Partners or predators? : the impact of regional trade liberalization on Indonesia

The authors empirically assess regional integration and liberalization scenarios impact on Indonesia and other Pacific Rim economies, including the complete Uruguay Round, further global liberalization and the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) free trade areas. They consider how major international exchange rate realignments affect the world trade pattern, and Indonesia in particular. The analysis uses a multi-country, computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to quantify the trade liberalization impact on countries, sectors, and factors. The extended APEC-CGE model consists of nine linked country models: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (together), the Philippines, Thailand, China (including Hong Kong), Korea and Taiwan, Japan, the United States and the European Union. Each country model is linked through explicit bilateral trade flows modeling for each traded sector. The empirical results lead to several conclusions: a) eliminating tariff and non tariff barriers in industrial countries (especially the Multifibre Agreement) gives Asian developing countries the opportunity to expand exports and achieve productivity gains; b) creation of an APEC free trade area gives participants significant benefits, with little effect on nonmembers while creation of an ASEAN free trade area gives its members little benefit, thus ASEAN countries should work toward more liberalization under GATT or hasten the APEC free trade area creation; c) all economies gain the most from further multilateral liberalization; and d) major exchange rate realignments significantly affect bilateral trade balances and world trade volume and direction. However, they have less effect than trade liberalization on the internal production and trade structure. Sectoral protection andsubsidy rates vary greatly and their elimination yields significant efficiency gains. Changes in exchange rates have less effect.Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Transport and Trade Logistics,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration,Trade Policy

After the negotiations: assessing the impact of free trade agreements in Southern Africa

After protracted and difficult negotiations, agreement was recently reached on the dimensions of a South African-EU free trade deal. Because of South Africa's prominence in the sub-region, implementation of this agreement will have an impact not only on South Africa, but on all the SADC economies. This paper traces how this impact may be felt over time, using a multi-region model constructed to focus on the determination of sectoral and geographic trade patterns. By separatelymodeling South Africa and the rest of southern Africa, the model can be used to evaluate how alternative SADC regional trade strategies can influence how the EU deal affects the region's economies; by distinguishing among major trading partners (EU, North America, East Asia), the simulations can help illuminate how the trade deal will likely affect current trade patterns The empirical results lead to a number of conclusions: (1) trade creation dominates trade diversion for the region under all FTA arrangements; (2) the rest of southern Africa benefits from an FTA between the EU and South Africa — the recently signed bilateral agreement is not a “beggar thy neighbor” policy; (3) the rest of southern Africa gains more from zero-tariff access to EU markets than from a partial (50 percent) reduction in global tariffs; and (4) the South African economy is not large enough to serve as a growth pole for the region. Access to EU markets provides substantially bigger gains for the rest of southern Africa than does access to South Africa.Trade policy Africa., Free trade., South Africa.,

Examining the Relationships Among Categorization, Stereotype Activation, and Stereotype Application.

Increased category salience is associated with increased stereotyping. Prior research has not examined the processes that may account for this relationship. That is, it is unclear whether category salience leads to increased stereotyping by increasing stereotype activation (i.e., increased accessibility of stereotypic information), application (i.e., increasing the tendency to apply activated stereotypes), or both processes simultaneously. We examined this question across three studies by manipulating category salience in an implicit stereotyping measure and by applying a process model that provides independent estimates of stereotype activation and application. Our results replicated past findings that category salience increases stereotyping. Modeling results showed that category salience consistently increased the extent of stereotype application but increased stereotype activation in more limited contexts. Implications for models of social categorization and stereotyping are discussed

Implementation Intentions Reduce Implicit Stereotype Activation and Application.

Research has found that implementation intentions, if-then action plans (e.g., "if I see a Black face, I will think safe"), reduce stereotyping on implicit measures. However, it is unknown by what process(es) implementation intentions reduce implicit stereotyping. The present research examines the effects of implementation intentions on stereotype activation (e.g., extent to which stereotypic information is accessible) and stereotype application (e.g., extent to which accessible stereotypes are applied in judgment). In addition, we assessed the efficiency of implementation intentions by manipulating cognitive resources (e.g., digit-span, restricted response window) while participants made judgments on an implicit stereotyping measure. Across four studies, implementation intentions reduced implicit stereotyping. This decrease in stereotyping was associated with reductions in both stereotype activation and application. In addition, these effects of implementation intentions were highly efficient and associated with reduced stereotyping even for groups for which people may have little practice inhibiting stereotypes (e.g., gender)