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Countries of the Southeast Europe (SEE) region have witnessed significant economic improvement since the beginning of their transition to market economies in the early 1990s. Growth has been particularly strong in the past six years, but still lower than in other fast growing countries in the East Asia and Baltic regions, or some of the other new member states of the European Union (EU). The purpose of this study is twofold: (i) to present recent trends in intra regional trade in SEE, in particular following the implementation of Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA); and (ii) to bring the attention of policy makers to some of the remaining impediments to enhanced intra regional trade. The rest of the study is organized as follows. Chapter two describes intraregional trade patterns, both prior and after the entry of CEFTA into force, including more detailed analysis of trade structure. Chapter three emphasizes the role of nontariff barriers (NTBs), such as technical regulations and standards, and their potential impact on trade enhancement, as well as the importance of the trade related environment drawing on global surveys and reports (doing business, Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), logistics performance indicator, and the enabling trade index). It also looks at rules of origin and their role in trade creation. Chapter four aims to present the view of the private sector on CEFTA and on trade related reforms in general through two case studies of regional firms. Finally, chapter five concludes by summarizing the key recommendations of the study.

Planting green manure to improve cash crop yield and soil health has been widely recognized, and understanding cash crop performance after green manure integration is pivotal for determining its potential to bolster and enhance crop productivity and sustainable production. However, it is unclear whether the effects of different types of green manure on subsequent cash crops are uniform. In order to clarify this issue, we systematically analyzed the effects of green manure types and nitrogen (N) application rates on succeeding cotton agronomic performance, yield, biomass, yield stability, and nutrient uptake. A split‐plot experiment with two factors was designed, main factor includes four cover cropping systems monoculture cotton (MC), February orchid/cotton cover cropping (FoC), hairy vetch/cotton cover cropping (HvC), and a mixture of February orchid and hairy vetch/cotton cover cropping (FHC), and sub‐main factor include four N application levels (0 (N0), 112.5 (N1), 168.75 (N2), and 225 (N3) kg N ha−1). Results suggests that nonlegume green manure (February orchid) accumulated more biomass, N, P, and K nutrients than the legume green manure (hairy vetch) and green manure mixture. Compared with cotton yield of MC, the FoC, HvC, and FHC system increased by 5.8%, 7.6%, and 15%, respectively. N use efficiency was more significantly influenced by the N application rates than by cropping systems. Specifically, as N application rates increased, N use efficiency decreased under MC, HvC, and FHC systems, while it increased under the FoC system. Additionally, we observed a trade‐off between cotton yield and yield stability, with the highest yield stability when cotton yield reached 2633 kg ha−1. This study provides evidence that nonlegume green manure (February orchid) with greater advantages on cotton vegetative organ growth, legume green manure (hairy vetch) can promote nutrient uptake compared to other green manure, while green manure mixture (February orchid and hairy vetch mixture) significantly increased cotton yield and yield stability. These findings provide evidence‐based insights highlighting the respective benefits of incorporating diverse species of green manure into cotton‐based cropping systems in the Yellow River Basin of China.

This article is a commentary on Onoda et al., 214: 1447–1463.

Regional trade network relationships are not only a medium for transmitting shocks to value chains, but also an important vehicle for reconfiguring value chains. This article applies social network analysis, combines regional trade agreements, and describes the current status of regional trade network development in North America, the European Union, and “the Belt and Road,” as well as the individual characteristics of China’s service industry in each regional trade network by using the indicators of trade relations to construct the network density, connectedness, and centrality through clustering analysis. The research found that the complexity of regional trade network relationships has increased over the years. Additionally, the developing trend of equalization is accelerating but still exhibits a “Core-Periphery” structure. Additionally, subregional groups within the regional trade network are increasingly obvious. Further study on the impact of industry regional centrality on value chain resilience revealed that the increase of degree centrality and the betweenness centrality of China’s service industry can conspicuously strengthen value chain resilience in regional trade network relationships. Moreover, balanced regional trade network relationships can reinforce this effect. In contrast, the degree of the polarity of regional trade network relationships exacerbates the weakening motivation of centrality for value chain resilience.

Agricultural trade is the foundation of world trade and an important link in economic and trade relations between countries or regions. Exploring the competitiveness and complementarity of the agricultural trade between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, could provide a theoretical basis for tapping the growth potential of the agricultural trade between China and ASEAN and expanding the trade relationship. According to the theory of comparative advantage, trade complementarity theory, and intra-industry trade theory, and based on UN Comtrade data from 2013 to 2022, this study uses the Regional Revealed Comparative Advantage Index, the Trade Complementarity Index, and the Intra-Industry Trade Index to measure the competitiveness, complementarity, and intra-industry trade level of China–ASEAN agricultural trade, including HS01-24 commodities. The results show that the agricultural trade between China and ASEAN is both competitive and complementary. The competitiveness of China’s agricultural exports to ASEAN is greater than that of ASEAN’s agricultural exports to China, and the complementarity of the former is less than that of the latter. Both sides have their own comparative advantage products, and there is also a strong competitive relationship in some agricultural product fields. The bilateral agricultural trade is mainly intra-industry trade, and the level is relatively high, while some strongly competitive agricultural products urgently need to transform from inter-industry to intra-industry trade. China and ASEAN should participate in bilateral trade based on the comparative advantages of their own agricultural products; ASEAN should improve the quality of agricultural products to enhance international competitiveness; China should tap into the market demand for ASEAN agricultural products to enhance the complementarity of its agricultural exports to ASEAN; and the two sides should formulate different policies for different types of agricultural products.

This paper analyzes spillovers from macroeconomic shocks in systemic economies (China, the Euro Area, and the United States) to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as well as outward spillovers from a GDP shock in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and MENA oil exporters to the rest of the world. This analysis is based on a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model, estimated for 38 countries/regions over the period 1979Q2 to 2011Q2. Spillovers are transmitted across economies via trade, financial, and commodity price linkages. The results show that the MENA countries are more sensitive to developments in China than to shocks in the Euro Area or the United States, in line with the direction of evolving trade patterns and the emergence of China as a key driver of the global economy. Outward spillovers from the GCC region and MENA oil exporters are likely to be stronger in their immediate geographical proximity, but also have global implications.

This paper develops a structural macroeconometric model of the world economy, disaggregated into thirty five national economies. This panel unobserved components model features a monetary transmission mechanism, a fiscal transmission mechanism, and extensive macrofinancial linkages, both within and across economies. A variety of monetary policy analysis, fiscal policy analysis, spillover analysis, and forecasting applications of the estimated model are demonstrated, based on a Bayesian framework for conditioning on judgment.

The introduction of the euro generated substantial interest in measuring the impact of currency unions (CUs) on trade flows. Rose's (2000) initial estimates suggested a tripling of trade and created a literature in search of \"more reasonable\" CU effects. A recent meta-analysis of this literature shows that subsequent papers quantify CU trade impacts at 30-90 percent. However, most recent studies use shorter time series and fewer countries than Rose in his original work. We revisit Rose's original benchmark, extend the dataset, and address Baldwin's (2006) critiques regarding the proper specification of gravity models in large panels by simultaneously accounting for multilateral resistance and unobserved bilateral heterogeneity. This produces a robust average CU trade effect of 45 percent. Yet, the trade impacts of individual CUs vary substantially and are generally lower than those of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Our revised benchmark can be used as a yardstick for future studies to delineate how estimates differ due to new data or differences in econometric specifications.

Nickel ore sand and its concentrate are the main sources of raw nickel materials in various countries. Due to its uneven distribution throughout the world, the international trade of nickel ore sand is also unstable. Looking for potential links in the changing international nickel ore trade can help governments find potential partners, make strategic preparations in advance, and quickly find new partners when original trade relationships break down. In this paper, we build an international nickel ore trade network using a link prediction method to find potential trade relations between countries. The results show that China and Italy, China and Denmark, China and Indonesia, and China and India are most likely to establish trade relations within five years. Finally, according to the research results, suggestions regarding the international nickel ore trade are proposed.

In the modern conditions of society development, which are characterized by the increase not only of internal problems of the state but also of external extraordinary challenges, the importance of issues of diagnosing the impact of war on the agricultural development of Ukraine in the direction of ensuring the national food security is growing. The article is aimed at assessing the war's impact on the agriculture development of Ukraine, diagnosing development prospects of food security in a war period; providing proposals and recommendations, post-war recovery measures in order to ensure an appropriate level of food security and solve current food crisis situations in a war and post-war period, which are actual and important issue that needs an urgent solution. In the direction of achieving the main purpose, in the research have been applied several general and special scientific methods, namely: the methods of scientific abstraction, analytical diagnostics, statistical and comparative analysis, the method of end-to-end analytics, and regulatory and index criteria etc.The article examines and presents the regional distribution of losses to Ukrainian agriculture in a war period, the structure of agricultural losses from the war by main categories and its detailed description; the structure of indirect financial losses in agriculture from the impact of war and its detailed description, that declared the existence of urgent need for the full restoration of the potential of the industry and requires significant financial and investment resources; recommendations for reconstruction of agricultural resources provision and development of international trade activity in a war and post-war period.The article has defined the key features of food safety regulation at the state level, which made it possible to prove the existence of significant deficiencies in the work of state risk management, and mechanisms for ensuring the country's food and environmental safety. Actual problems of food security ensuring the conditions of the war in Ukraine are identified. The results of a detailed analysis of the state and trends of agricultural sector development in the conditions of the war proved the existence of risk situations that can cause unforeseen and irreversible consequences in the near future.