Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
1,639
result(s) for
"Tariff preferences"
Sort by:
Forced to be good : why trade agreements boost human rights
Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. In this book, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.
Book
Forced to Be Good
Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. InForced to Be Good, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.
How and why do global norms for social justice become international regulations linked to seemingly unrelated issues, such as trade? Hafner-Burton finds that the process has been unconventional. Efforts by human rights advocates and labor unions to spread human rights ideals, for example, do not explain why American and European governments employ preferential trade agreements to protect human rights. Instead, most of the regulations protecting human rights are codified in global moral principles and laws only because they serve policymakers' interests in accumulating power or resources or solving other problems. Otherwise, demands by moral advocates are tossed aside. And, as Hafner-Burton shows, even the inclusion of human rights protections in trade agreements is no guarantee of real change, because many of the governments that sign on to fair trade regulations oppose such protections and do not intend to force their implementation.
Ultimately, Hafner-Burton finds that, despite the difficulty of enforcing good regulations and the less-than-noble motives for including them, trade agreements that include human rights provisions have made a positive difference in the lives of some of the people they are intended-on paper, at least-to protect.
eBook
Learning to Use Trade Preferences: A Firm and Transaction Level Analysis of the EU–South Korea FTA
This article examines imports by Swedish firms and the utilization of the tariff preferences offered by the EU–South Korea Free Trade Agreement. To benefit from tariff preferences, the importer must make a formal request to use the preferences and also document the origin of the imported products (with a certificate of origin provided by the foreign exporter). This may be costly, and some importers choose to pay import tariffs even when tariff preferences are available. Hence, the preferences are not fully utilized. Using a detailed firm–transaction level data set on Swedish imports from South Korea, we analyse the determinants of preference utilization and how firms learn to use preferences. The results show that preference utilization is strongly correlated with potential duty savings, which depend on the preference margin and the size of the import transaction. From a learning perspective, we find that preference utilization is closely related to the number of import transactions undertaken by the firm, suggesting a learning-by-doing mechanism. The length of time the firm has been involved in importing activities plays a smaller role.
Journal Article
Termites in the trading system : how preferential agreements undermine free trade
This book shines a critical light on preferential trade agreements (PTAs), revealing how the rapid spread of PTAs endangers the world trading system. Numbering by now well over 300, and rapidly increasing, these preferential trade agreements, many taking the form of free trade agreements, have re-created the unhappy situation of the 1930s, when world trade was undermined by discriminatory practices. Whereas this was the result of protectionism in those days, ironically it is a result of misdirected pursuit of free trade via PTAs today. The world trading system is at risk again, the author argues, and the danger is palpable. Writing with his customary wit, panache and elegance, the author documents the growth of these PTAs, the reasons for their proliferation, and their deplorable consequences which include the near-destruction of the non-discrimination which was at the heart of the postwar trade architecture and its replacement by what he has called the spaghetti bowl of a maze of preferences. The author also documents how PTAs have undermined the prospects for multilateral freeing of trade, serving as stumbling blocks, instead of building blocks, for the objective of reaching multilateral free trade. In short, the author cogently demonstrates why PTAs are “Termites in the Trading System.”
eBook
Economic Integration in South Asia
This book analyses the South Asian preferential trade agreements with reference to the WTO jurisprudence. It offers a comprehensive analysis of the factors undermining economic integration in South Asia and recommends possible ways for confronting them.
eBook
Will the Doha Round Lead to Preference Erosion?
This paper assesses the effects of reducing tariffs under the Doha Round on market access for developing countries. It shows that for many developing countries, actual preferential access is less generous than it appears because of low product coverage or complex rules of origin. Thus lowering tariffs under the multilateral system is likely to lead to a net increase in market access for many developing countries, with gains in market access offsetting losses from preference erosion. Furthermore, comparing various tariff-cutting proposals, the research shows that the largest gains in market access are generated by higher tariff cuts in agriculture.
eBook
Les Accords Commerciaux Préférentiels
Les accords commerciaux preferentiels ont le vent en poupe ; ils se multiplient a une vitesse et avec une vigueur impressionnantes. Cette montee en puissance souleve nombre d'interrogations auxquelles l'ouvrage repond: quelles sont les raisons d'un tel phenomene ? Est-il sans precedent dans l'histoire ? Quels en sont les principaux contours ? Quelles consequences pour le systeme commercial multilateral ?Dans son premier volet, cet ouvrage etudie l'histoire depuis le XIXe siecle jusqu'a la periode contemporaine, les caracteristiques profondes ainsi que les objectifs des politiques commerciales qui y recourent de plus en plus volontiers.Dans un second volet, l'attention est centree sur le caractere preferentiel de ces accords, puis sur l'approfondissement et l'elargissement de la liberalisatiom commerciale dont ces accords sont souvent les vecteurs.Le troisieme et dernier volet s'interesse a l'epineuse question des rapports entre ces accords et l'Organisation mondiale du commerce, incarnation du multilateralisme dans ce domaine, rapports examines sous l'angle systemique d'abord, puis sous celui du reglement des differends ensuite. La coexistence peut etre pacifique voire harmonieuse, ou s'averer conflictuelle et prejudiciable a l'un ou l'autre.L'ouvrage interesse les magistrats, avocats, arbitres, juristes d'entreprise, cadres et directeurs d'entreprise, professeurs et chercheurs.
eBook
Preferential trade agreement policies for development : a handbook
Economists have repeatedly warned against them, NGOs have fought them, and somegovernments have begrudgingly (at least in appearance) signed them. Yet, in the last twentyyears the growth in number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has been unabated. Evenmore strikingly, their scope has broadened while their number was increasing. Deep integrationprovisions in PTAs have now become ubiquitous.Gaining market access or preserving existing preferences has remained an important motivationfor acceding to PTAs. But with the liberalization of trade around the world and the relateddiminishing size of preferential rents, the growing success of PTAs cannot be only explained bytraditional market access motives (even factoring for the possible substitution of tariff for otherless transparent forms of protection). Countries are looking beyond market access in PTAs. Theyare interested in a host of objectives, including importing higher policy standards, strengtheningregional policy coordination, locking-in domestic reforms, and even addressing foreign policyissues.This handbook on PTA policies for development offers an introduction into the world of modernpreferential trade agreements. It goes beyond the traditional paradigm of trade creation versustrade diversion to address the economic and legal aspects of the regulatory policies that arecontained in todays PTAs. The book maps the landscape of PTAs, summarizes the theoretical arguments, political economy, and development dimensions of PTAs, and presents the current practice in the main policy areas typically covered in PTAs (from agriculture policy, rules of origin, customs unions, trade remedies, product standards, technical barriers, to behind the border issues related to investment, trade facilitation, competition, government procurement, intellectual property, labor rights, human rights,
environment, migration, and dispute resolution). These are also usually the policies driven by powerful trading blocs as they strive to influence the evolution of the global trading system.
eBook
Preferential Trade Agreements
This volume assembles a stellar group of scholars and experts to examine preferential trade agreements (PTAs), a topic that has time and again attracted the interest of analysts. It presents a discussion of the evolving economic analysis regarding PTAs and the various dysfunctions that continually place them among the priority items for (re)negotiation by the WTO. The book explores recent empirical research that casts doubt on the old 'trade diversion' school and debates why the WTO should deal with PTAs and if PTAs belong under the mandate of the WTO as we now know it.
eBook
In Search of WTO Trade Effects:Preferential Trade Agreements Promote Trade Strongly, But Unevenly
The literature measuring the impact of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA) and WTO membership on trade flows has produced remarkably diverse results. Rose's (2004) seminal paper reports a range of specifications that show no WTO effects, but Subramanian and Wei (2007) contend that he does not fully control for multilateral resistance (which could bias WTO estimates). Subramanian and Wei (2007) address multilateral resistance comprehensively to report strong WTO trade effects for industrialized countries but do not account for unobserved bilateral heterogeneity (which could inflate WTO estimates). We unify these two approaches by accounting for both multilateral resistance and unobserved bilateral heterogeneity, while also allowing for individual trade effects of PTAs. WTO effects vanish and remain insignificant throughout once multilateral resistance, unobserved bilateral heterogeneity, and individual PTA effects are introduced. The result is robust to the use of alternative definitions and coding conventions for WTO membership that have been employed by Rose (2004), Tomz et al. (2007), or by Subramanian and Wei's (2007).
eBook