Search results

The economic success of East Asia was due to an export-led growth strategy, which was heavily dependent on the global trading system underpinned by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In recent years, however; East Asian countries have shifted their trade policy focus to regional agreements and made Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) among themselves arid with other regions. Government organization has been restructured to increase FTA activities. Generally, the current literature predicts that FTA activities of East Asia would help to increase the welfare of the region. In this paper; we offer a critical assessment of East Asia FTAs. We note that East Asia FTAs provide incomplete coverage of sectors and are likely to lead to an inefficient resource allocation. FTA movements are not matched with actual trade flows. The benefits of East Asia FTAs are fairly limited and potential benefits, if any, would not likely be materialized in the near future. Our overall assessment is that the recent policy shift in East Asian countries from multilateral trade orientation or unilateral action to regionalism or a parallel multilateral and regional trade approach will not produce much gain. The governments should increase their efforts at economic reform and reduce barriers to trade and investment, rather than to allocate more resource and manpower to FTA activities.

The government of Korea considers the promotion of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) as necessary to develop its economy into an open trading nation. As for the countries with which the Korean government is actively investigating possible FTAs, there are Japan, Singapore, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN,) and Mexico. For the time-being, the FTA with Japan seems to be a critical one in practicing Korea s FTA policy. Recently, Korean industries show negative positions against a Korea-Japan FTA, with strong opposition from the labor union insisting that it is evident that Korea will sustain damages in the short-run and the dynamic (long-term) benefits are still ambiguous and uncertain. Regardless of whether their argument is correct or not, it will be difficult for Korea to conclude the FTA with Japan unless there is concrete confidence of balanced economic gains through the FTA between the two countries.

A somewhat underappreciated aspect of the burgeoning rush to regional trade agreements (RTAs) is a discrepancy between the dispute settlement procedure (DSP) embodied in the original World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) and that found in the language of many RTAs. This chapter explores the issue in the context of a dynamic repeated game of trade agreements. As is well known, the institutional alternatives available in negotiating multilateral freer trade agreements – regional agreements, side agreements, trade dispute settlement punishments, and so on – can proscribe the limits and shape the nature of self-enforcing trade agreements. Here, we suggest the extent to which deviations from the WTO DSP embodied in RTAs – for example, “private interest access,” “third party procedures,” and “choice of forum” – can not only work against the interests of “weaker parties” but furthermore undermine multilateral agreements closer to free trade.

This study attempts to recognize the effects of the Pakistan–China free trade agreements (PCFTA) on promoting trade between the two economies.

Following the concept of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and free trade agreements, the study first identifies those commodities in which Pakistan and China have a robust RCA and then analyze the effect of PCFTA on the export value of those commodities for the bilateral trade between Pakistan and China. The study used the panel data in which more than the top 150 importers (j) have been selected for each case of Pakistan and China for the period of 2003–2015.

The study concludes that even with the higher convergence rate, the good RCA does not guarantee a positive effect of the free trade agreement on the commodities.

The study contributes to the existing literature by integrating RCA with the gravity model by adopting a sequential mode for Pakistan–China free trade agreement.

This study investigates the impact of trade integration on payment choice in international transactions using data from Turkey, an emerging economy that signed many trade agreements in the last two decades.

The authors use industry-level trade finance data from Turkey, which reports payment methods in exports at two-digit ISIC level for 180 export destinations. The authors performed linear as well as maximum likelihood techniques to test our hypothesis.

The authors show that the removal of trade barriers by bilateral free trade agreements leads to more exporter-financed transactions. This implies that lowering trade barriers contributes to reducing risk, which leads to more trade finance by exporters.

Trade finance is the lifeblood of global trade. Although the previous literature have analyzed the institutional and financial factors affecting exporters' decision to extend trade credit, the effect of economic integration has been overlooked. In this regard, this study represents the first attempt to analyze the impact of trade integration on trade finance.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, and to examine the effects of lower tariffs resulting from free trade agreements. In order to measure the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, the export and import trade volume among 53 countries was introduced as the dependent variable. Macroeconomic indicators including annual average tariff rate, logistics efficiency indicators for port, air, railroad, road and container vessel connectivity, as well as dummy variables such as whether a free trade agreement was signed, were introduced as the explanatory variables. Bilateral panel data between trading nations was used to estimate the gravity panel model, and analysis followed the categorization: 1) separate inputs of the five logistics efficiency variables and 2) one aggregated input of the five variables as a single indicator. The analysis found that logistics efficiency had a statistically significant impact on bilateral trade volume growth, while the impact of lowering tariff rates on increasing trade was insignificant. In addition, logistics efficiency was found to have a greater impact on increasing trade volume than free trade agreements. These results imply that trade can be promoted more effectively by establishing and efficiently operating logistics-related infrastructure rather than traditional methods of reducing trade barriers such as lowering tariffs and signing free trade agreements.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the polarizing subject of immigration, from a business/economics perspective.

The paper adds to the theoretical discussion the concept of “liability of localness”; a concept associated with the negative repercussions suffered by indigenous firms, after a regional free trade agreement takes place.

The paper answers why despite the suggested net economic gains brought by immigrants, there is still a big negative sentiment regarding the issue of immigration. It is proposed that regional trade agreements force labor reallocation, and in so doing, negatively affect the unskilled labor force.

This paper does not consider other academic disciplines to explain the problem, as it would be beyond the scope and aim of this journal.

The advanced proposition suggests the need to have mechanisms in place to mitigate the negative consequences brought about by reallocation pressures (suffered mostly by unskilled labor).

This paper has social/policy applicability as it deals with the negative effect brought to local communities by foreign communities (at time 2), who lost their way of life (at time 1) after the implementation of a free trade agreement (at time 0).

In general, the negative consequences brought by free trade agreements do not garner the attention they deserve. By advancing the liability of localness concept into the immigration topic, this paper provides theoretical insights about the negative consequences originated by free trade agreements.

The United States has entered into a tripartite Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico with a planned 1 January 1994 debut. What are the possibilities of a North American Common Market being formed? What are the potential threats that could undermine NAFTA? What are the necessary prerequisites for this to occur? What would it look like? Examines these issues, attempts to provide answers to the questions and provides recommendations for marketers.

Civil society, as represented by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is exerting increasing pressure on national governments, multinational corporations, and international institutions. In this chapter we document the evolution of participation by civil society and NGOs in Western Hemisphere economic integration, focusing particularly on the NGO role in three important trade and investment agreements: the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas process. We find that NGOs are having increasing influence on the trade and investment agreements in the Hemisphere, and are poised to take on a major role in multilateral negotiations and agreements.

This case describes and analyzes the negotiations surrounding the U.S.–Thailand free trade agreement (FTA) that never materialized. The case offers an excellent opportunity to discuss the complexities of trade negotiations, the welfare analyses of FTAs (with trade diversion and creation), and the growth of FTAs and customs unions (CUs) as opposed to multilateral trade liberalizations.