0000000000131489
AUTHOR
Sorin Burnete
showing 7 related works from this author
Globalization and Trade: An Unfortunate Tangle
2019
Globalization disrupted the seemingly solid construction emerged in the aftermath of WW II, called the international trade system. For over fifty years, the system grew constantly thanks to the increasing number of countries that joint it as well as to its ubiquitously-accepted rules. For better and for worse the system has worked according to traditional theory principles, whose core credo was that all participating countries would gain more if engaged in trade than if in autarchy. Globalization has muddied the waters. The contemporary order in which multinational companies make the rules has made these predictions look elusive. One serious implication is today’s unorthodox approach of tra…
Transatlantic Trade Wars: The United States and the European Union in Endless Confrontation
2018
Considering two highly interlinked economies of such tremendous size as the United States (US) respectively the European Union (EU), it does not come as a surprise that these circumstances inevitably provide fertile soil for transatlantic trade disputes to thrive. In spite of their decisive contribution to the postwar trade liberalization process, the two giants never quit being protectionist in certain particular domains considered sensitive for one part or the other. Sensitive domains are those in which nations fear competition from abroad, in apprehension of being disruptive to their own economy. Usually sectors that are incapable of withstanding foreign competition, most often agricultu…
An Economic Viewpoint on Capitalism Bashing
2016
Abstract In this paper I discuss two long disputed notions: that capitalism without crises is a fallacy respectively that capitalism bashing, however severe, will not endanger the system itself. Yet proving both is not an easy task since the capitalism issue has always been a cupellation of theory, ideology and political precepts, which are controversial and hard to disentangle. That capitalism detractors are numberless is a truism. Yet criticism against capitalism, however fierce, has always been clearly delineated. Not any more: globalization has rendered the picture dangerously fuzzy. It is now hard to ascertain whether someone who will harangue about the ostensible evils of globalizatio…
Dark Spots in Trade Theory: Early Testing Attempts
2020
The beginnings of the economic theory correspond to philosophers’ attempts to explain why and how do countries trade with each other. Yet even more puzzling was the question how should countries trade? It is no surprise that despite the formidable developments of the theory in the last 200 years plus, there still are dark spots in the economics of trade. Globalization has rendered the issue even murkier. Beside the fact that international trade cannot be insulated from other economic domains, which makes it inadequate for experiments, but even testing itself is cumbersome. Only, evidence on such a complex field as international trade is by no means easy to come by.
Trade And Environment: A Historical Perspective
2015
Abstract The relation between international trade and environmental and social issues has deep historical roots, having been manifest ever since the first industrial revolution. Ironically, the expansion of industrial activities marked, besides the exit from economic backwardness, the commencement of an inexorable war of men against nature. Concomitantly industrialization laid the groundwork for an explosive increase in international trade, which made the latter responsible for increasing environment degradation and social rights infringement. The removal of trade barriers in the first decades after the Second World War as well as the subsequent regulation induced by globalization rendered …
Outsourcing under Threat: Estimated Impact of Potential Tariffs on US Imports from Mexico
2017
In this paper, I discuss the effects of certain trade policy measures, mostly import tariffs, presently contemplated by the US government, aimed at enhancing domestic employment in a number of targeted industries. I intend to show that insofar as such measures restrain free trade among NAFTA member-countries, they run counter to a basic rule suggested by conventional theory, stating that, following changes in the tariff structure, resources will shift toward activities that enjoy the highest rate of effective protection. I try to demonstrate that erecting barriers against inside-NAFTA trade, aside from hurting industries that use outsourcing extensively, has little chances to create incenti…
Emerging Economies Faced With The Downside Of Financial Globalization: Hedges And Way Outs
2009
The underlining assumption of this paper is that developing countries are in a fragile state nowadays. Economically, they have been seriously harmed by the 2008 crisis1 but this is not the end of the story: the future still has pitfalls in which these economies might get trapped, due to their enhanced vulnerability to exogenous shocks generated by financial globalization. Ideologically, the recent events have triggered a serious backlash against capitalism, particularly the Anglo-Saxon template. Getting an insight into the causes and implications of global economic crises is therefore critical for policy-makers in emerging economies. History might be a good adviser in this respect. Lessons …