Costly Procedures: Divergent Effects of Legalization in the GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures

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Ex Ante Due Diligence: Formation of PTAs and Protection of Labor Rights

Do fair trade PTAs—trade agreements that contain provisions for protection of labor rights—lead to improvements in labor protection in PTA partner states? If so, how do the PTAs bring about such improvements? I argue that trade partner states are likely to engage in ex ante due diligence and improve the protection of labor rights at home before they sign or even enter into negotiations for a PTA. Given that large developed economies have increasingly placed value on strong labor protection, trade partners of these economies act on the belief that, holding other factors constant, having stronger labor protection will increase their attractiveness as a potential or a prospective PTA partner. I test this argument in the context of the United States and its trade partners between 1982 and 2005. The evidence shows that trade partner states indeed are much more likely to improve labor protection (i) prior to the 2002 Trade Act publicizing the importance of labor protection and (ii) prior to signing a PTA with the United States

Replication Data for Alliances and the High Politics of International Trade

What is the role of trade policy in military alliances? We analyze and test a game- theoretic model of economic and security cooperation in which allies hold different in- terests across the security and commercial aspects of the relationship. In equilibrium, allies with little market power who are valuable politically to larger states engage in suboptimal protectionism, since their allies’ threats of retaliation are incredible. Sta- ble cooperation emerges in the form of unretaliated protection rather than mutually low trade barriers. We test the model’s implications against a dyadic dataset of antidumping petitions from 1980-2013 and find that larger allies are are more likely to tolerate pro- tectionism by smaller allies by denying domestic petitions to retaliate against dumping measures by the latter

Lingua Mercatoria: Language and Foreign Direct Investment

Does language choice attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and if so, how? We argue that language—a dynamic instrument for reducing transaction costs—can influence investors' decision to allocate capital. Potential host countries attract investments by coordinating their domestic language policies—especially those in education—to match the language of the potential FDI investor. We subject our argument to three different tests: (i) a cross-sectional sample of all global Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development investments that employs a newly constructed language-in-education measurement; (ii) a newly assembled time-series cross-sectional data set of all Chinese FDI abroad; and (iii) a detailed case study that uses process tracing to explain Chinese FDI in Indonesia. The results from these tests demonstrate a significant and robust relationship between language and FDI

Context Matters for Preschool Discipline: Effects of Distance Learning and Pandemic Fears

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the context and delivery of early childhood education, yet little is known about its impact on exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspension, expulsion), which nationally representative evidence has shown disproportionately impacts Black boys. Using one experiment, we test how preschool providers respond to three hypothetical vignettes about a Black boy’s behaviors. Participants (N = 60) were randomly assigned to read vignettes set in either distance learning or in-person classroom contexts. Then, participants completed measures about discipline and COVID-19. Results indicated there was an interaction between context and the sequence of vignettes on providers’ troubled feelings and endorsements of discipline. Providers showed heightened troubled feelings and endorsements of discipline severity in the distance learning context, as compared to an in-person context, as vignettes progressed. Additionally, the more providers feared COVID-19, the more they felt troubled over the course of the vignettes across conditions. Practitioners can use this research to inform consultative interventions that mitigate discipline by directly addressing providers’ pandemic fears and classroom contexts