Search results for " Trade"
showing 10 items of 533 documents
From endogenous growth to stationary state: The world economy in the mathematical formulation of the Ricardian system
2016
AbstractWe analyse international trade in a Pasinetti–Ricardo growth model in the world economy scenario in which several small trading countries coexist and international commodity prices are determined by the interplay of supply and demand amongst them. We demonstrate that all the trading countries eventually reach the stationary state, though this process is not monotonic and the dynamics of capital and population may actually push some countries towards the stationary state and others away from it. We also use our model to assess an argument which Malthus employed in the second edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1803) to support a policy of agricultural protectionism.
Trade Openness and Income: A Tale of Two Regions
2015
In this article we present evidence of the long-run effect of trade openness on income per worker for two regions that have followed different liberalization strategies, namely Asia and Latin America. A model that re-examines these questions is estimated for two panels of Asian and Latin American countries over the 1980-2008 period using a novel empirical approach that accounts for endogeneity as well as for the time series properties of the variables involved. From an econometric point of view, we apply recent panel cointegration techniques based on factor models that account for two additional elements usually neglected in previous empirical literature: cross-dependence and structural bre…
Testosterone and oxidative stress: the oxidation handicap hypothesis
2007
Secondary sexual traits (SST) are usually thought to have evolved as honest signals of individual quality during mate choice. Honesty of SST is guaranteed by the cost of producing/maintaining them. In males, the expression of many SST is testosterone-dependent. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis has been proposed as a possible mechanism ensuring honesty of SST on the basis that testosterone, in addition to its effect on sexual signals, also has an immunosuppressive effect. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis has received mixed support. However, the cost of testosterone-based signalling is not limited to immunosuppression and might involve other physiological functions such as the…
The oxidative cost of reproduction depends on early development oxidative stress and sex in a bird species
2016
In the early 2000s, a new component of the cost of reproduction was proposed: oxidative stress. Since then the oxidative cost of reproduction hypothesis has, however, received mixed support. Different arguments have been provided to explain this. Among them, the lack of a life-history perspective on most experimental tests was suggested. We manipulated the levels of a key intracellular antioxidant (glutathione) in captive zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) during a short period of early life and subsequently tested the oxidative cost of reproduction. Birds were allowed to mate freely in an outdoor aviary for several months. We repeatedly enlarged or reduced their broods to increase or redu…
Is Food Self-Sufficiency Conducive to Long-Term Growth? An Assessment of Malthus (1803) on the International Corn Trade.
2017
In this article, we have reconstructed Malthus’s views on growth and international corn trade in the second edition of his An Essay on the Principle of Population (1803) and shown their theoretical consistency with Malthus’s food self-sufficiency policy proposal advanced in Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn ([1815] 1986b), the protectionist pamphlet that elicited Ricardo’s vehement reaction in “Essay on Profits.” Malthus’s (1803) main thesis was that the contemporary British unbalanced growth pattern was not viable. In order to avoid premature stagnation, he thought that Great Britain should both follow a pattern of balanced growth and pursue…
Equilibrium mergers in a composite good industry with efficiencies
2014
This paper studies equilibrium merging behavior in composite good industries. Component producers face the option to either merge with a similar component producer (horizontal merger) or a complementary one (complementary merger) of a composite good. Focusing only on strategic reasons, complementary mergers arise at equilibrium only when composite goods are very differentiated while horizontal mergers otherwise. Next, when efficiencies are considered, the level of marginal cost saving required for a horizontal merger in a composite industry to result in a non- increase in the upward price pressure index (UPPI) is greater as compared with the one in a regular industry. This result can be use…
COMPETITIVENESS OF LATVIAN FIRMS IN CHINA
2012
The results of the firms’ performance are one of the key aspects in the research of competitiveness. The competitiveness of firms is a concept that involves many aspects of measurement. There are many models that can be used to assess the international competitiveness of firms, including the competitiveness of foreign firms in the Chinese market. The opportunities of Latvian firms to enter China market and the capabilities of Latvian firms to compete in China have not so far been sufficiently studied. In 2010 the export volume of Latvian firms to China was 25 million EUR and more than half of it was export of raw materials. The model of SME competitiveness is used to research the competitiv…
The Protocol on Trade and the Creation of the Southern African Development Community Free Trade Area
2017
The author offers a much-needed analysis of regional economic integration in the SADC and explains the successful establishment of the SADC Free Trade Area. He outlines the demand for regional market integration in the SADC’s member states from a structural perspective in consideration of intra-regional economic interdependence and trade relations. Against this background, this chapter provides an explanation of the specific provisions of the SADC Protocol on Trade that determined the institutional design of the free trade area. In this respect, Muntschick highlights the key role of South Africa as the regional economic hegemon. Finally, this chapter evaluates the performance of the SADC Fr…
Exogenous Interference: The European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreements and the Stalled SADC Customs Union
2017
Focussing on the struggle for the scheduled SADC Customs Union, Muntschick reveals that extra-regional actors can actually have a negative impact on regional economic integration in the SADC. Firstly, this chapter refers to the organisation’s agenda on market integration and clarifies the intra-regional demand for the envisaged customs union. Secondly, it highlights the SADC member states’ important but asymmetric trade relations to the European Union and, in regard to this shadow structure of extra-regional interdependence, explains the interfering impact of Brussels’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) on deeper market integration in the SADC. This chapter concludes that the European U…
PRICE CONVERGENCE IN THE EUROPEAN CAR MARKET
2008
International audience; This paper examines price convergence in the European Union car market over the period 1995-2005. We find that there is a clear evidence of price convergence among the EU15 countries, but not before 1999. Moreover, countries of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) started convergence previously to the EU15 as a whole. Finally, exchange rate changes have significantly contributed to price dispersion over time across countries. The results provide significant evidence that trade liberalization and the EMU have enhanced the process of regional integration in the European automobile industry, even though there is room for further measures to promote integration.