Search results for " free trade"
showing 10 items of 22 documents
Trade effects of monetary agreements: Evidence for OECD countries
2008
Abstract This paper analyses the effects of monetary agreements on trade flows using a sample of 25 OECD countries over the period 1950–2004. We find that these agreements have boosted intra-bloc trade. This result especially applies to the case of the euro. More importantly, in contrast to regional trade agreements, all monetary agreements analysed show evidence of trade-creating effects with third countries. Finally, only the euro shows a symmetric impact for the trade-creating effect with non-members, that is, using the euro promotes both the Eurozone's exports and its imports to non-Eurozone markets to a similar extent.
On Subsidies in Trade Agreements
2008
When terms of trade externalities are the only source of cross-border inefficiencies, trade negotiators must negotiate market access only. Based on this principle, Bagwell and Staiger (2006) argue against the WTO subsidy rules. The present paper shows that their argument fails when trade agreements are required to be self-enforceable. By affecting output, subsidies impact the self-enforcement constraints, which, in turn, determine the policies of trade agreements. Consequently, trade agreements must include subsidy rules. In realistic scenarios, banning production subsidies is efficient while negotiating market access only is inefficient. In this sense, this paper makes a strong case for th…
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…
Intensità degli scambi agroalimentari tra i Paesi del bacino del Mediterraneo
2013
The Mediterranean has always been an area of strategic interest for the European Union (eu), which, since its establishment, has woven a compact network of relationships with its trading partners in the South and East of the Mediterranean, signing cooperation and then associative agreements with them. This study aims to present a view of how the agro-food trade network has evolved between the eu’s Mediterranean partner countries and their neighbors in North Africa and the Near East. To measure the extent of this trade specific indicators are used which are also widely used in economic literature, albeit to analyze trade in sectors unconnected to agro-food. In particular, analyses carried ou…
Intensity of Italy's agri-food trade with countries outside the EU Mediterranean
2013
This paper aims to present a framework of trade relations between Italy and the countries of southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. More specifically, using the indicators proposed in the analysis of international trade, we want to analyse the intensity of trade in agri-food products and the strength of trade ties between the bordering Mediterranean countries. The analysis of the intensity of trade flows of food products from Italy and the partner countries of North Africa and the Near East has allowed us to trace a network of flows between the countries in the area. If we can see an overall weakening of the agri-food trade, the analysis for individual partner states, however…
Free trade or fair trade? Possible scenarios in the light of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement
2021
The present work focuses on the EU-Japan Partnership Agreement, whose consolidated text was finalized on December 2017, having regard to the protection of social rights: in this regard a specific attention will be paid to the EPA chapter on trade and sustainable development and to the negotiations of the Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause, taking into account the current EU approach as formalized in other recent trade agreements.
Essay on Profits
2015
The entry discusses the 1815 Essay on Profits by David Ricardo. In particular, it focuses on Ricardo's analysis of Malthus's protectionist arguments and on Ricardo's criticism of the latter.
EMU and the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue: Trade Interdependence between Mediterranean and Euro-area Countries
2009
Economic interdependence and trade encourage international dialogue and represent a base for reducing international conflicts. Hence, international co-operation for the reduction of barriers to trade and capital flows can be important not only in inducing economic progress, but also in promoting peace (Polachek and Siegle 2006). In this respect, the introduction of the euro represents an epochal event for both the participants in the single European currency and for their external partners, and in particular those in neighbouring regions. However, whilst a large body of literature has focused on analysing the first, in particular, with respect to the impact of the euro on intra-regional tra…
Integración y transformación económica en África: potencial y limitaciones del Área de Libre Comercio Continental Africana
2021
In March 2018, the African Union gave way to the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area, the largest area of economic integration in the world by number of countries involved. As of June 2020, 54 out of 55 African Union member countries have already signed the agreement, thus showing an almost complete unanimity on this topic. AfCFTA comes up when industrialisation strategies and economic transformation in Africa seem to have taken over orthodox structural adjustment and post-adjustment approaches. AfCFTA aims to increase the scarce intra-African trade, boost economic transformation, create the regional value chains and help African firms to join the global value chains. I…