United States cannot easily dominate. This is not to say that the United States has no capacity to finalize trade agreements: the United States remains the world’s most influential nation-state, but the constraints of the international system necessarily limit the degree to which FTAs can serve the interests of US foreign economic policy. The recent evolution of international trade politics, however, indicates that smaller states are comparatively less vulnerable to pressure from great powers, such as the United States.

A demandeur-centric theory of regime design in transnational commercial law

Recent scholarship on international agreement design has almost exclusively focused on the public international law area. The literature on regime design in the area of international private law lacks a solid theoretical foundation. Academic writing on public international law's state-centric approach is only amenable to crude transplantation and poses several puzzles in the international private law context. Resolving these puzzles is important because of the proliferation of transnational commercial agreements in areas that were traditionally the province of domestic law. This paper attempts to provide a starting point to address the theoretical vacuum. Part I argues that functionalist, liberal, and realist theories cannot fully explain transnational commercial law agreement design. Part II puts forth a demandeur-centric approach with the aid of examples that span the spectrum from hard law to soft law. Part III concludes that agreement design in transnational commercial law is premised on demandeur preferences and relative power.