9,548 research outputs found

    An Assessment of the Economic Effects of COFCO

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    International Relations/Trade,

    Corruption and firm behavior

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    This paper investigates how corruption affects firrm behavior. Firms can engage in two types of corruption when seeking a public service: cost-reducing "collusive" corruption and cost increasing "coercive" corruption. Using an original and unusually rich dataset on bribe payments at ports matched to firrm-level data, we observe how firms respond to each type of corruption by adjusting their shipping and sourcing strategies. "Collusive" corruption is associated with higher usage of the corrupt port, while "coercive" corruption is associated with reduced demand for port services. Our results suggest that firms respond to the opportunities and challenges created by different types of corruption, organizing production in a way that increases or decreases demand for the public service. Understanding how firms respond to corruption has important implications for how we conceptualize, identify and measure the overall impact of corruption on economic activity

    Price Discrimination and Fairness Concerns

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    We analyze the profitability of third degree price discrimination under consideration of consumers' fairness concerns within an experiment and explain the results within a theoretical framework. We find that with an increase in the price differential negative reciprocal reactions by disadvantaged consumers become stronger compared to positive reciprocal reactions by advantaged consumers. Consequently, the profit maximizing price differential lies below the one predicted to be optimal by standard theory. Further, profitability increases when consumers who are regarded as poorer are charged lower prices compared to when the wealth of the different consumer groups is unknown

    Working Paper 63 - Trade, Trade Liberalisation and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence

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    There can be little doubt that, historically, trade has acted as an important engine ofgrowth for countries at different stages of development, not only by contributing to a moreefficient allocation of resources within countries, but also by transmitting growth from onepart of the world to another. There are static and dynamic gains to be had from tradebetween countries but there is nothing in the theory of trade that says that the gains areequitably distributed. Also, there is nothing in the theory of Customs Unions that says thatthe gains from trade will be equitably distributed between members. Indeed, the CustomsUnion as a whole may be welfare-reducing if trade diversion exceeds trade creation. Recentresearch suggests that regional trade agreements, reduce growth and investment, butgeneralised trade liberalisation in the form of unilateral tariff reductions (or the reduction ofnon-tariff barriers to trade) improves growth performance. Export growth relax the balanceof payments constraint on demand by providing the foreign exchange to pay for the importcontent of higher levels of consumption, investment and government expenditure. Mostdeveloping countries are constrained in their growth performance by a shortage of foreignexchange and could therefore grow faster with more exports.

    Liberalizing trade in services : a survey

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    Since the mid 1980s a substantial amount of research has been undertaken on trade in services. Much of this is inspired by the World Trade Organization or regional trade agreements, especially the European Union, but an increasing number of papers focus on the impacts of services sector liberalization. This paper surveys the literature, focusing on contributions that investigate the determinants of international trade and investment in services, the potential gains from greater trade (and liberalization), and efforts to cooperate to achieve such liberalization through trade agreements. It concludes that there is increasing evidence that services liberalization is an important source of potential welfare gains, but relatively little research has been done that can inform the design of international cooperation-both trade agreements and development assistance-so as to more effectively promote development objectives.Economic Theory&Research,Trade and Services,Free Trade,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,ICT Policy and Strategies

    Trade, Insecurity, and Home Bias: An Empirical Investigation

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    Corruption and imperfect contract enforcement dramatically reduce trade. This paper estimates the reduction, using a structural model of import demand in which transactions costs impose a price markup on traded goods. We find that inadequate institutions constrain trade far more than tariffs do. We also find that omitting indexes of institutional quality from the model leads to an underestimate of home bias. Using a broad sample of countries, we find that the traded goods expenditure share declines significantly as income per capita rises, other things equal. Cross-country variation in the effectiveness of institutions offers a simple explanation of the observed global pattern of trade, in which high-income, capital-abundant countries trade disproportionately with one another.

    Rethinking International Subsidy Rules. Bertelsmann Working Paper 28/02/2020

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    Geo-economic tensions and global collective action problems call for international cooperation to revise and de-velop rules to guide both the use of domestic subsidies and responses by governments to cross-border competition spillover effects. Current WTO rules that divide all subsidies into either prohibited or actionable cate-gories are no longer fit for purpose. Piecemeal efforts in preferential trade agreements and bi- or trilateral configurations offer a basis on which to build, but are too narrow in scope and focus. Addressing the spillover ef-fects of subsidies could start with launching a work program at the 12th Ministerial Conference of the WTO to mobilize an epistemic community concerned with subsidy policies, tasked with building a more solid evidence base on the magnitude, purpose and effects of subsidy policies

    The Trade Reducing Effects of Market Power in International Shipping

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    Developing countries pay substantially higher transportation costs than developed nations, which leads to less trade and perhaps lower incomes. This paper investigates price discrimination in the shipping industry and the role it plays in determining transportation costs. In the presence of market power, shipping prices depend on the demand characteristics of goods being traded. We show theoretically and estimate empirically that shipping firms charge higher prices when transporting goods with higher product prices, lower import demand elasticities, and higher tariffs, and when facing fewer competitors on a trade route. These characteristics explain more variation in shipping prices than do conventional proxies such as distance, and significantly contribute to the higher shipping prices facing the developing world. Markups increase shipping prices by at least 83 percent for the mean shipment in Latin American imports. Our findings are also important for evaluating the impact of tariff liberalization. Shipping firms decrease prices by 1-2 percent for every 1 percent reduction in tariffs.
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