Search results

Liner shipping plays a crucial role in facilitating the movement of manufactured goods around the world. While previous literature has shown that liner shipping is an important trade driver, potential differences across trade routes and world regions have not as yet been explored. This paper examines whether the impact of liner shipping on bilateral trade flows differs significantly across world regions, as well as exploring other geographical patterns.

Using state-of-the-art gravity modelling, this paper investigates the impact of the UNCTAD's Liner Shipping Bilateral Connectivity Index on bilateral trade in manufactured goods using a comprehensive database of disaggregated trade data for the period from 2006 to 2019.

The results show that the trade effect of liner shipping is greater in long-distance and interregional bilateral flows. For some regions, such as North America and Oceania, the effect is greater than the world average, while for others, such as Africa and South America, the effect is significantly smaller. The trade effects of liner shipping connectivity on the main east–west routes are average, but clear asymmetry emerges when analysing China's inward and outward trade flows separately.

The results of this paper show that the major east–west routes determine the baseline trade effects of liner shipping, demonstrate that some north–south trades such as those involving Oceania generate larger trade effects and confirm that the trade effects of liner shipping can be improved for some world regions such as South America and Africa.

This study aims to examine investor attention by exploring the trading behavior of investors in US-based exchange traded funds (ETFs) of countries active in the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cups.

The present study employs event study methodology to measure abnormal returns and excess trading volume of country-specific ETFs during six FIFA World Cups. The sample of ETFs includes 19 participating countries.

Consistent with investor behavior that might be explained by attention effect, the study finds that country-specific ETFs from participating countries do indeed behave differently during FIFA World Cups events. The authors find significant evidence of abnormal trading volume and, albeit weaker, abnormal returns during cups.

This study contributes to the literature on investor behavior, linking investor attention with salient sports events.

The regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) is promising as per the claims and can be revolutionary for the Asia–Pacific Region. The member countries will get a boost in the post-pandemic world due to the RCEP. According to Brookings, the RCEP is going to be an agreement reshaping the global economics. This study aims to clarify the aspects related to the RCEP and how it can boost global economics.

The study employs qualitative descriptive analysis to address the status of RCEP in the region and the consequences of such main transnational partnership. The study is based on economic reports, official documents and data directly related to the subject of the study.

Findings show that the RCEP will be a significant driver of regional trade despite its faults. The RCEP's tariff benefits and rules of origin, notwithstanding their relatively restricted scope, will encourage enterprises to source products and services from RCEP members, and in combination, RCEP and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are anticipated to replace at least some competing US commodities, services and farm exports. For items that integrate parts and components from inside the area, such as from China, the RCEP is projected to reduce tax and trade facilitation costs, allowing enterprises to avoid US Section 301 tariffs.

By examining how the RCEP operates within the framework of domestic and international trade, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of RCEP and analyses its nature based on data and official reports.

The aim of this article was to present a retrospective assessment of the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in global trade. This study was motivated by the increasing role of standards and certifications in governing global agricultural and food trade.

The current investigation was carried out with bibliometric methods using VOSviewer software. Techniques such as citation, co-citation, keyword co-occurrence, keyword evolution and co-authorship analyses were performed to tackle the research questions. Articles were extracted from Scopus database for the period 1998–2022 (30th August 2022) with selected keywords (“Private food standard*” OR “food standard*” OR “agri-food standard*” AND “agri*” OR “agro*” OR “farm*” OR “food*” AND “international trade” OR “global trade” OR “international business”) along certain filters (subject – Economics and Business management: language – English: Document – article and review articles and source – journals).

The results show that the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in global trade has evolved around five clusters, namely: (1) the political economy of food standards, (2) food standards and their challenges in global trade, (3) food standards and integration into value chains, (4) food standards and market access and (5) food standards and exports from developing countries. However, the authors found the research gaps in each of the thematic clusters.

The main limitation of this study is that the authors focused their attention on certain aspects of bibliometric review, such as the intellectual structure of the field, the citation analysis and the collaboration network. Future research could attempt to explore new field development through bibliographic coupling and deepening of conceptual structure using content analysis by incorporating the research methods used in the respective studies.

The emerging research areas in private agricultural and food standards in global trade are related to topics on food quality, sustainable development, genetically modified organisms, World Trade Organization, tariff structure, trade agreements, food industry and European Union. However, there is less research and little collaboration between Africa and developed countries. For example, Africa's total publications were (15), while the US had (46), China (15), Belgium (23), Germany (27), Italy (32) and the UK (24).

There are limited studies that have conducted a retrospective evaluation of the intellectual structure of private agricultural and food standards research in the global trade using bibliometric analysis. The present investigation is novel in identifying the thematic research clusters, emerging issues and future research directions. This is more important to developing countries as their agricultural produce face challenges to access markets of the developed world.

Regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) is understood as the world's largest trading bloc given its contribution to the world output (30%). The mega trade bloc brings together 15 countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers in goods and services trade. The study suggests the importance of sector specific reforms for Malaysia to strengthen domestic capability.

The analytical framework constructs upon the partial equilibrium analysis and uses WITS SMART simulations.

The study finds that Malaysia's elimination of tariffs under the RCEP will cause a surge in imports from developed member countries of RCEP like Australia, South Korea and Japan. The study also finds a trade diversion in countries such as India. The empirical results establishes that RCEP would further strengthen intra-ASEAN trade.

The study explores select sectors of the manufacturing industry in Malaysia.

The implementation of RCEP would impact the manufacturing sector immensely, especially in sectors like electrical machinery and equipment and inorganic chemicals, which are two of the major trading commodities of the Malaysian economy.

Any trade agreement has a larger impact on the society. It may raise income, boost the consumer preferences and create or erode consumer welfare. The study reports the consumer welfare effect of the implementation of RCEP in Malaysia.

The study is the first attempt to do a partial equilibrium analysis for the electrical machinery and equipment sector and inorganic chemicals sector of Malaysia using both aggregated and disaggregated data at HS two-digit and HS six-digit level.

This paper aims to analyze relative contribution of intensive margin (IM) and extensive margin (EM) to growth in India's agricultural exports for the period 2001 to 2020. It also analyses the determinants of IM and EMs through a standard gravity model.

The study uses export data from United Nations Comtrade, which is accessed through World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) software. Data for the period 2001 to 2020 were compiled for analysis using the Harmonized System (HS) of commodity classification system at the six-digit level. This study decomposed the contribution of IM and EM in the growth of Indian agricultural trade by using Hummels and Klenow's approach. After performing the export decomposition analysis, the authors analyze the factors influencing IM and EM by using the Tobit regression model and Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) method of estimation.

The EM grew at 1.24% per annum, while the intensive margin (IM) increased by 0.23%. The contribution of growth at the EM increased from 58.8% in 2001 to 70.2% in 2020. Export growth along the IM was relatively high for animal products and agricultural raw materials, while growth at the EM was an important contributor to the export growth of horticultural and processed agricultural products. There was a positive and significant effect of the free trade agreement (FTA) on export margins.

More disaggregated commodity-specific studies on value chain analysis would provide valuable insights into the issues hindering exports and realizing the untapped export potential.

There is a scarcity of holistic and recent studies illustrating the role of IM and EMs in agricultural trade growth, covering a large number of commodities and geographies associated with Indian agricultural trade. The study would be helpful to the stakeholders in facilitating informed policy decisions.

South Asia is a region urgently seeking development, although it has failed in regional integration. It is the second least integrated region regarding the number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and can thus be recognised as a missing bloc in the global multilateral system. This study aims to focus on South Asian FTAs and explores the problems of the inter-relations and compatibility between the systemic and regional trade systems.

The study proposes a framework to benchmark the compatibility of South Asian FTAs with WTO rules. Primary data from 2000 to 2020, including descriptive analyses of reports, legal text of the FTAs, official documents and factual presentations, have been collected and analysed through thematic analysis using the proposed framework.

The study finds that, although South Asian FTAs meet most of the WTO requirements, they are not progressing toward facilitating and promoting trade. Data from 2000 to 2020 show us that South Asian FTAs have not significantly impacted trade between themselves. The study argues that, although South Asian FTAs fulfil some benchmarks, they show only a lukewarm interest in contributing to the international trading system as building blocs. It is therefore recommended that the case of South Asian trade liberalisation must be understood contextually and be given careful and exclusive attention by the WTO.

As such, this study is the first to claim that South Asian FTAs are not fully compatible with the WTO rules. They remain a missing regional bloc in the multilateral system, rather than a building bloc or a stumbling bloc, delaying the region’s opportunity to develop as a region and within the larger system.

This study aims to shed light on the experience of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in balancing three main pillars: the environmental criteria, the reduction of CO₂ emissions and the economic growth. Based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework, it will assess the causal relationship between economic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, trade openness and energy use and environmental indicators such as CO₂ emissions.

The analysis relies on a period of 40 years (1981–2020) where data is extracted from the World Bank database. This study uses the unit root test for time series stationarity, the optimal lag length test, the “Johansen” test for co-integration and the vector error correction model.

The paper concludes to two major findings. On a short-term basis, CO₂ emissions and economic indicators are negatively correlated, whereas on a long-term basis, there is no association between CO₂ emissions and economic indicators in the UAE.

The research ends with important recommendations. It illustrates the importance of rationalizing the use of primary resources and the necessity to embrace successful and efficient policies in the energy production.

More specifically, UAE is urged to address the problem of CO₂ emissions in the electricity sector and increase awareness of the use of environmentally friendly processes in the transport and industrial sectors. While setting their economic agendas, UAE are encouraged to meet environmental criteria and invest in renewable energy projects such as “Shams 1”, the largest solar power plant outside of Spain and the USA.

The current study is significant in its research on the environmental impact of economic development, trade openness and energy use policies in the UAE. It uses CO₂ emissions as an environmental proxy and evaluates the environmental policies adopted in the UAE to reduce its impact.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether a Nash equilibrium of a two-country trading economy is symmetry-breaking or not.

The approach to tackle this topic is a theoretical treatment by the general equilibrium trade theory and game theory.

If each government's domestic policy serving private production is diminishing to the private production scale, the Nash equilibrium is not symmetry-breaking.

In the existing study of Chatterjee (2017), a similar result is derived by focusing on the properties of each country's GDP function. The authors, however, consider an economy where each country's PPF is strictly concave and show that the Nash equilibrium uniquely exists and this equilibrium is symmetry.