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This paper aims to address the following questions: is good liner shipping connectivity a requisite for merchandise imports plus exports? What is the average of merchandise imports plus exports of the countries neighboring China? Do the merchandise imports plus exports of these countries correspond to each country’s own merchandise imports plus exports or liner shipping connectivity index (LSCI)?

The authors spatially analyze liner shipping connectivity and merchandise imports plus exports using 2016 data and a common framework for linear regression to establish the relationship amongst a country’s LSCI and its merchandise imports plus exports and between its merchandise imports plus exports and those of its neighbors. Merchandise imports plus exports of countries are not necessarily independent of each other, and countries that are contiguous may produce similar observations.

North America and Western Europe comprised clusters of countries that participated more actively in the international trading system, while Africa’s countries had less international trade than average. The study identifies and quantifies the geographical ripple of transport infrastructure on merchandise trade from a national perspective. Notably, a spatially lagged term improved the model’s ability to account for variations in merchandise imports plus exports across countries.

The spatial lag of merchandise imports plus exports can contribute to specifying the spread of merchandise imports plus exports beyond what the authors would anticipate from a country’s network of liner shipping.

This chapter investigates the effects of economic development, FDI, trade barriers, product characteristics, and air transport network connectivity on both air trade and air cargo demand. The analysis applies gravity model and estimates the air trade and air cargo demand models using seemingly unrelated regressions based on data for the air cargo markets between the United States and its top 61 trading partner countries during the 2004–2019 period. By developing and incorporating “investment distance” as a determining factor in the estimation of air trade, our study fills the gap in literature and sheds light on the importance of air cargo transport in enabling and facilitating the rapid growth of global value chains in recent decades. The results suggest that higher level of FDI between the US and its trading partner countries helps stimulate air trade. Moreover, we also develop several network centrality metrics and examine their relationship with regional air connectivity, which in turn has a positive impact on air cargo traffic. Further analysis using Granger causality tests provides strong evidence supporting the importance of air cargo services as an engine for economic growth and international trade in a dynamic global economic landscape.

European countries, which have many common policies and goals, are also having some disparities in their economic performance due to the existence of underlying country-specific reasons. The manufacturing sector is the key sector that promotes growth and increases the well-being of society. Thus, it is important to understand how these countries differ in engaging in industrial activities. Focusing on the manufacturing sectors of these economies, we aim to see the disparities between European Union (EU) countries in terms of their composition of manufacturing trade and the countries they are trading with. This chapter outlines some key stylized facts regarding trade over the past two decades by investigating the manufacturing data for EU countries.

The purpose of this study is to expand the knowledge base of Baby Boomers’ attitudes, behaviours and perceived barriers related to fair trade purchasing.

This study included 168 Baby Boomers. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. Data analysis included a combination of both quantitative (descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests and correlation analysis) and qualitative techniques.

Findings indicated that the participants exhibited positive attitudes towards fair trade but were minimally engaged in fair trade purchasing. Furthermore, the participants perceived numerous barriers to purchasing fair trade products including the incompatibility of fair trade merchandise with lifestyles, the inability to touch and see fair trade products prior to purchase and difficulty in identifying fair trade items.

A limitation of this study is that the sample was well-educated university faculty and it is not representative of all Baby Boomers.

Fair trade entities need to be more effective in marketing the advantages of the fair trade. Fair trade organizations should consider targeting marketing strategies specific to the unique demographic and psychographic characteristics of Baby Boomer consumers.

This research expands understanding of the consumer behaviours of US Baby Boomers related to fair trade. An additional contribution is the comparison of differences in fair trade knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of Early vs Late Baby Boomers. It also has potentially important implications for fair trade organizations, as the paper discusses marketing strategies specific to Baby Boomers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an adaptedz gravity model to measure the impact of the number of the internet users on food industry trade between developed Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries using both panel and cross‐sectional data.

The impact of the internet users on food industry export growth and levels, and on food industry trade reorientation, and whether the internet has altered the effect of distance on food industry trade, are analyzed using adapted gravity model.

The positive, significant and over time increasing effect of the internet on food industry exports confirm that the internet reduces market‐specific entry costs for food industry exports. The significant positive effect pertained to the internet is found in the importing countries. The significant positive effects on food industry exports are found for the country's economic size and bilateral common features and proximities. The internet mitigates the countries proximities, but increased the distance between the countries.

The empirical contribution to the research of new connections made with the key elements of trade theory with focus on the effect of the internet on food industry trade.

The fair trade system was established as an alternative to the free trade system. In the case of fair trade apparel, certification standards are nascent and there is no consistent logo or labelling to aid consumers in their quest to purchase fairly‐made garments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the practices and marketing strategies of three fair trade apparel businesses based in a metropolitan city in the USA, where there are no clear standards to follow. The interviews taken for these case studies were conducted before the launching of a certification program for fair trade apparel by TransFair USA.

This research comprised three case study fair trade apparel companies – two wholesale and one retail. The case studies are based on in‐depth interviews, the examination of documents provided by business owners, and publicly available information on each of the companies.

These three case studies revealed differences in fair trade practices. The wholesalers communicated that they perceived a hierarchy of importance in fair trade practices, placing an emphasis on labour standards and workers’ rights and considering environmental standards to be secondary. The lack of a standardized logo for labels on fair trade apparel has meant that the businesses have had to find creative ways to communicate their fair trade practices to consumers. None of the participants felt that this lack of standardization negatively impacted their businesses.

There is need for a standardized label to make fair trade apparel easily identifiable for consumers and for the further development of standards for fair trade apparel and the marketing of fair trade apparel.

Standards for fair trade apparel are currently being developed and the paper provides valuable information about the process by which fair trade standards are formed and marketed in practice.

International political economy is an emerging yet specialized field that combines political analysis with the study of markets, trade, and development. With the global economy having an interdependent effect on politics, environment, and society, and with several major economic events of the last 20 years, the authors perceived a need to provide a guide to the sources in this field. This paper seeks to address this issue.

The authors identified resources using WorldCat and standard reference sources, such as American Library Association's Guide to Reference Books; the annual American Libraries’ “Outstanding Reference Sources” articles; American Reference Books Annual (ARBA) volumes; Booklist's Editor's Choices articles; and Choice's “Outstanding Academic Titles”. Sources were selected from 2000 to the present, concomitant with development of the global economy in the twenty‐first century.

This guide contains reference works and internet resources that include or provide access to primary source documentation and statistical studies and tables, as well as handbooks, guides, encyclopedias and dictionaries that place the field in context.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, focus was placed on sources that emphasize the core focus of international political economy. Related fields of study, including globalization, development, environmentalism and social movements, were largely excluded.

The authors found no other comprehensive bibliographies containing reference, primary and statistical sources that cover the field in its breadth during this time period.

NAFTA established guidelines for creating a seamless trilateral trucking market that has proven problematic to implement. Costs of border delays, traffic congestion, added pollution, and documentation requirements stymie North American policy makers. Use of just-in-time supply chain techniques by shippers exacerbates the inability of border infrastructure to meet time-sensitive traffic demands. This paper reviews NAFTA’s transport provisions and explores Mexican, U.S., and Canadian disputes in the context of continental integration. Progress toward harmonizing labor and equipment standards in the course of instituting NAFTA is investigated. Policies for additional border facilities investments and streamlining procedures are compared to heightened national security concerns.

This paper aims to explore the impacts of the recent development of Korean free trade agreements (FTAs) on its seaborne trade volumes. The paper firstly estimates the changes in cargo value flows caused by Korea-EU FTA, Korea-USA FTA and Korea-ASEAN FTA using a global computable general equilibrium model named Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) and its most recent database - version 7 with 2004 as the base year. Then a set of systematic conversion factors transferring trade value flows to volume flows of different types of commodities is calibrated according to the United Nations COMTRADE database and is used to convert the GTAP trade value flows into volume flows. Having indentified maritime cargo flows by different commodity types, this paper attempts to draw implications for maritime logistics policy in order to facilitate the trade of Korean merchandises and to propose key competitive strategy for the maritime container transport networking and logistics service providers in the Korean logistics industry.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.