Assessing Euro-Med trade preferences: the case of entry price reduction

The EU protects some of its fruits and vegetables through the entry price system. This system consists on a two-tiered tariff, with high-priced exports paying an ad valorem tariff, whereas low-priced exports pay also a supplementary specific tariff. The breaking point between high and low export prices is the entry price level decided by the EU, generally the same level for all third countries. In a few cases, some Southern Mediterranean partners of the EU have agreed a reduced entry price for their exports, together with the more common ad valorem tariff reduction. Among the indicators used for gauge the value of preferences, there is no one devoted to this case of reduced entry price, hence we develop a new indicator that allows to split which part of the preferential gains corresponds to the entry price reduction and which part corresponds to the “usual” ad valorem tariff reduction. We apply this methodology to Moroccan clementines trade flows, with two main findings: 1) The entry price reduction ranges up to 39% of the economic value of preferences in some months; 2) Morocco is not maximizing the gains due to this reduction, and could take some trade and policy lessons, mainly trying to better fit to the concession or, if impossible, use it as negotiating capital in future reviews of the agreement.Euro-Mediterranean Trade; trade preferences; fruits and vegetables; entry price regime

Current preferences of Southern Mediterranean Countries and their erosion after variations of the entry price system

It has been calculated the value of the preference margin granted to Euro-Mediterranean partners in the cases of reduced entry prices in force, and then it has been simulated the impact of EU trade liberalisation for F&V on such values after two different alternatives of EP system variations resulting from a WTO agreement. The results of current preferences indicate that in monetary terms there is only a significant relevance of the preferential EPs in the case of Moroccan tomatoes and, to a lesser extent, in Moroccan clementines. Very little is the relevance for Jordanian tomatoes and cucumbers and Moroccan courgettes, cucumbers and artichokes. In the cases of oranges from Egypt, Morocco, Israel and Jordan, preferential EP has not meant potential monetary transfers to these preference-receiver countries. Instead, the ad valorem tariff exoneration seems crucial in almost all the products. With regard to the erosion of preferences as a result of a WTO agreement, the magnitude of the erosion depends crucially on the variation/no-variation of the current trigger EPs, and the undermining of preferences is concentrated mostly on Moroccan tomatoes.Entry prices, erosion of trade preferences, Euro-Mediterranean trade, fruits and vegetables, International Relations/Trade,

Assessing Euro-Med Trade Preferences: The Case of Entry Price Reduction

The EU protects some of its fruits and vegetables through the entry price system. This system consists on a two-tiered tariff, with high-priced exports paying an ad valorem tariff, whereas low-priced exports pay also a supplementary specific tariff. The breaking point between high and low export prices is the entry price level decided by the EU, generally the same level for all third countries. In a few cases, some Southern Mediterranean partners of the EU have agreed a reduced entry price for their exports, together with the more common ad valorem tariff reduction. Among the indicators used for gauge the value of preferences, there is no one devoted to this case of reduced entry price, hence we develop a new indicator that allows to split which part of the preferential gains corresponds to the entry price reduction and which part corresponds to the "usual" ad valorem tariff reduction. We apply this methodology to Moroccan clementines trade flows, with two main findings: 1) The entry price reduction ranges up to 39% of the economic value of preferences in some months; 2) Morocco is not maximizing the gains due to this reduction, and could take some trade and policy lessons, mainly trying to better fit to the concession or, if impossible, use it as negotiating capital in future reviews of the agreement.International Relations/Trade,

Managing the national road network maintenance in Spain

The Spanish Ministry of Public Works manages the National Road Network, which consists in 27,000 km. In 1992, the average age of pavements was 7.2 years, whereas at present it has increased to 9 years. The great heterogeneity of pavements, the constant increase in the network length and its gradual aging demand important budgets but also agile technical, economic and administrative management models. The Subdirectorate of Maintenance and Operation is responsible of management systems for this network, now helped by the engineering consultancy GETINSA. This communication shows the actual state of the pavement management that consists in an Integrated Database System comprising many parameters both about technical values and administrative follow-up of actions. It is connected to various pavement evolution models that allow managers to predict the future state of the roads, then to establish a maintenance policy. Finally, the Management System calculates a maintenance plan, detailing actions to be done in each section in a multi-year scenario, so that the investment and the road quality are optimised. The Management System software combines analytical formula with geographical information, used for representing results as well as part of the forecast and optimisation models, using the modern technology of “dynamic segments”. Attention has been paid to conciliate the operational organisation of maintenance works with the fact that optimal needs are detailed for each road section in too short distances to be executed separately. The communication starts analysing other existing Pavement Management Systems, then describes the Spanish situation and justifies which Pavement Management System is needed. The body of the text covers the description of the functionalities and design assumptions of the new System. Finally, the conclusions present some future evolutions for the Spanish Management Systems and the possibility to generalise its use to other road networks, either for pavement or other assets.

The Matamoros “drug cult” murders: Borderland perceptions and the shaping of belief

Media coverage of the Matamoros “drug cult murders” highlighted the abduction and murder of twenty-one year old college student, Mark Kilroy, while enhancing negative images of Mexican people. What makes the Kilroy coverage a watershed in history is how racism played a part during and after print media coverage of the discovery at Santa Elena. Through U.S. media especially, Anglo beliefs of cultural backwardness, Mexican police corruption, and religious misrepresentation are expressed by way of stereotypes held about Mexican border people. In this day and age, U.S. media uses these superficial beliefs to portray one group of people, and enhances these beliefs by distorting belief systems that print media characterize as being part of third world images

Intermediate forms and technological change: Exploring the links between technology and topology

The study of technology and technological change is a dynamic field where diverse disciplines from the social sciences and the humanities converge.  It is possible to find several ontologies that incorporate topological referents as heuristic metaphors and simple methodological devices in technological studies.  The paper examines two related topological concepts, continuity and convergence, based on the notions of accumulation of knowledge and a combination of pre-existing technologies to arrive at the notions of convergence and inflation.  The paper concludes with some future research guidelines that formally explore the potential of topology in technology and technological change studies

SPECTRAN, a set of Matlab programs for spectral analysis

Spectral analysis is one of the most important areas of time series econometrics. The use of spectral measures is widespread in different science fields such as economics, physics, engineering, geology. The SPECTRAN toolbox has been developed to facilitate the application of spectral concepts to univariate as well as to multivariate series. It offers a variety of frequency-domain techniques and supports the statistical inference. It also provides convenient tools for the examination of the results, e.g.functions for writing the output to a file or functions specially designed for plotting the estimated spectral measures. The key feature of SPECTRAN is the user-friendliness embodied in, e.g., the central function spectran which performs the whole analysis with default settings, but also gives the user the possibility to adjust them. This document sets out the most relevant spectral concepts and their implementation in SPECTRAN. Finally, three examples shall illustrate the application of different toolbox function to macroeconomic data