Curbing agricultural exceptionalism: The EU's response to external challenge

From 1948 to 1994, the agricultural sector was afforded special treatment in the GATT. We analyse the extent to which this agricultural exceptionalism was curbed as a result of the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, discuss why it was curbed and finally explore the implication of this for EU policy making. We argue that, in particular, two major changes in GATT institutions brought about restrictions on agricultural exceptionalism. First, the Uruguay Round was a 'single undertaking' in which progress on other dossiers was contingent upon an outcome on agriculture. The EU had keenly supported this new decision rule in the GATT. Within the EU this led to the MacSharry reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1992, paving the way for a trade agreement on agriculture within the GATT. Second, under the new quasi-judicial dispute settlement procedure, countries are expected to bring their policies into conformity with WTO rules or face retaliatory trade sanctions. This has brought about a greater willingness on the part of the EU to submit its farm policy to WTO disciplines.

Good governance and the extractive industries in sub-saharan Africa

This article critically examines the challenges that come with implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)a policy mechanism marketed by donors and Western governments as a key to facilitating economic improvement in resource-rich developing countriesin sub-Saharan Africa. The forces behind the EITI contest that impoverished institutions, the embezzlement of petroleum and/or mineral revenues, and a lack of transparency are the chief reasons why resource-rich sub-Saharan Africa is underperforming economically, and that implementation of the EITI, with its foundation of good governance, will help address these problems. The position here, however, is that the task is by no means straightforward: that the EITI is not necessarily a blueprint for facilitating good governance in the region's resource-rich countries. It is concluded that the EITI is a policy mechanism that could prove to be effective with significant institutional change in host African countries but, on its own, it is incapable of reducing corruption and mobilizing citizens to hold government officials accountable for hoarding profits from extractive industry operations.

Trust and governance of global value chains: The case of a Brazilian beef processor

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory case study comparing one Brazilian beef processor's relationships supplying two different distribution channels, an EU importer and an EU retail chain operating in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach - The paper begins with a short review of global value chains and the recent literature on trust. It gives the background to the Brazilian beef chain and presents data obtained through in-depth interviews, annual reports and direct observation with the Brazilian beef processor, the EU importer and the retailer. The interviews were conducted with individual firms, but the analysis places them in a chain context, identifying the links and relationships between the agents of the chains and aiming to describe each distribution channel. Findings - Executive chain governance exercised by the domestic retailer stimulates technical upgrading and transferring of best practices to local. suppliers. Consequently, this kind of relationship results in more trust within the global value chain. Practical implications - There are difficulties and challenges facing this Brazilian beef processor that are party related to the need to comply with increasingly complex and demanding food safety and food quality standards. There is still a gap between practices adopted for the export market and practices adopted locally. The strategies of transnational retailers in offering differentiated beef should be taken in account. Originality/value - The research outlines an interdisciplinary framework able to explain chain relationships and the kind of trust that emerges in relationships between EU importer/retail and a developing country supplier.

Technology sourcing, knowledge management and governance in international inter-organizational innovation networks

This conceptual paper aims to improve our understanding of how internationalised firms use outsourcing and offshoring strategies to manage knowledge and information through the life-cycle of integrated product-service solutions. More precisely, we identify the appropriate theoretical framework for this analysis and investigate through in-depth case studies how UK engineering firms organise, coordinate, and incentivise work that is executed in globally distributed teams. Our research focuses on their UK and India offices to study the organisation and governance of distributed teams. The research has several theoretical dimensions - organization; geography; time and knowledge - that it addresses as boundary challenges.

Finding the point on Bezier Curves with the normal vector passing an external point

Two algorithms for finding the point on non-rational/rational Bezier curves of which the normal vector passes through a given external point are presented. The algorithms are based on Bezier curves generation algorithms of de Casteljau's algorithm for non-rational Bezier curve or Farin's recursion for rational Bezier curve, respectively. Orthogonal projections from the external point are used to guide the directional search used in the proposed iterative algorithms. Using Lyapunov's method, it is shown that each algorithm is able to converge to a local minimum for each case of non-rational/rational Bezier curves. It is also shown that on convergence the distance between the point on curves to the external point reaches a local minimum for both approaches. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Sociality and external validity in experimental economics

It is sometimes argued that experimental economists do not have to worry about external validity so long as the design sticks closely to a theoretical model. This position mistakes the model for the theory. As a result, applied economics designs often study phenomena distinct from their stated objects of inquiry. Because the implemented models are abstract, they may provide improbable analogues to their stated subject matter. This problem is exacerbated by the relational character of the social world, which also sets epistemic limits for the social science laboratory more generally.

Inflation dynamics in the new EU member states: how relevant are external factors?

In this paper we evaluate the relative influence of external versus domestic inflation drivers in the 12 new European Union (EU) member countries. Our empirical analysis is based on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) derived in Galí and Monacelli (2005) for small open economies (SOE). Employing the generalized method of moments (GMM), we find that the SOE NKPC is well supported in the new EU member states. We also find that the inflation process is dominated by domestic variables in the larger countries of our sample, whereas external variables are mostly relevant in the smaller countries.