Contracts in Trade and Transition

Contracts in Trade and Transition
Author: Dalia Marin
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262263757

An institutional approach to explaining countertrade and barter in international trade and domestic trade in transition economies. Difficulties in contract enforcement impede international transactions in the world economy and domestic transactions in transition economies. In Contracts in Trade and Transition, Dalia Marin and Monika Schnitzer explain how barter as an economic institution can facilitate contract enforcement across national borders in international trade and within borders in transition countries. The authors show that international countertrade—tying an export to an import—emerged in the 1980s in response to the international debt crisis when Western creditors refused to finance imports to developing countries and Eastern Europe. Barter—the exchange of goods without the use of money—reemerged in transition economies in the 1990s in response to a domestic debt crisis when banks in transition countries were reluctant to provide finance to firms. Countertrade and barter introduce a deal-specific form of collateral that addresses the lack of creditworthiness of countries and firms. Drawing on contract theory, the authors argue that parties might want to pay in goods rather than cash or link an export with an import as in countertrade to solve incentive problems that otherwise would prevent any trade from taking place. The incentive problems they discuss are the technology transfer problem to developing countries and the "lack of trust" problem in the former Soviet Union.

NAFTA in Transition

NAFTA in Transition
Author: Stephen J. Randall
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 1995
Genre: Business and politics
ISBN: 1895176638

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic, social, cultural and political dimensions of the evolving trilateral relationship among the three countries of North America. Contributors address such topics as energy, the environment, trade, labour, the maquiladora industrial sector of Mexico, the Mexican auto industry, and Canada - U.S. cultural relations.While other publications have focused on U.S. issues, this one emphasizes Canada and Mexico, yet adds significantly to our understanding of the place of the United States in this evolving trilateral relationship.

Trade Facilitation and the Global Economy

Trade Facilitation and the Global Economy
Author: Collectif
Publisher: OECD
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2018-05-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9264300317

In a globalised world, where goods cross borders many times as intermediate and as final products, trade facilitation is essential to lowering overall trade costs and increasing economic welfare, in particular for developing and emerging economies. Facilitation efforts undertaken by various countries around the world also show that the benefits of such measures clearly compensate the costs and challenges posed by their implementation.

The Impact of Trade Agreements

The Impact of Trade Agreements
Author: Swarnali Ahmed Hannan
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2016-09-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 147554071X

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has reinvigorated research on the ex-ante impact of trade agreements. The results from these ex-ante models are subject to considerable uncertainties, and needs to be complimented by ex-post studies. The paper fills this gap in recent literature by employing synthetic control methods (SCM) – currently extremely popular in micro and macro studies – to understand the impact of trade agreements in the period 1983–1995 for 104 country pairs. The key advantage of using SCM to address selection bias – one of the persisting issues in trade literature – is that it allows the effect of unobserved confounder to vary with time, as opposed to traditional econometric methods that can deal with time-invariant unobserved country characteristics. Using SCM approach, the paper finds that trade agreements can generate substantial gains, on average an increase of exports by 80 percentage points over ten years. The export gains are higher when emerging markets have trade agreements with advanced markets. The paper shows that all the countries in NAFTA have substantially gained due to NAFTA. Finally, there is some evidence that trade agreements can potentially lead to slight import diversion, but not export diversion.

International Trade Regulation and the Mitigation of Climate Change

International Trade Regulation and the Mitigation of Climate Change
Author: Thomas Cottier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2009-09-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Drawing on the expertise of leading voices, this book takes stock of key challenges in addressing climate change mitigation, serving as a reference tool for understanding the interface between international trade and climate and shedding light on key issues including global commons, border tax adjustment, subsidies and biofuels.

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization
Author: Craig VanGrasstek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.

World Development Report 2020

World Development Report 2020
Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2019-11-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464814953

Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.

LNG Markets in Transition

LNG Markets in Transition
Author: Anne-Sophie Corbeau
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Liquefied natural gas industry
ISBN: 9780198783268

The present situation in the LNG market should be seen as a 'crossroads' for the industry. The LNG industry has not been static over the past 5 decades and has already experienced many changes, but still the model of long-term contracts prevails and the majority of LNG is still bought at oil-indexed gas prices. There have however been considerable changes: an increase in short-term trading of LNG, buyer contractual flexibility and FOB contracts which have lead to around a quarter of the LNG is being traded under spot and short-term contracts, with aggregators play a far more significant role. All these factors have influenced project business structures. The industry has now embarked on a period of further change, with 180 bcm of new LNG export capacity (equivalent to more than 50% of LNG trade in 2014) under construction at a time when the assumed rapid LNG demand growth in Asia appears to be slowing. The absorption of this new supply will affect, not only trade-flow patterns, but also pricing dynamics, competition with other gas supply channels and (in the power sector) potentially other fuels. Key to this change is US LNG, with buyers becoming more selective about the price and delivery terms they are ready to accept. Sellers however are facing high costs and are reluctant to abandon a business model in which they have confidence. Oil indexation is under further attack with US LNG selling at HH indexed prices (plus costs), and other sellers and buyers have been pressured to adopt different pricing policies and secure more contractual flexibility. This volume examines the development of the LNG business over the past 50 years and examines how the industry will change over the coming 15 years, faced by unprecedented challenges to its historic business model.

Towards a Natural Social Contract

Towards a Natural Social Contract
Author: Patrick Huntjens
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030671305

This open access book is a 2022 Nautilus Gold Medal winner in the category "World Cultures' Transformational Growth & Development". It states that the societal fault lines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security, fairness and sustainability of our societies. The author, Prof. Dr. Patrick Huntjens, argues that overcoming these existential challenges will require a fundamental shift from our current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented approach to a more ecocentric and regenerative approach. He advocates for a Natural Social Contract that emphasizes long-term sustainability and the general welfare of both humankind and planet Earth. Achieving this crucial balance calls for an end to unlimited economic growth, overconsumption and over-individualisation for the benefit of ourselves, our planet, and future generations. To this end, sustainability, health, and justice in all social-ecological systems will require systemic innovation and prioritizing a collective effort. The Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) framework presented in this book serves that cause. It helps to diagnose and advance innovation and spur change across sectors, disciplines, and at different levels of governance. Altogether, TSEI identifies intervention points and formulates jointly developed and shared solutions to inform policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens, and professionals dedicated towards a more sustainable, healthy and just society. A wide readership of students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in social innovation, transition studies, development studies, social policy, social justice, climate change, environmental studies, political science and economics will find this cutting-edge book particularly useful. “As a sustainability transition researcher, I am truly excited about this book. Two unique aspects of the book are that it considers bigger transformation issues (such as societies’ relationship with nature, purpose and justice) than those studied in transition studies and offers analytical frameworks and methods for taking up the challenge of achieving change on the ground.” - Prof. Dr. René Kemp, United Nations University and Maastricht Sustainability Institute