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

Includes bibliography

The Application of Regionalization in the Meat Trade: Why the Reluctance?

Currently, the world meat trade is undergoing substantial changes as a consequence of the spread of transboundary animal diseases. These diseases have resulted in the implementation of trade embargoes applied nation-wide against infected countries, contrary to the principle of regionalization. This principle allows a country to declare part of its territory free from a given disease even though there have been outbreaks in other regions thus averting the need to suspend all exports. Its application consists in the formal recognition that a zone is disease- or pest-free. This article presents some of the disputes caused by reluctance to apply the regionalization principle in the case of the three main transboundary diseases that have affected meat trade in recent years: "mad cow disease", foot and mouth disease, and avian flu. This article analyses the positions taken by some consumer markets and the challenges that the principal exporting nations have faced when confronted with trade embargoes.

United States Trade Developments 2012-2013

Includes bibliography.

United States Trade Developments 2014-2015

United States Trade Developments, 2014-2015, provides an overview of the most relevant trade developments in the United States trade relations with Latin America and the Caribbean and the measures that inhibit the free flow of goods among countries in the Western Hemisphere.The report presents trade figures and trends over the last few years to illustrate the nature of the U.S. engagement through trade with the world and with the Latin America and Caribbean region.

Special Tax Treatment as Trade Policy: A Database on Export Processing and Special Economic Zones

Many countries treat income generated via exports favourably, especially when production takes places in special zones known as export processing zones (EPZs). EPZs can be defined as specific, geographically defined zones or areas that are subject to special administration and that generally offer tax incentives, such as duty‐free imports when producing for export, exemption from other regulatory constraints linked to import for the domestic market, sometimes favourable treatment in terms of industrial regulation, and the streamlining of border clearing procedures. We describe a database of WTO Members that employ special economic zones as part of their industrial policy mix. This is based on WTO notification and monitoring through the WTO’s trade policy review mechanism (TPRM), supplemented with information from the ILO, World Bank, and primary sources. We also provide some rough analysis of the relationship between use of EPZs and the carbon intensity of exports, and relative levels of investment across countries with and without special zones.

Political crisis and suspension of duty-free access in Madagascar : assessment of impacts on the garment industry

The export-oriented garment industry in Madagascar has displayed robust growth, thus both contributing to the economy and creating formal employment opportunities. However, it experienced a critical situation after the political turmoil that occurred in 2009. Our investigation using the trade data demonstrates that suspension of duty-free access to the US market (AGOA) resulting from the turmoil had a greater impact on exports, 64%–78% reduction, than the turmoil itself. Our original factory-level data demonstrates that AGOA suspension increased the probability of closure by 57.8% for the factories supplying exclusively to US market, and reduced 6405 jobs for low-skilled positions during the post turmoil period. The factory-level adverse impacts are much less than those on export value at the industry level because of the maintained duty-free access to EU, which has provided an alternative market. It suggests that if EU also had cancelled duty-free access, adverse impacts would have been enormous. Given the general pattern of comparative advantage in low-income countries, unplanned cancellation of duty-free access for them hurts labor-intensive industries and low-skilled workers.

Did the least developed countries benefit from duty-free quota-free access to the Japanese market?

Countries classified as least developed countries (LDCs) were granted duty-free quota-free (DFQF) access to the Japanese market. This study examines the impact of that access and finds that, in general, it did not benefit the LDCs. The construction of concordance tables for Japan's 9 digit tariff line codes enables analysis at the tariff line level, which overcomes a possible aggregation bias. The exogenous nature of DFQF access mitigates the endogeneity problem. Various estimation models, including the triple difference estimator, show that in general the LDCs did not benefit from DFQF access to the Japanese market. The total value of imports from LDCs has been increasing, but the imports granted both zero tariffs and substantial preference margins over non-LDC countries were not successful. These findings suggest that for LDCs the tariff barrier is a relatively small obstacle: Trade is affected more strongly by other factors, such as infrastructure, nontariff barriers, geographic distance, and cultural differences.

Interregional trade changes in Spain caused by the introduction of a road fee charge for heavy goods vehicles

The introduction of a homogeneous road charging system according to the Directive 2011/76/EU for the use of roads is still under development in most European Union (EU) member states. Spain, like other EU members, has been encouraged to introduce a charging system for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) throughout the country. This nationwide charge has been postponed because there are serious concerns about their advantages from an economic point of view. Within this context, this paper applies an integrated modeling approach to shape elastic trade coefficients among regions by using a random utility based multiregional Input- Output (RUBMRIO) approach and a road transport network model in order to determine regional distributive and substitutive economic effects by simulating the introduction of a distance-based charge (?/km) considering 7,053.8 kilometers of free highways linking the capitals of the Spanish regions. In addition, an in-depth analysis of interregional trade changes is developed to evaluate and characterize the role of the road charging approach in trade relations among regions and across freight intensive economic sectors. For this purpose, differences in trade relations are described and assessed between a base-case or ?do nothing? scenario and a road fee-charge setting scenario. The results show that the specific amount of the charge set for HGVs affect each region differently and to a different extent because in some regions the price of commodities and the Generalized Transport Cost will decrease its competiveness within the country.

Liberalising trade in services: creating new migration opportunities? Research Paper in Law, 1/2010

Introduction. It is quite uncommon to associate migration with the rules on services trade. Indeed, all economic definitions of services insist on their immaterial nature and on the increased possibility of trading them ‘virtually’ over networks or else, without any physical movement of the parties involved. Somehow this ‘immaterial’ nature of services reflects on their providers/recipients which seem to be ‘invisible’. Even though most services still require the physical contact of the provider with the recipient1 and, when provided over national borders, do entail migration, service providers and/or recipients are rarely thought of as ‘immigrants’. This may be due to the fact that they enter the foreign territory with a specific aim and, once this aim accomplished, move back to their state of origin; technically they only qualify as short term non-cyclical migrants and are of little interest to policy-makers. A second reason may be that both service providers and recipients are economically desirable: the former are typically highly skilled and trained professionals and the latter are well-off ‘visitors’, increasing consumption in the host state. The legal definition of services in Article 57 TFEU (ex Art. 50 EC) further nourishes this idea about service providers/recipients not being migrants: the relevant Treaty rules only apply when the provisions on free movement of workers and freedom of establishment – themselves clearly linked to migration – do not apply. This distinction has been fleshed up by the ECJ which has consistently held that the distinction between the rules on establishment, on the one hand, and the rules on services, on the other, lies on duration.2 Indeed, all EC manuals state four types of service provision falling under the EC Treaty: a) where the service provider moves to the recipient’s state, for a short period of time (longer stay would amount to establishment), b) where the service recipients themselves move to the state where the service is offered (eg for medical care, education, tourism etc), c) where both service providers and recipients move together in another member state (eg a tourist guide accompanying a group travelling abroad) and d) where the service itself is provided across the borders (typically through the use of ICTs). None of these situations would typically qualify as migration. The above ‘dissociation’ between services and migration has been gradually weakened in the recent years. Indeed, migration is increasingly connected to the transnational provision of services. This is the result of three kinds of factors: developments in the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) case law; legislative initiatives in the EU; and the GATS. Each one of these is considered in some detail below. The aim of the analysis which follows is to show the extent to which (legislative and judicial) policies aimed at the free provision of services actively affect migration conditions within the EU. The EC rules on the provision of services primarily affect the movement of EU nationals. As it will be shown below, however, third country nationals (TCNs) may also claim the benefits of the rules on services, either as recipients thereof or as employees of some EC undertaking which is providing services in another member state (posted workers).

Tackling barriers to trade in the Single Market. ACES Cases No. 2014.2

This paper focuses on the challenges operating in the single market due to continued persistence of regulatory barriers to trade, despite being considered one of the most integrated and successful areas of market integration. We use a unique data set on infringements to the free movement of goods to assess the types of barriers that firms encounter, their impact and variation across states and sectors, and their resolution method - through Court decisions or the pre-litigation, administrative means available within the infringement proceedings mechanism to restore compliance. We also resort to the Solvit dataset provided to the authors by the Commission to analyse some features and the effectiveness of this informal mechanism in dealing with discriminatory domestic trade and regulatory practices. We examine four key questions: What are the most problematic policy areas in terms of barriers to trade that undermine the single market? What different dispute resolution mechanisms are utilized to address trade barriers and thus improve the functioning of the single market? Under what conditions are different enforcement mechanisms and strategies more likely to be used to resolve barriers for businesses operating in the single market? How important and effective are the more informal strategies in improving market access? In doing so, our goal is to link the research on trade barriers to that of implementation and compliance to assess the diverse strategies undertaken to reduce regulatory barriers to trade.

Foreign trade zones (FTZ's) [microform] : hearing before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, first session, March 7, 1989.

CIS Microfiche Accession Numbers: CIS 89 H401-58

Trade agreement digests. Prepared for use in connection with trade agreement negotiations.

Some of the vols. Issued in pts.

Probable economic effect redesignation of certain articles from certain countries as eligible for duty-free treatment under the U.S. generalized system of preferences : report to the President on investigation no. 332-284

Mode of access: Internet.

Foreign trade zones : another Illinois advantage.

Caption title.

A free and candid review of a tract, entitled "Observations on the commerce to the American states" : shewing the pernicious consequences, both to Great Britain, and to the British sugar islands, of the systems recommended in that tract.

Mode of access: Internet.