Transatlantic Issues in Electronic Commerce

The global and dynamic e-commerce marketplace will increasingly impact the nature of national and international economic and government relations. This paper highlights three areas where the United States and European Union (EU) governments differ in their approaches as to how best to serve their domestic constituencies: treatment of trade flows, approach to tax regimes, manner of protecting personal data. Because the Internet marketplace is global but policy jurisdictions remain local, policy conflicts can develop. Policymakers on both sides need to harness technology and promote incentives for the private sector to help solve problems caused by the jurisdictional overlap. In addition to cross-border jurisdictional overlap, problems within a country can develop from issue convergence and policy overlap. That is, because the e-commerce marketplace is so integrated, the policy toward handling one issue, even within the national context, has implications for the policy set that is available to policymakers on other issues. Therefore, policies within a country must be more carefully meshed with each other with an eye toward consistency in the face of the forces of electronic commerce.transatlantic issues, electronic commerce

Managing U.S-EU Trade Relations through Mutual Recognition and Safe Harbor Agreements:"New" and "Global" Approaches to Transatlantic Economic Governance?

governance; regulation; regulations; regulatory competition; directives; implementation; WTO

Determinants of e-business use in U.S. firms

The factors leading to variations in e-business use among U.S. firms are identified. Building on diffusion of innovation theory, an integrated model is developed that explains the relative influence of eight known determinants. Diversity and volume of e-business use are empirically investigated using a sample of 294 firms. The analysis demonstrates that (1) considering the diversity of e-business use, pressure from trading partners is the most important driver, (2) when e-business volume is investigated, government pressure emerges as the strongest factor, (3) government promotion may not have much effect on the diversity of e-business use by private companies, but does significantly influence the volume of e-business use by firms doing business with the government, and (4) the United States has a positive regulatory environment for supporting e-business. Taken together, these findings on the multidimensionality of e-business use show that diversity and volume are not only different measures of e-business use, but also have different determinants. The integrated model provides a more comprehensive explanation of e-business use and could serve as a foundation for future research on interorganizational systems. Copyright © 2006 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved

China's Embrace of Globalization

As China has become an increasingly important part of the global trading system over the past two decades, interest in the country and its international economic policies has increased among international economists who are not China specialists. This paper represents an attempt to provide the international economics community with a succinct summary of the major steps in the evolution of Chinese policy toward international trade and foreign direct investment and their consequences since the late 1970s. In doing so, we draw upon and update a number of more comprehensive book-length treatments of the subject. It is our hope that this paper will prove to be a useful resource for the growing numbers of international economists who are exploring China-related issues, either in the classroom or in their own research.

Potholes and Paperwork: Improving Cross-Border Integration and Regulation of the Automotive Industry

Divergent regulations and border regimes in Canada and the US are threatening the integrated, cross-border structure of the Canadian auto industry. It is time for common regulations governing safety, fuel consumption and environmental protection, and faster, more efficient border clearances.trade policy, Auto Pact, automotive industry

Catalyzing Privacy Law

The United States famously lacks a comprehensive federal data privacy law. In the past year, however, over half the states have proposed broad privacy bills or have established task forces to propose possible privacy legislation. Meanwhile, congressional committees are holding hearings on multiple privacy bills. What is catalyzing this legislative momentum? Some believe that Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in 2018, is the driving factor. But with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which took effect in January 2020, California has emerged as an alternate contender in the race to set the new standard for privacy.Our close comparison of the GDPR and California’s privacy law reveals that the California law is not GDPR-lite: it retains a fundamentally American approach to information privacy. Reviewing the literature on regulatory competition, we argue that California, not Brussels, is catalyzing privacy law across the United States. And what is happening is not a simple story of powerful state actors. It is more accurately characterized as the result of individual networked norm entrepreneurs, influenced and even empowered by data globalization. Our study helps explain the puzzle of why Europe’s data privacy approach failed to spur US legislation for over two decades. Finally, our study answers critical questions of practical interest to individuals—who will protect my privacy?—and to businesses—whose rules should I follow

Globalization and E-Commerce VII: Environment and Policy in the U.S.

The United States is a global leader in both Business-to-Customer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) electronic commerce. This leadership comes in part from the historical US strengths in information technology, telecommunications, financial services, and transportation - all of which are essential enabling components of e-commerce. The size and strength of the US economy, the wealth of its consumer base, and the relatively open access to venture capital creates an attractive environment for e-commerce investment. Official US Government policy toward e-commerce is to let the private sector take the lead, with government helping to make the business climate right for innovation and investment. Prior US Government investments in essential e-commerce infrastructure for military purposes (e.g., digital computing, the Internet) and for civilian purposes (e.g., interstate highways, air transport) played an important role in the US lead in e-commerce. US Government policies favoring widespread economic liberalization since the 1970\u27s in areas such as financial services, transportation, and telecommunications helped enable and stimulate private sector investment and innovation in e-commerce. The collapse of the dot.com era in the late 1990\u27s hit key sectors of e-commerce hard, suggesting that some of the more dramatic and positive predictions of e-commerce growth and impact will either be delayed substantially or will not come to pass. The strength of surviving e-commerce companies (e.g., Amazon and eBay), as well as the relative stability of the technology sector (e.g., Cisco Systems, Dell, Intel, IBM) and the continued investment of large industry sectors (e.g., autos, finance) suggest that e-commerce is still growing and is here to stay. Consumers are intrigued by B2C e-commerce, and many have used such services, but serious concerns related to privacy and transaction security remain obstacles to universal adoption of B2C e-commerce