The role of food standards in international trade: evidence from Brazilian beef exports to the EU market

The study reviews the literature on global chain governance and food standards to allow for an assessment of Brazilian beef exports to the European Union. The empirical approach employed is based on company case studies. The results suggest that the Brazilian beef chain has little choice but to adapt to market changes as standards evolve. Costs of compliance for meeting international food standards reduce Brazil's comparative advantage. At the same time, changes in the nature of demand have created the need for a more integrated supply chain in order to enhance confidence in Brazil's beef production and processing abroad.

European Union: Shadow WTO agricultural domestic support notifications

The notification of the level of domestic support to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is intended to reflect compliance with obligations entered into at the time of the Uruguay Round. WTO members have often been slow to provide notification of domestic support levels. This makes the process of notification less useful as an indicator of the degree to which changes in policy have or have not benefited the trade system as a whole and exporting countries in particular. The notification of domestic support in the E.U. illustrates the value of a measure that reflects current policies and can therefore act as a basis for negotiation of further disciplines where these are necessary. The E.U. has made major changes in its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) over the period since 1992 when the MacSharry reforms were implemented. Payments originally notified in the blue box (related to supply control) have over time been changed until in their present form they are unrelated to current production or price levels, and hence can satisfy the criteria for the green box. The E.U. has therefore much more latitude in trade talks to agree to reductions in the allowable trade-distorting support. This paper reproduced the E.U. notifications relating to 2003/04 and extends these with official statistics to the year 2006/07. It then projects forward the components of domestic support until the year 2013/14, based on forecasts of future production and estimates of policy parameters. The impact of a successful Doha Round is simulated, showing that the constraints envisaged in the WTO draft modalities document of May 19, 2008, would be binding by the year 2013, at about the time the next budget cycle in the E.U. starts. Without the Doha Round constraints, further reform might still happen for domestic reasons, but the framework provided by the WTO for domestic policy spending would be less relevant. In that case, much could hinge on the legitimacy of the Single Farm Payment system under the current rules governing the green box.

European Union

Determination of shadow notifications of domestic support for agriculture in the European Union under the WTO (World Trade Organization) Agreement on Agriculture, and consideration of the potential impact of an agreement in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Good practice transfer within small construction specialist trade contractors

Government and institutionally-driven ‘good practice transfer’ initiatives are consistently presented as a means to enhance construction firm and industry performance. Two implicit tenets of these initiatives appear to be: knowledge embedded in good practice will transfer automatically; and, the potential of implementing good practice will be capitalised regardless of the context where it is to be used. The validity of these tenets is increasingly being questioned and, concurrently, more nuanced knowledge production understandings are being developed which recognise and incorporate context-specificity. This research contributes to this growing, more critical agenda by examining the actual benefits accrued from good practice transfer from the perspective of a small specialist trade contracting firm. A concept model for successful good practice transfer is developed from a single longitudinal case study within a small heating and plumbing firm. The concept model consists of five key variables: environment, strategy, people, technology, and organisation of work. The key findings challenge the implicit assumptions prevailing in the existing literature and support a contingency approach that argues successful good practice transfer is not just adopting and mechanistically inserting into the firm, but requires addressing ‘behavioural’ aspects. For successful good practice transfer, small specialist trade contracting firms need to develop and operationalise organisation slack, mechanisms for scanning external stimuli and absorbing knowledge. They also need to formulate and communicate client-driven external strategies; to motive and educate people at all levels; to possess internal or accessible complementary skills and knowledge; to have ‘soft focus’ immediate/mid-term benefits at a project level; and, to embed good practice in current work practices.

Fair trade and European public procurement: legal principles and governance dynamics

Purpose The article examines principles of Fair Trade in public procurement in Europe, focusing on legal dimensions related to the European Public Procurement Directives. Design/methodology/approach The article situates public procurement of Fair Trade products in relation to the rise of non-state regulatory initiatives, highlighting how they have entered into new governance dynamics in the public sector and play a part in changing practices in sustainable procurement. A review of legal position on Fair Trade in procurement law is informed by academic research and campaigning experience from the Fair Trade Advocacy Office. Findings Key findings are that the introduction of Fair Trade products into European public procurement has been marked by legal ambiguity, having developed outside comprehensive policy or legal guidelines. Following a 2012 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is suggested that the legal position for Fair Trade in procurement has become clearer, and that forthcoming change to the Public Procurement Directives may facilitate the uptake of fair trade products by public authorities. However potential for future expansion of the public sector ‘market’ for Fair Trade is approached with caution: purchasing Fair Trade products as a marker of sustainability, which started to be embedded within procurement practice in the 2000s, is challenged by current European public austerity measures. Research limitations/implications Suggestions for future research include the need for systematic cross-institutional and multi-country comparison of the legal and governance dimensions of procurement practice with regard to Fair Trade. Practical implications A clarification of current state-of-play with regard to legal aspects of fair trade in public procurement of utility for policy and advocacy discussion. Originality/value The article provides needed elaboration on an under researched topic area of value to academia and policy makers.

Sharing power? Prospects for a U.S. concert-balance strategy

The Pax Americana and the grand strategy of hegemony (or “Primacy”) that underpins it may be becoming unsustainable. Particularly in the wake of exhausting wars, the Global Financial Crisis, and the shift of wealth from West to East, it may no longer be possible or prudent for the United States to act as the unipolar sheriff or guardian of a world order. But how viable are the alternatives, and what difficulties will these alternatives entail in their design and execution? This analysis offers a sympathetic but critical analysis of alternative U.S. National Security Strategies of “retrenchment” that critics of American diplomacy offer. In these strategies, the United States would anticipate the coming of a more multipolar world and organize its behavior around the dual principles of “concert” and “balance,” seeking a collaborative relationship with other great powers, while being prepared to counterbalance any hostile aggressor that threatens world order. The proponents of such strategies argue that by scaling back its global military presence and its commitments, the United States can trade prestige for security, shift burdens, and attain a more free hand. To support this theory, they often look to the 19th-century concert of Europe as a model of a successful security regime and to general theories about the natural balancing behavior of states. This monograph examines this precedent and measures its usefulness for contemporary statecraft to identify how great power concerts are sustained and how they break down. The project also applies competing theories to how states might behave if world politics are in transition: Will they balance, bandwagon, or hedge? This demonstrates the multiple possible futures that could shape and be shaped by a new strategy. viii A new strategy based on an acceptance of multipolarity and the limits of power is prudent. There is scope for such a shift. The convergence of several trends—including transnational problems needing collaborative efforts, the military advantages of defenders, the reluctance of states to engage in unbridled competition, and hegemony fatigue among the American people—means that an opportunity exists internationally and at home for a shift to a new strategy. But a Concert-Balance strategy will still need to deal with several potential dilemmas. These include the difficulty of reconciling competitive balancing with cooperative concerts, the limits of balancing without a forward-reaching onshore military capability, possible unanticipated consequences such as a rise in regional power competition or the emergence of blocs (such as a Chinese East Asia or an Iranian Gulf), and the challenge of sustaining domestic political support for a strategy that voluntarily abdicates world leadership. These difficulties can be mitigated, but they must be met with pragmatic and gradual implementation as well as elegant theorizing and the need to avoid swapping one ironclad, doctrinaire grand strategy for another.

EU membership of the WTO: international trade disputes and judicial protection of individuals by EU Courts

The European Union (EU) is embedded in a pluralistic legal context because of the EU and its Member States’ treaty memberships and domestic laws. Where EU conduct has implications for both the EU’s international trade relations and the legal position of individual traders, it possibly affects EU and its Member States’ obligations under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO law) as well as the Union’s own multi-layered constitutional legal order. The present paper analyses the way in which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) accommodates WTO and EU law in the context of international trade disputes triggered by the EU. Given the ECJ’s denial of direct effect of WTO law in principle, the paper focuses on the protection of rights and remedies conferred by EU law. It assesses the implications of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) – which tolerates the acceptance of retaliatory measures constraining traders’ activities in sectors different from those subject to the original trade dispute (Bananas and Hormones cases) – for the protection of ‘retaliation victims’. The paper concludes that governmental discretion conferred by WTO law has not affected the applicability of EU constitutional law but possibly shapes the actual scope of EU rights and remedies where such discretion is exercised in the EU’s general interest.

3D cloud reconstructions: evaluation of scanning radar scan strategy with a view to surface shortwave radiation closure

The ability of six scanning cloud radar scan strategies to reconstruct cumulus cloud fields for radiation study is assessed. Utilizing snapshots of clean and polluted cloud fields from large eddy simulations, an analysis is undertaken of error in both the liquid water path and monochromatic downwelling surface irradiance at 870 nm of the reconstructed cloud fields. Error introduced by radar sensitivity, choice of radar scan strategy, retrieval of liquid water content (LWC), and reconstruction scheme is explored. Given an in␣nitely sensitive radar and perfect LWC retrieval, domain average surface irradiance biases are typically less than 3 W m␣2 ␣m␣1, corresponding to 5–10% of the cloud radiative effect (CRE). However, when using a realistic radar sensitivity of ␣37.5 dBZ at 1 km, optically thin areas and edges of clouds are dif␣cult to detect due to their low radar re-ectivity; in clean conditions, overestimates are of order 10 W m␣2 ␣m␣1 (~20% of the CRE), but in polluted conditions, where the droplets are smaller, this increases to 10–26 W m␣2 ␣m␣1 (~40–100% of the CRE). Drizzle drops are also problematic; if treated as cloud droplets, reconstructions are poor, leading to large underestimates of 20–46 W m␣2 ␣m␣1 in domain average surface irradiance (~40–80% of the CRE). Nevertheless, a synergistic retrieval approach combining the detailed cloud structure obtained from scanning radar with the droplet-size information and location of cloud base gained from other instruments would potentially make accurate solar radiative transfer calculations in broken cloud possible for the first time.

Responding to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme: an empirical analysis of corporate carbon disclosure strategy

The purpose of this paper is to explore how companies that hold carbon trading accounts under European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) respond to the climate change by using disclosures on carbon emissions as a means to generate legitimacy compared to others. The study is based on disclosures made in annual reports and stand-alone sustainability reports of UK listed companies from 2001- 2012. The study uses content analysis to capture both the quality and volume of the carbon disclosures. The results show that there is a significant increase in both the quality and volume of the carbon disclosures after the launch of EU ETS. Companies with carbon trading accounts provide greater detailed disclosures as compared to the others without an account. We also find that company size is positively correlated with the disclosures while the association with the industry produces an inconclusive result.

Nationalised large-scale mining, trade unions and community representation: perspectives from Northern Madagascar

This article critically explores the nature and purpose of relationships and inter-dependencies between stakeholders in the context of a parastatal chromite mining company in the Betsiboka Region of Northern Madagascar. An examination of the institutional arrangements at the interface between the mining company and local communities identified power hierarchies and dependencies in the context of a dominant paternalistic environment. The interactions, inter alia, limited social cohesion and intensified the fragility and weakness of community representation, which was further influenced by ethnic hierarchies between the varied community groups; namely, indigenous communities and migrants to the area from different ethnic groups. Moreover, dependencies and nepotism, which may exist at all institutional levels, can create civil society stakeholder representatives who are unrepresentative of the society they are intended to represent. Similarly, a lack of horizontal and vertical trust and reciprocity inherent in Malagasy society engenders a culture of low expectations regarding transparency and accountability, which further catalyses a cycle of nepotism and elite rent-seeking behaviour. On the other hand, leaders retain power with minimal vertical delegation or decentralisation of authority among levels of government and limit opportunities to benefit the elite, perpetuating rent-seeking behaviour within the privileged minority. Within the union movement, pluralism and the associated politicisation of individual unions restricts solidarity, which impacts on the movement’s capacity to act as a cohesive body of opinion and opposition. Nevertheless, the unions’ drive to improve their social capital has increased expectations of transparency and accountability, resulting in demands for greater engagement in decision-making processes.

Measuring the impacts of distortions in the European Union cotton sector: a partial equilibrium analysis using the ATPSM model framework

The “cotton issue” has been a topic of several academic discussions for trade policy analysts. However the design of trade and agricultural policy in the EU and the USA has become a politically sensitive matter throughout the last five years. This study utilizing the Agricultural Trade Policy Simulation Model (ATPSM) aims to gain insights into the global cotton market, to explain why domestic support for cotton has become an issue, to quantify the impact of the new EU agricultural policy on the cotton sector, and to measure the effect of eliminating support policies on production and trade. Results indicate that full trade liberalization would lead the four West African countries to better terms of trade with the EU. If tariff reduction follows the so-called Swiss formula, world prices would increase by 3.5%.

Euroland - The effect of Euro on international trade : Are there winners and losers in this ''Euro-game''?

This paper examines whether European Monetary Union (EMU) countries share fairly the effect of their membership in Eurozone (EZ) or whether are winners and losers in this ''Euro-game''. By using panel data of 27 European Union (EU) Member States for the period 2001-2012 in the context of a gravity model, we focus on estimating the Euro’s effect on bilateral trade and we detect whether this effect differs across the Member States of EZ. Two estimation methods are applied: Pooled OLS estimator and Fixed Effects estimator. The empirical results come to the conclusion that the individual country effects differ and are statistically significant, indicating that EMU’s effect on trade differs across the Member States of EZ. The overall effect of the Euro is statistically insignificant, regardless the estimation method, demonstrating that the common European currency may have no effect on bilateral trade.

Assumptions of retail price strategy and price tactic decisions

This licentiate thesis sets out to analyse how a retail price decision frame can be understood. It is argued that it is possible to view price determination within retailing by determining the level of rationality and using behavioural theories. In this way, it is possible to use assumptions derived from economics and marketing to establish a decision frame. By taking a management perspective, it is possible to take into consideration how it is assumed that the retailer should strategically manage price decisions, which decisions might be assumed to be price decisions, and which decisions can be assumed to be under the control of the retailer. Theoretically, this licentiate thesis has its foundations in different assumptions about decision frames regarding the level of information collected, the goal of the decisions, and the outcomes of the decisions. Since the concepts that are to be analysed within this thesis are price decisions, the latter part of the theory discusses price decision in specific: sequential price decisions, at the point of the decision, and trade-offs when making a decision. Here, it is evident that a conceptual decision frame that is intended to illustrate price decisions includes several aspects: several decision alternatives and what assumptions of rationality that can be made in relation to the decision frame. A semi-structured literature review was conducted. As a result, it became apparent that two important things in the decision frame were unclear: time assumptions regarding the decisions and the amount of information that is assumed in relation to the different decision alternatives. By using the same articles that were used to adjust the decision frame, a topical study was made in order to determine the time specific assumptions, as well as the analytical level based on the assumed information necessary for individual decision alternatives. This, together with an experimental study, was necessary to be able to discuss the consequences of the rationality assumption. When the retail literature is analysed for the level of rationality and consequences of assuming certain assumptions of rationality, three main things becomes apparent. First, the level of rationality or the assumptions of rationality are seldom made or accounted for in the literature. In fact, there are indications that perfect and bounded rationality assumptions are used simultaneously within studies. Second, although bounded rationality is a recognised theoretical perspective, very few articles seem to use these assumptions. Third, since the outcome of a price decision seems to provide no incremental sale, it is questionable which assumptions of rationality that should be used. It might even be the case that no assumptions of rationality at all should be used. In a broader perspective, the findings from this licentiate thesis show that the assumptions of rationality within retail research is unclear. There is an imbalance between the perspectives used, where the main assumptions seem to be concentrated to perfect rationality. However, it is suggested that by clarifying which assumptions of rationality that is used and using bounded rationality assumptions within research would result in a clearer picture of the multifaceted price decisions that could be assumed within retailing. The theoretical contribution of this thesis mainly surround the identification of how the level of rationality provides limiting assumptions within retail research. Furthermore, since indications show that learning might not occur within this specific context it is questioned whether the basic learning assumption within bounded rationality should be used in this context.

The effects of Ikea and external shopping centers on regional trade and retail growth : A comparative analysis of Ikea’s establishment in Kalmar and Karlstad

This paper examines the effects of Ikea store establishment in Kalmar and Karlstad on the trade and retail inside the two cities, and as well on the trade and retail in the close neighboring municipalities and in further peripheral municipalities in both regions. After the establishment of Ikea store, Kalmar and Karlstad have experienced significant growth in trade and retail. The question, however, is how big this growth is in both cities? And how different locations on different distances from Ikea have been affected? What impact there was on different segments of the retail? How different business branches have been affected? How large the catchment area for the emerging new large-scale retail locations is? These questions, in addition to few others, are investigated in this paper. The thesis starts with an introduction chapter containing a background of the topic, problem description, the investigated questions, the purpose, and the outline of the paper. The next chapter includes the frame of reference which consists of literature review and theoretical framework about the external shopping centers and their impact on retail and regional trade development. It includes also information gathered from previous studies technical reports and other available sources about the subject. The third chapter includes description for the methods used to collect the primary and secondary data needed for the purpose of this study. Then the empirical framework which demonstrates the results of the conducted research followed by analysis and concluded in discussion and conclusion. Mixed methods are used as research strategy in this thesis, and the method to conduct the research is based on telephone interviews for the primary (qualitative) data, and documents and desk research for the secondary (quantitative) data. The gathered data is analyzed and designed in a way that allows the usage of comparative analysis technique to present the findings and draw conclusions. The results showed that new established Ikea retail store outside the city boundaries results with many effects on the city center and on the neighboring municipalities as well. The city center seems not to be affected negatively, but on the contrary positive effects were witnessed in both regions, these positive effects are linked to the increase inflow of customers from the external retail area which is known as spillover effect. III On the other hand, the neighboring towns and municipalities are more negatively affected especially with the trade of con-convenience goods as the consumers in these towns and municipalities start to go to the area of Ikea and the large external retail center to do their purchasing, the substitution effect is then said to be occurred. Moreover, the further far municipalities do not seem to be significantly affected by the establishment of Ikea. These effects whether positive or negative could be monitored by looking to few trade parameters such as the turnover, the sales index, and the consumers’ expenditure, these parameters can be very useful to measure the developments and changes in the trade and retail in a given place. 

Monetary union and productivity differences in mercosur countries

This paper investigates cross-country productivity convergence among Mercosur members plus associates (Chile and Bolivia) and Peru, during the period 1960-1999. The testing strategy is based on the definitions of time-series convergence by Bernard and Durlauf (1995), and applies sequentially the multivariate unit root tests proposed by Sarno and Taylor (1998), Flôres, Preumont and Szafarz (1995) and Breuer, Mc Nown and Wallace (1999). The last two tests allow to identify the countries that converge. Our results show evidence of convergence among the four Mercosur countries, using either Argentina or Brazil as benchmark. Weaker evidence of convergence is also found with Bolivia. The results point out that monetary union among the Southern Cone economies, though a far objective, is not without sense.