International labor standards in the world trade organization and the international labor organization

World Trade Organization

Optimal Intellectual Property Rights Exhaustion and Humanitarian Assistance during a National Health Emergency

We analyze policy options during an international health emergency to provide consumers in least developed countries access to patented life-extending pharmaceuticals. We show that a properly specified tariff against re?xports achieves optimal price dispersion and is shown to depend on the nature of demand, product development costs and humanitarian concerns by western citizens for patients inside a health emergency zone. A tariff dominates regional exhaustion for achieving optimal price dispersion, improves the efficiency properties of a patent for covering product development cost and is a more efficient tool for internalizing a humanitarian externality than a targeted consumption subsidy.Intellectual Property Rights, AIDS, Developing Countries, WTO

Optimal Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Humanitarian Assistance during and International Health Emergency

We analyze policy options during an international health emergency to provide consumers in least developed countries access to patented life-extending pharmaceuticals. We show that a properly specified tariff against reexports achieves optimal price dispersion and is shown to depend on the nature of demand, product development costs and humanitarian concerns by western citizens for patients inside a health emergency zone. A tariff dominates regional exhaustion for achieving optimal price dispersion, improves the efficiency properties of a patent for covering product development cost and is a more efficient tool for internalizing a humanitarian externality than a targeted consumption subsidy.Intellectual Property Rights, AIDS, Developing Countries, WTO

Market Structure, the Exchange Rate, and Pricing Behavior by Firms: Some Evidence from Computable General Equilibrium Trade Models

This paper returns to the static Cournot model, criticized by Krugman, and demonstrates that an exchange rate change will have general equilibrium effects that, in the presence of tariffs or transportation costs, are likely to give rise to pricing to market. In particular, a dollar appreciation will cause changes in the prices of primary factors and intermediate inputs which lower marginal cost for U.S. producers relative to foreign producers. Remarkably, the fall in U.S. production costs, in turn, lowers the foreign market price relative to the U.S. market price when tariffs or transportation costs are present. Thus, exchange rate pass-through appears to be incomplete because the change in relative production costs has also altered the real equilibrium price structure for the two markets. This outcome is entirely consistent with profit-maximization in a one-period model.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100647/1/ECON122.pd

Trade and Welfare Effects of the European Schemes of the Generalized System of Preferences

This paper presents estimates of the trade, price, welfare and employment effects of the GSP schemes of the members of the EEC and EFTA, based on calculations using a general equilibrium computational model of world production and trade.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100650/1/ECON125.pd

Tariffs and Capacity Utilization by Monopolistically Competitive Firms

This paper examines the effect of a tariff imposed on a monopolistically competitive (MC) sector on firm output in a 2 × 2 × 2 model with nonhomothetic technology. If the MC sector is capital intensive, then a tariff will improve the terms of trade, lower home firm demand elasticity, but raise firm output relative to foreign firms. If the MC sector is labor intensive, then excess supply for firm output may be decreasing in price, so the tariff may worsen the home country's terms of trade. Home firm demand elasticity falls but firm output rises relative to the partner country. These results qualify conclusions based on single-sector and single-country models.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100648/1/ECON123.pd

A Computational Analysis of the Effects of the Tokyo Round Negotiations on Preferential Trading Arrangements

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the Tokyo Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) on the major discriminatory trade arrangements. We present results from the import-disaggregated version of the Michigan Computational Model of World Production and Trade which has been used to analyze the production, trade, employment, and price effects of the tariff and some nontariff barrier (NTB) reductions of the Tokyo Round. The model used in this study, while retaining the same degree of country and product detail obtained by Deardorff and Stern (1981, 1983) distinguished bilateral trade flows. Thus the model can be constrained to reflect preferential trading.Research Seminar in International Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100646/1/ECON121.pd