An evaluation of the main elements in the leading proposals to phase out the Multi-Fibre Arrangement

Two approaches took the lead in the negotiations to dismantle the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA): (a) a phaseout with the framework of the MFA, proposed by developing countries, the European Community, Japan, and the Nordic countries; and (b) a new transitional structure relying on global quotas with country allotments for current quota holders, suggested by the United States and Canada. Under both scenarios, accelerated quota growth is the main device for phaseout. Country quotas, in the first approach, and global quotas in the second, will have to expand in such a way to avoid a"shock"when they are abolished at the end of the phaseout. The second most important element in the phaseout proposals, besides expanding quotas and abolishing them at the end of the phaseout period, is scrapping them along the way according to some predetermined criteria and scheme. In the proposals, this is defined in terms of country characteristics, specific products, product characteristics, or some criterion pertaining to the historical record, such a quota use. The historical record reveals that growth in highly utilized quotas was significantly lower compared with unfilled quotas. There is one important virtue in a phaseout based on the current structure of the MFA. Not only are the mechanisms in place familiar to the negotiating parties, but so are the magnitudes of most of the parameters: current quota levels, quota growth rates over the last few years, and their use ratios.Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Conditions and Volatility,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators,Environmental Economics&Policies

Tariff valuation bases and trade among developing countries : do developing countries discriminate against their own trade?

In establishing the value of imports for tariff assessment, most countries apply duties either to the cost-insurance-freight (c.i.f.) or the free-on-board (f.o.b.) value of the traded good. One effect of using the far more common c.i.f. base is to place a disproportinate burden on countries that have higher freight and insurance costs. Distant countries often not only pay higher transport costs, but are further penalized by disproportionate tariff costs that worsen their competitive disadvantage. The f.o.b. valuation procedure does not penalize exporters for their location, but applies a nominal tariff rate directly to the export costs of each country. Using cost information for six Latin American countries, this paper examines the influence of the two procedures on the level and incidence of tariff protection. It concludes that transport and insurance costs generally put developing countries at a disadvantage (compared to developed countries) on interregional trade and that the relatively high Latin American tariffs on c.i.f. prices further worsen their competitive position. To correct the bias against trade between developing countries, it is recommended that f.o.b. valuation procedures used by developed countries be adopted. This change would also reduce tariff barriers considerably.Economic Theory&Research,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies

Protection facing exports from sub-Saharan Africa in the EC, Japan, and the United States

The authors address two questions in this report : 1) have exporters in sub - Saharan Africa (SSA) faced more or less protection in Japan, the EC, and the United States than other developing countries and 2) to what extent has protection in those markets constrained SSA's export growth. The authors find that on the whole SSA suffered relatively little from either tariff or nontariff protection in the major industrial markets. In part, this is because they often get a better preferential treatment, especially in the EC, and also, it is because their exports are heavy in primary goods which aregenerally subject to less protection. The authors finally point out that there is no compelling evidence that protection in the major industrial markets has constrained export growth in SSA.Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies,Export Competitiveness

Non-autonomous Svinolupov Jordan KdV Systems

Non-autonomous Svinolupov-Jordan systems are considered. The integrability criteria of such systems are associated with the existence of recursion operators. A new non-autonomous KdV system is obtained and its recursion operator is given for all $N$. The examples for N=2 and N=3 are studied in detail. Some possible transformations are also discussed which map some systems to autonomous cases.Comment: Latex file (amssymb), 10 page

The Social Dimension in Selected Candidate Countries in the Balkans: Country Report on Turkey. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 41, 14 December 2007

The European Commission awarded a contract in November 2005 to a consortium composed of the TARKI Social Research Institute (Hungary), CASE, Center for Social and Economic Research (Poland) and CEPS to analyse the socio-economic developments and the process of structural reforms in what were then four candidate countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey. The objective was to identify the major challenges in the current demographic, social and economic context that could be considered relevant in determining the capacity of these countries to function in the European Union. This study presents the findings for Turkey and consists of an analytical section and a statistical annex. The other country reports and synthesis report are published separately in this same serie

On the Sample Information About Parameter and Prediction

The Bayesian measure of sample information about the parameter, known as Lindley's measure, is widely used in various problems such as developing prior distributions, models for the likelihood functions and optimal designs. The predictive information is defined similarly and used for model selection and optimal designs, though to a lesser extent. The parameter and predictive information measures are proper utility functions and have been also used in combination. Yet the relationship between the two measures and the effects of conditional dependence between the observable quantities on the Bayesian information measures remain unexplored. We address both issues. The relationship between the two information measures is explored through the information provided by the sample about the parameter and prediction jointly. The role of dependence is explored along with the interplay between the information measures, prior and sampling design. For the conditionally independent sequence of observable quantities, decompositions of the joint information characterize Lindley's measure as the sample information about the parameter and prediction jointly and the predictive information as part of it. For the conditionally dependent case, the joint information about parameter and prediction exceeds Lindley's measure by an amount due to the dependence. More specific results are shown for the normal linear models and a broad subfamily of the exponential family. Conditionally independent samples provide relatively little information for prediction, and the gap between the parameter and predictive information measures grows rapidly with the sample size.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-STS329 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org