Search results for "free trade"
showing 10 items of 53 documents
Early modern trade flows between smaller states : the Portuguese-Swedish trade in the eighteenth century as an example
2015
The eighteenth century was a period of many great power wars and competition for colonies. However, despite the turmoil, smaller nations were able to carve their niches in the international trade of the period. Examination of new sources, used in a comparative fashion, indicates that bilateral trade still has much to offer for the analysis of international trade history. The pattern of bilateral trade between Sweden and Portugal indicates that they were not equally dependent on that trade, and that the products traded varied over time. Usually bulk commodities dominated this trade, as each country focused on its core competencies. Overall, the volume of trade and the number of ships travell…
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…
Answers to the uncertainty from the workers in the Valencian textile and clothing sector
2013
La gestión política y empresarial de la liberalización del comercio de sus productos abrió a mediados de la década del 2000 una importante crisis en el sector del textil-confección. Una crisis especialmente aguda en las comarcas valencianas de l’Alcoià, el Comtat y la Vall d’Albaida donde no sólo la economía sino también el imaginario social de sus habitantes se ha construido tradicionalmente sobre este sector. Esta situación sirvió para la investigación que origina el artículo como metáfora de la percepción de la incertidumbre, entendida ésta como la falta de códigos válidos para dotar de signifi-cado los hechos que se viven en la cotidianeidad y en consecuencia la incapacidad para planifi…
Europäische Handels- und Agrarpolitik gegenüber Afrika Mit einem kritischen Blick auf den Beitrag der Wirtschaftswissenschaften
2018
Abstract European trade policy with Africa is in deep trouble. We observe a triple policy failure. (1) The EU tries to draw African partner countries into comprehensive deep integration agreements, far more than these countries can arguably support. (2) For trade in goods, safeguard clauses in the EPAs are patchy. They cannot satisfy African needs for smart protection of agricultural and industrial businesses. Facing the refusal of some African governments to sign, the EU has no answer. Ensuing fragmentation of African regional economic communities is a disaster. Rapid repair work of the existing regional EPA drafts looks more promising than a grand solution with the new African Continental…
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…
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…
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.
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…
Impact on European Union Studies of the Developing EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreements with Third Countries: The Case of Canada
2015
The EU has signed an agreement in principle for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada, the first of its kind for the EU, entering into force in 2015, opening a renewed market access strategy for the EU and has initiated negotiations with the USA.
From EFTA to EC/EU and Back to EFTA? The European Economic Area (EEA) As a Possible Scenario for the UK-EU Relations After Brexit
2018
Brexit is announced to take place and it appears, that the most probable scenario for the UK is the “Norway-Option”, i.e., to (again) become a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and join the EEA. The chapter identifies the major claims of the leave-campaign to analyse, whether by doing so, the Brexit proponents will achieve what they campaigned for. Furthermore, the paper explains the functioning of the EEA, exploring the potential changes for the UK, the EU, and the EEA/EFTA.