Industrial restructuring, trade liberalization and the role of the State in Central America

Includes bibliography

Trade liberalization and economic growth in Central America

Includes bibliography

The fiscal impact of trade liberalization and commodity price fluctuation: the case of Dominican Republic, 1980-1998

Includes bibliography

The fiscal impact of trade liberalization and commodity price fluctuation: the case of Costa Rica, 1980-1998

Includes bibliography

The impact of trade liberalization and fluctuations of commodity prices on government finances: the case of Saint Lucia

Includes bibliography

Trade liberalization and the efficiency of firms in Indian manufacturing

Has the efficiency of firms in India improved since its liberalization in 1991? The authors attempt to answer this question by analyzing the determinants of firm-level efficiency in six manufacturing sectors in India while focusing on the effects of liberalization and domestic competition. They find that there was an increase in overall efficiency in the post-reform period in India in five out of six sectors. While imports do not seem to improve efficiency, liberalization did increase efficiency in four of the sectors.

Trade Liberalization and Organizational Change

We embed a simple incomplete-contracts model of organization design in a standard two-country perfectly-competitive trade model to examine how the liberalization of product and factor markets affects the ownership structure of firms.In our model, managers decide whether or not to integrate their firms, trading off the pecuniary benefits of coordinating production decisions with the private benefits of operating in their preferred ways. The price of output is a crucial determinant of this choice, since it affects the size of the pecuniary benefits. In particular, non-integration is chosen at “low” and “high” prices, while integration occurs at moderate prices. Organizational choices also depend on the terms of trade in supplier markets, which affect the division of surplus between managers. We obtain three main results. First, even when firms do not relocate across countries, the price changes triggered by liberalization of product markets can lead to significant organizational restructuring within countries. Second, the removal of barriers to factor mobility can lead to inefficient reorganization and adversely affect consumers. Third, “deep integration” — the liberalization of both product and factor markets — leads to the convergence of organizational design across countries.

The impacts of US agricultural and trade policy on trade liberalization and integration via a US- Central America free trade agreement

Resumen Este estudio analiza importantes acciones legislativas del 2002 que afectarán sustancialmente las negociaciones comerciales con Estados Unidos; examina, asimismo, la protección de importaciones de ese país con respecto a productos agrícolas que serán críticos en las negociaciones con los países centroamericanos. Las acciones legislativas mencionadas fueron la aprobación del Proyecto de ley Agrícola del 2002 y la aprobación de la Autorización de Promoción Legal, que provee tratamiento del ‘trámite rápido’ de los acuerdos comerciales…

The Financial Services Regime in International Economic Law: on the Difficult Relationship between Trade Liberalization and Prudential Measures

The PhD thesis analyses the financial services regime in international economic law from the perspective of the difficult relationship between trade liberalisation and prudential measures. Financial stability plays a fundamental role for the well-being and well-functioning of the global economy, but, it is at the same time a complex sector to regulate and supervise and, especially after the 2007-08 economic crisis, States have tightened up their regulation of financial services, introducing more severe and protectionist prudential measures. However, in an increasingly interconnected global economy, the harmonization of prudential regulation at the international level is an essential step to guarantee integrity, fairness and stability of financial markets and trade. The research analyses the tools at disposition to achieve this aim, the related problematic issues and the perspectives and possible solutions for the future, starting from the World Trade Organization (WTO) legal framework and its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), devoted to discipline trade in services among the WTO Members. Then, the research moves to a second legal instrument, the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), which has witnessed a remarkable spread in the last decades. Finally, the research addresses the international standards, developed by supranational entities and implemented by an increasing number of States, as they offer rules and guidelines adequate to update the international financial scenario. Nevertheless, the international standards alone cannot be the solution because, first, they are not mandatory, as governments decide voluntarily to apply them and, second, their decision-making process do not respect the requirements of transparency and representative membership. In light of this analysis, the thesis aims at providing an answer to its research question: how to give more certainty to States and economic operators in the planning of the domestic disciplines and business activities in order to provide a sound and stable international financial system.

Country asymmetries, endogenous product choice and the speed of trade liberalization

In a world with two countries which differ in size, we study theimpact of (the speed of) trade liberalization on firms' profitsand total welfare of the countries involved. Firms correctlyanticipate the pace of trade liberalization and take it intoaccount when deciding on their product choices, which areendogenously determined at the beginning of the game. Competitionin the marketplace then occurs either on quantities or on prices.As long as the autarkic phase continues, local firms are nationalmonopolists. When trade liberalization occurs, firms compete in aninternational duopoly. We analyze trade effects by using twodifferent models of product differentiation. Across all thespecifications adopted (and independently of the price v. quantitycompetition hypothesis), total welfare always unambiguously riseswith the speed of trade liberalization: Possible losses by firmsare always outweighed by consumers' gains, which come under theform of lower prices, enlarged variety of higher average qualitiesavailable. The effect on profits depends on the type of industryanalyzed. Two results in particular seem to be worth of mention.With vertical product differentiation and fixed costs of qualityimprovements, the expected size of the market faced by the firmsdetermines the incentive to invest in quality. The longer the periodof autarky, the lower the possibility that the firm from the smallcountry would be producing the high quality and be the leader in theinternational market when it opens. On the contrary, when trade opensimmediately, national markets do not play any role and firms fromdifferent countries have the same opportunity to become the leader.Hence, immediate trade liberalization might be in the interest ofproducers in the small country. In general, the lower the size of thesmall country, the more likely its firm will gain from tradeliberalization. Losses from the small country firm can arise when itis relegated to low quality good production and the domestic marketsize is not very small. With horizontal product differentiation (thehomogeneous good case being a limit case of it when costs ofdifferentiation tend to infinity), investments in differentiationbenefit both firms in equal manner. Firms from the small country do notrun the risk of being relegated to a lower competitive position undertrade. As a result, they would never lose from it. Instead, firms fromthe large country may still incur losses from the opening of trade whenthe market expansion effect is low (i.e. when the country is very largerelative to the other).

Rent-sharing in Brazil: using trade liberalization as a natural experiment

This paper examines the extent of rent-sharing in Brazil, between 1988 and 1995, combining two different data sets: annual industrial surveys (pIA) and annual household surveys (PNADs). The aim is to use the trade liberalization policies that took place in Brazil in the early 1990s as a "natural experiment" to examine the impact ofproduct market rents on wages. We first estimate inter-industry wage differentials in Brazil, using the household surveys, afier controlling for various observable workers' characteristics. In a reduced form fixed effects equation, these controlled inter-industry differentials are seen to depend on the industries' rate of effective tariff. We also find that LSDV estimates of the effect of value-added per worker (computed using the industrial surveys) on the wage differentials are positive, but somewhat small. However, we find that instrumenting the valued-added with the effective tariffs more than doubles the estimated rent-sharing coefficient. The paper concludes that rent-sharing is prevalent in the Brazilian manufacturing sector, and this mechanism transferred part of the productivity gains due to trade liberalization to manufacturing workers in the form ofhigher (controlled) wage premium.

Has trade liberalization created pollution havens in Latin America?

Includes bibliography

Maritime transport liberalization and the challenges to further its implementation in Chile

Includes bibliography

Incorporation of special and differential treatment in international trade agreements and the implications for Caribbean economies

Includes bibliography