A rock and a hard place : the two faces of U.S. trade policy toward Korea

U.S. trade policy since the 1980s has been quite different from trade policy in the first two or three decades after World War II. Until the 1970s, U.S.trade policy was dominated by systematic concerns. Trade policy actions were subject to the disciplines of constructing an open, stable, and nondiscriminatory system. In contrast, for the past 10 or 15 years the main objective of trade policy actions has been to respond to the demands of various domestic constituents for greater access to foreign markets or for reduced foreign access to the U.S. market. When systemic concerns were strong, they helped discipline the actions the U.S. government would take to advance the interest of a particular constituent. But now, these constituent-supporting actions are U.S. trade policy. To state the same point another way, the current objective of U.S. trade"policy"is to respond to each constituent's plea for the application of this or that regulatory instrument (antidumping,"301,"and so on) - to respond in a way that will win that constituent's vote."Policy"is now no more than a generic label for the accumulation of these responses. The author describes the accumulation of these responses. He tabulates U.S. trade actions in the 1980s, paying particular attention to actions against Korea. While Korean economic interests were advanced by restrictions on Korea's and other countries'exports of steel to the United States and the European Union (EU), the outcome, judged globally, was probably negative. Rent transfers to Korean and other exporters are, on a global basis, transfers from U.S. and EU users, and hence net to zero. That leaves only the efficiency effects, which is estimated to add up to a global loss of about $36 million a year, based on process and the size of the industry in 1984. The underlying theme, says the author, is that these actions have no unifying discipline except to respond in a politically acceptable way to constituent pressures. These are responses to the politics and economics of specific situations, not the automatic or hands-off extension of nondiscriminatory standards that the still-popular rhetoric of a"rules-based"system would suggest.TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Rules of Origin,Economic Theory&Research

Difficulties of transferring risk-based capital requirements to developing countries

In principle, financial regulation seeks to remedy recognized deficiencies in a nation's economic, political, and bureaucratic incentivestructures. But the social urgency of particular financial policy problems differ according to a country's stage of development. Regulatory strategies that make sense for industrial countries are unlikely to work the same way in developing countries. The author examines opportunities for transferring the framework of risk-based capital requirements negotiated by the G-10 countries under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements in Basle. He finds that an unchanged transfer of the Basle framework to developing countries is economically inappropriate and politically infeasible. And its voluntary adapation is difficult because the long-run economic appropriateness of the Basle framework of solvency regulations directly opposes their short-run political embraceability. The author believes that what most urgently needs to be transferred to developing countries are elements of supervisory technology: methods of information collection and management, legal processes for prompt and equitable default resolution, and mechanisms for controlling the incentive conflicts that lead bankers and government supervisors to resist the healthy exit or recapitalization of damaged institutions. As a first step, the author recommends that the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements promote economically beneficial reforms in information collection and management, reforms that do not preclude flexibility in current prudential standards in individual countries.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Banking Law,Economic Theory&Research

The nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of polypropylene

A series of tensile relaxation tests is performed on isotactic polypropylene in the sub-yield and post-yield regions at room temperature. Constitutive equations are derived for the time-dependent response of a semicrystalline polymer at isothermal loading with small strains. Adjustable parameters in the stress-strain relations are found by fitting experimental data. It is demonstrated that the growth of the longitudinal strain results in an increase in the relaxation rate in a small interval of strains in the sub-yield domain. When the strain exceeds some critical value which is substantially less than the apparent yield strain, the relaxation process becomes strain-independent.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

The effect of strain rate on the viscoplastic behavior of isotactic polypropylene at finite strains

Two series of uniaxial tensile tests are performed on isotactic polypropylene with the strain rates ranging from 5 to 200 mm/min. In the first series, injection-molded specimens are used without thermal pre-treatment, whereas in the other series, the samples are annealed for 51 h at 160C prior to testing. A constitutive model is developed for the viscoplastic behavior of isotactic polypropylene at finite strains. A semicrystalline polymer is treated as an equivalent heterogeneous network of chains bridged by permanent junctions (physical cross-links and entanglements). The network is thought of as an ensemble of meso-regions connected with each other by links (lamellar blocks). In the sub-yield region of deformations, junctions between chains in meso-domains slide with respect to their reference positions (which reflects sliding of nodes in the amorphous phase and fine slip of lamellar blocks). Above the yield point, sliding of nodes is accompanied by displacements of meso-domains in the ensemble with respect to each other (which reflects coarse slip and fragmentation of lamellar blocks). Stress-strain relations for a semicrystalline polymer are derived by using the laws of thermodynamics. The constitutive equations are determined by 5 adjustable parameters that are found by matching observations. Fair agreement is demonstrated between the experimental data and the results of numerical simulation.Comment: 27 pages, 20 figure

Modelling the linear viscoelastic behavior of silicate glasses near the glass transition point

A model is derived for the viscoelastic response of glasses at isothermal uniaxial deformation with small strains. A glass is treated as an ensemble of relaxing units with various activation energies for rearrangement. With reference to the energy-landscape concept, the rearrangement process is thought of as a series of hops of relaxing units (trapped in their potential wells on the energy landscape) to higher energy levels. Stress-strain relations are developed by using the laws of thermodynamics. Adjustable parameters are found by fitting experimental data in torsional dynamic tests on a multicomponent silicate glass at several temperatures near the glass transition point.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figure

Will GATT enforcement control antidumping?

The authors try to gauge why the GATT dispute settlement process has, to date, been so ineffective in disciplining the use of antidumping measures. Focusing on the five cases in which panels have completed their findings and recommendations, the authors identify the sources of this ineffectiveness and evaluate the likelihood that the process will become effective. Changing the bureaucratic momentum of the system is possible, they contend, but would not be easy. It would require greater resolve by member countries'GATT delegates to see that GATT rules are enforced - a greater willingness to stand up to domestic pressures to bend GATT rules to suit the demands of national politics. Changing the legal momentum of the system will be even more difficult, say the authors. Interpreting the GATT in a legalistic way compels one to interpret it as a statement of rights to impose antidumping duties. The substantive criteria for action are broad: the injury concept justifies protection for anyone to whom it is worth the time to ask for it. The constraints onantidumping actions - loopholes and procedural technicalities - are artificial, so legal reform means getting rid of them. Where do the GATT articles on trade remedies lead? The authors contend that if you take a legalistic view, you come to a protectionist conclusion.TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Globalization and Financial Integration,Environmental Economics&Policies,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry

Can competition policy control"301"?

Should fair trade rules be replaced by national or international competition rules? A familiar argument for doing so is that more rigorously enforced competition standards might eliminate the basis for the burgeoning number of antidumping cases of recent years. A less familiar argument is that the implementation of internationally agreed competition standards might reduce the frequency with which the U.S government uses section 301 of U.S. trade law. Section 301 lists foreign government toleration of systematic anticompetitive activities as one of the bases for taking retaliatory action against foreign uncompetitive practices but were taken up through other mechanisms; extraterritorial application of U.S. antitrust law or direct negotiations sometimes capped by an understanding at the presidential level. These negotiations often included the threat of initiation of antidumping,"301,"or other trade remedies cases. (The structuralimpediments initiative negotiations with Japan are the most familiar example.) In several of these cases, the foreign government agreed to and implemented more rigorous antitrust enforcement, but these actions seldom ended the dispute. The U.S. government pressed on for tangible evidence of increased U.S. export sales. The authors conclude that removing the basis for these disputes -- alleged lax enforcement of competition policy -- did not remove the motive for them -- increased U.S. exports. Competition policy then is not the antidote for"301."The last section of the paper reviews the compatibility of"301"with the preservation of open international trading system. Of 70"301"cases (through December 31, 1992) that have led to policy changes, 52 have led to liberalizations, and only 18 have led to increased trade restrictions. Viewed from the point of view of results, the major shortcoming of"301"is that the United States is the only country whose policies do not come under its scrutiny.TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance

Ferroelectric and dielectric characterization studies on relaxor- and ferroelectric-like strontium-barium niobates

Ferroelectric domain structure evolution induced by an external electric field was investigated by means of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) method in two strontium-barium niobate single crystals of nominal composition: Sr_{0.70}Ba_{0.30}Nb_{2}O_{6} (SBN:70 - relaxor) and Sr_{0.26}Ba_{0.74}Nb_{2}O_{6} (SBN:26 - ferroelectric). Our results provide evidence that the broad phase transition and frequency dispersion that are exhibited in SBN:70 crystal have a strong link to the configuration of ferroelectric microdomains. The large leakage current revealed in SBN:26 may compensate internal charges acting as pinning centers for domain walls, which gives rise to a less restricted domain growth similar to that observed in classical ferroelectrics. Microscale studies of a switching process in conjunction with electrical measurements allowed us to establish a relationship between local properties of the domain dynamics and macroscopic response i.e., polarization hysteresis loop and dielectric properties.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure