Do Labour Standards have a Role in International Trade?: Private Standards, Preferential Trade Agreements or the WTO

It is now common for producers (economic protectionism), consumers and social advocates (humanitarian motives) to urge for the inclusion of labour standards in international trade agreements. In spite of this, there has been little empirical work to determine whether low labour standards lead to trade distortions. This paper provides some empirical evidence pertaining to this question. Consumer groups, social advocates and traditional vested interests such as labour unions have attempted to have labour standards included in WTO disciplines. In the absence of success at the WTO, the relationship between labour standards and international trade has, however, been evolving in the areas of private standards and preferential trade agreements. Given the role that preferential trade agreements sometimes take in establishing future directions in multilateral trade agreements and the increasing dissatisfaction with the WTO’s treatment of consumer issues in general, in the future labour standards may well work their way into multilateral trade agreements. The empirical results show that low labour standards lead to trade distortions. These effects appear to be small. Further research in this area is suggested.consumers, food processing, labour standards, preferential trade agreements, trade distortion, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

Is There Supply Distortion In The Green Box? An Acreage Response Approach

The shift of the farm subsidies toward programs classified as being decoupled income supports in the WTO’s URAA raises the question of their true impact on production and trade. In this study, we measured the acreage effects of the Canadian whole farm programs under uncertainty. Based on the theoretical discussions regarding the role of the insurance effect in acreage decisions, we extend the theoretical restrictions examined by Chavas and Holt (1990)which enables us to include this effect in our model specification. Hence, we modified the expected utility maximization framework (under the hypothesis that farmers are risk averse) developed by Chavas and Holt (1990) and derived three distinct effects: market effects, the wealth effect, and the insurance effect.WTO, decoupled, green box, area, production, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade, Production Economics,

Labour Standards as a Justification for Trade Barriers: Consumer Concerns, Protectionism and the Evidence

In this article, justifications by producers (economic protectionism), consumers and social advocates (humanitarian motives) for including labour standards in international trade agreements are discussed. To date, little work has been undertaken to determine empirically whether low labour standards lead to trade distortions. This article provides some empirical evidence pertaining to this question. Consumer groups, social advocates and traditional vested interests such as labour unions have attempted to have labour standards included in WTO disciplines. In the absence of success at the WTO, the relationship between labour standards and international trade has, however, been evolving in the areas of private standards and preferential trade agreements. Given the leading role that preferential trade agreements sometimes take in establishing future directions in multilateral trade agreements and the increasing dissatisfaction with the WTO’s treatment of consumer issues in general, in the future labour standards may well work their way into multilateral trade agreements. The empirical results show that low labour standards could potentially lead to trade distortions, but more empirical work is required before a legitimate case might be made to have labour standards considered in multilateral trade negotiations.consumers, food processing, labour standards, preferential trade agreements, trade distortion, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade, Labor and Human Capital,

Numerical modelling of thermo-hydromechanical (THM) in deforming porous media for subsurface systems

The study of multiphase flow and heat flow in partially saturated porous media is important in environmental geomechanics engineering because of its relevance to consolidation of porous media in unsaturated zone. A numerical model which describes the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupled problems in deformable porous material with two-phase flow has been developed. The relationships between capillary pressure, saturation of water and relative permeabilities of water and gas, proposed by Brooks and Corey was used. An extended study of the numerical model, based on the COMES-GEO code was conducted recently to solve unsaturated problems in local condition of Kg. Puteh wellfield, Kota Bharu. This site is a potential shallow aquifer which contribute to the largest groundwater supply in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Some numerical investigation on the proposed formulation is discussed with illustrative example problems to demonstrate solution procedures and validating of the model

Investigations the Optical Properties of InN Thin Film

تم في هذا البحث دراسة الخواص البصرية لمادة مركبة شبه موصلة  هي  نترات النيديوم. اعتمدت هذه الدراسة على  ظاهرة الامتصاص المضاعف للفوتون باستخدام جهاز مطياف Varian UV/VIB/NIR Cary لقياس طيف الامتصاص لهذه المادة . كما وتم حساب سمك الغشاء الرقيق وقيمته ٣,٥ مايكرومتر.In the present work the optical properties have been investigated for the composite semiconductor material is Indium Nitrite (InN). In this study the multiphoton absorption phenomenon for the photon have been depended. The absorption spectrum for the Indium nitrite (InN) was recorded by using 5000 Varian UV-VIB-NIR Cary spectroscopy. The thickness of the thin film was calculated to be 3.5µ

Echo Cancelation Using Least Mean Square (LMS) Algorithm

The aim of this work is to investigate methods for restoring signals that are corrupted by one or more echos. Echo commonly occur over communication channels such as telephone and ADSL lines. A reasonable model of the echo process at the time domain has been proposed. The echo removal system is modeled as an FIR filter with an unknown impulse response. We estimate the required impulse response by transmitting a known signal x [n] over the channel and observing the corresponding output y[n]. We want a system that takes the echo signal y[n] as input, and outputs the original signal x[n]. Keywords: Echo cancelation, FIR filter, Least Mean Square (LMS

Properties and use of CMB power spectrum likelihoods

Fast robust methods for calculating likelihoods from CMB observations on small scales generally rely on approximations based on a set of power spectrum estimators and their covariances. We investigate the optimality of these approximation, how accurate the covariance needs to be, and how to estimate the covariance from simulations. For a simple case with azimuthal symmetry we compare optimality of hybrid pseudo-C_l CMB power spectrum estimators with the exact result, indicating that the loss of information is not negligible, but neither is it enough to have a large effect on standard parameter constraints. We then discuss the number of samples required to estimate the covariance from simulations, with and without a good analytic approximation, and assess the use of shrinkage estimators. Finally we discuss how to combine an approximate high-ell likelihood with a more exact low-ell harmonic-space likelihood as a practical method for accurate likelihood calculation on all scales.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures; updated to match version accepted by PR