Showing papers on "Free trade published in 1981"

Intra-industry trade and market structure in the industrial countries

Abstract: DURING the 1960s several observers noticed that trade liberalization among the industrial countries was accompanied not by the competing down of inefficient manufacturing industries but rather by an expansion of exports from practically every industry.' Among the European Economic Community's members the exporters dominant before mutual tariff reduction actually lost market share as the liberalization took place, and the patterns of commodities exported by the Community's members became more rather than less similar. The name "intra-industry trade" was bestowed on the growing bilateral exchange of similar goods that gave rise to these patterns of trade. It came to be realized, though, that a lot of intra-industry trade in manufactures takes place, and that it is not just a transient result of trade liberalization. Among industrial countries, for example, there is no obvious relation between the amounts of intra-industry trade in manufactures and the proportional liberalization of trade that has recently taken place.2 Similarly, rapidly growing intra-industry trade has been found among a diverse population of industrial countries that includes some notable stragglers in the march toward freer trade.' And its growth is widely spread across industrial sectors, at least within manufacturing.4 Concurrently, it was pointed out that intra-industry trade could be a long-run equilibrium consequence of several configurations of market structure. Trade controls might in fact not be the most potent factor explaining variations in intra-industry

Odious commerce : Britain, Spain, and the abolition of the Cuban slave trade

Abstract: Preface 1. 'Opening' of a legal trade 2. Parliament versus Cortes 3. Legality and illegality 4. The treaty of 1817 5. Enforcement and re-enforcement: the attempt to make the slave trade prohibition effective 6. The treaty of 1835 7. An abolitionist era 8. The Turnbull affair 9. The Escalera conspiracy 10. The penal law of 1845 11. Free trade and annexationism 12. The failure of the penal law 13. A new class of slaves 14. The abolition of the Cuban slave trade Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index.

The asian trade revolution of the seventeenth century: the east india companies and the decline of the caravan trade

Abstract: (1981). THE ASIAN TRADE REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: THE EAST INDIA COMPANIES AND THE DECLINE OF THE CARAVAN TRADE. Ming Studies: Vol. 1981, No. 1, pp. 29-32.

From bazaar to market: foreign trade and economic development in nineteenth‐century Iran

Abstract: (1981). From bazaar to market: foreign trade and economic development in nineteenth‐century Iran. Iranian Studies: Vol. 14, No. 1-2, pp. 53-85.

Can Developing‐country Exports Keep Growing in the 1980s?

Abstract: This paper reports on the initial findings of the program of studies on the impact of developing-country exports of manufactures on the market of the principal industrial countries. A discussion of the liberal-protectionist balance leads to the conclusion that, while quantitative assessments have been made of the decrease of protection through tariff reductions in the 1970's, it has not been possible to measure the increases in protection resulting from various other measures. It seems that the resurgence of non-tariff protectionism in the 1970s has not destroyed the liberal gains of earlier decades. Analysis of market penetration suggests the industrial countries' market for LDC manufactures is large and still growing. It appears that the liberal-protectionist balance in the 1980s will be critical, particularly for lower income and less successful developing countries. Policies to make liberal attitudes to trade dominant are suggested.

Enterprise and Trade in Victorian Britain: Essays in Historical Economics

Abstract: PART ONE 1. The Achievements of the Cliometric School 2. Does the Past Have Useful Economics? PART TWO 3. From Damnation to Redemption: Judgments on the Late Victorian Entrepreneur (with Lars G. Sandberg) 4. International Differences in Productivity? Coal and Steel in America and Britain before World War I (with an exchange with David Landes) 5. Did Victorian Britain Fail? 6. Controversies * McCloskey on Victorian Growth: A Comment (by Derek H. Aldcroft) * Victorian Growth: A Rejoinder to Derek Aldcroft * A Counterfactual Dialogue with William Kennedy on Late Victorian Failure or the Lack of It * Victorian Britain Did Fail (by N.F.R. Crafts) * No It Did Not: A Reply to Crafts PART THREE 7. From Dependence to Autonym: Judgments on Trade as an Engine of British Growth 8. Magnanimous Albion: Free Trade and British National Income, 1841-1881 9. Britain's Loss From Foreign Industrialization: A Provisional Estimate 10. How the Gold Standard Worked, 1880-1913 (with J. Richard Zecher)

Imperial ‘Free Trade’ and the Hispanic Economy, 1778–1796

Abstract: It has been traditional for students of the Hispanic world in the eighteenth century to identify the introduction of ‘free trade’ between Spain and her American empire as the cornerstone of the Bourbon programme of economic reform. The reasons which they cite are subsumed with admirable clarity by the preamble to the famous Regiamento para el comercio libre of October 12, 1778 itself: the king was convinced, it explained, that ‘only a free and protected Commerce between European and American Spaniards can restore Agriculture, Industry, and Population in my Dominions to their former vigour.

The political market for protection in industrial countries : empirical evidence

Abstract: This paper applies the emerging economic theory of politics to the questions of why some industrial country industries are more protected than others and what triggers changes in the structure of protection. It first integrates and extends somewhat the theory of the political market for protection, from which various determinants of the incentives for interest groups to demand protection and for governments to supply protection are suggested. The paper then draws on a number of new empirical studies to show that the statistical evidence generally supports the theory. It suggests that high barriers to imports of traditional labor-intensive manufactures should be expected to prevail in industrial democracies and to be raised when increased import penetration is coupled with a poor domestic performance in terms of employment or output growth. The paper concludes by suggesting that this should not necessarily drive developing countries to export pessimism. Rather, newly industrializing countries could attempt to raise the political cost of protection by pressuring developing countries directly and through the GATT and could diversify their manufacturing exports by also producing new labor-intensive products which do not compete with long established industries in DCs.

Market Structure and Trade Liberalization A General Equilibrium Assessment

Abstract: The paper examines the consequences of a 50 percent cut of tariff and non-tariff barriers within an applied general equilibrium model of the Canadian economy. The large welfare gains are explained in terms of scale economics and the procompetitive effects of import competition. Sensitivity results are also reported.

Tariffs as Insurance: Optimal Commercial Policy When Domestic Markets are Incomplete

Abstract: Free trade is not optimal for a small country that faces uncertain terms of trade if some factors are immobile - ex post, and markets for contingent claims are incomplete. The government can improve social welfare by using commercial policy that serves as a partial substitute for missing insurance markets. Using a combination of analytical and simulation techniques we demonstrate that optimal policy for this purpose will often have an anti-trade bias. We also show that the usual preference by economists for factor or product taxes and subsidies over tariffs and export subsidies may not be justified in this context.

Trade among developing countries : theory, policy issues, and principal trends

Abstract: The main conclusion is that non-fuel trade among developing countries, excluding capital-surplus oil exporters, accounted for a remarkably stable share of their total trade between 1963 and 1977. This constancy, however, conceals two interesting opposing trends: the share of manufactures exported to developing countries has been falling sharply while that of non-fuel primary commodities has been rising, the latter largely because of the demands of the newly industrializing countries (NICs). Nevertheless, the dynamism of manufactures has meant that they makeup an increasing share of trade among developing countries. Four particular points emerge from the evidence: (a) there is no obvious sign of a bias against trade among developing countries, except by whatever effect their own commercial policies may have; (b) the more inward-looking countries tend to send a higher proportion of their exports to other developing countries, and regional integration strengthens this effect; (c) exports of manufactures of developing countries are much more capital intensive than those to industrialized countries; and (d) exports to developing countries markets may not be the vital first stage for capital goods exports that is sometimes supposed.

Britain, the European Community, and the developing Commonwealth: dependence, interdependence, and the political economy of sugar

Abstract: During the last decade dependency theory has emerged as an important, if highly controversial, perspective on contemporary North-South relations. This paper assesses the utility of dependency approaches by examining one concrete North-South relationship over an extended period, that between Commonwealth cane sugar producers and Great Britain. After detailing the origins of the colonial sugar trade and the later impact of British free trade policies, the article follows the evolution of British-Commonwealth sugar relations from the enactment of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in 1951 to the signing in 1975 of the Lome Convention's Sugar Protocol governing sugar imports into the enlarged Community. Two conclusions are drawn from this historical case study regarding the usefulness of dependency theory. First, dependency theorists exaggerate the cohesiveness of the posture of developed market economy countries toward the Third World. Second, dependency theory has too often neglected the need to explore realistic alternatives to dependency available to underdeveloped countries.

American Trade Restrictions during the War of 1812

Abstract: For more than six years, from 1806 to 1812, trade restrictions were at the heart of American foreign policy. Although the Jeffersonian Republicans always defended the restrictive system as an alternative to war-as a peaceful means of upholding the nation's rights in the face of European encroachments-they refused to abolish the system even after war had been declared against England in 1812. On the contrary, the record shows that they steadily expanded the system as the nation's military fortunes waned. Indeed, most Republicans regarded trade restrictions not as an alternative to war, but as an indispensable means of prosecuting the war. The restrictive system, in other words, played a central role in Republican strategy for winning the war. The restrictive system had its origins in the era of the American Revolution. In the 1760s and 1770s, the American colonies had employed nonimportation and nonexportation against the mother country in an effort to force the British to change their tax and trade policies. Although these measures had little impact on British colonial policy, Republican leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison interpreted history otherwise. Convinced that American trade was crucial to British prosperity, they tried to secure congressional approval for economic sanctions in the 1790s. At first their aim was to extract a favorable commercial treaty from Britain, but, after the outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution, they also sought greater respect for American rights. Although Federalists blocked these measures, Republican leaders achieved national power in 1801 and thereafter were in a position to put their views on economic coercion to a full test, not only against England but against France as well. The restrictive system was launched in Jefferson's second administration in response to Britain's stepped-up war on neutral trade and her impressment of American seamen.' The first measure to become law was the partial non-

Trade Unions and Immigration Politics in West Germany and Switzerland

Abstract: of socioeconomic and political problems generally associated with the presence of minority groups. 1 In the cases of West Germany and Switzerland, with their commitments to democratic equality and welfare capitalism, neither country can tolerate within its midst such a distinct and formally unequal group. It is reasonable to expect that each would have to adjust its policies in the long run to reflect the recognition of permanent immigration or forcefully remove a large proportion of the foreigners.2 2 However, in the absence of official

Direct Employment Effects of Increased Imports: A Case Study of the Textile Industry

Abstract: The United States, Western Europe, and Japan have all been subjected to a great deal of protectionist sentiment during the five year period following the meeting of ministers at Tokyo in September 1973. In the U.S. this protectionist pressure has focused on expected job losses caused by reductions in domestic output as consumers switch to import substitutes. It is, therefore, extremely important for trade negotiators to possess sound estimates of the expected impact of trade liberalization on the domestic output and employment in the import substituting sector. Past research designed to provide these estimates of the influence of trade liberalization on domestic production and employment have utilized either a partial equilibrium' or a highly aggregated general equilibrium approach.2 The most notable of the partial equilibrium approaches developed by Baldwin [3], has as one of its basic premises that increased expenditure on imports reduces the expenditure on the domestic substitute by the full amount. Taking these output changes and multiplying by the corresponding set of labor requirements per unit of output, this approach will provide a set of direct and indirect employment changes. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test an alternative partial equilibrium model where the direct impact of increased imports on domestic production and employment of the competing domestic industry can be measured without restricting the changes in expenditure on the domestic good to equal that of the foreign good. Moreover the direct impact on employment is estimated through the use of a derived labor demand function rather than an input-output approach. The distinguishing feature of our partial equilibrium approach is

Soviet Trade with the Third World

Abstract: During the decade from 1969 to 1978, Soviet foreign trade turnover has increased from 20 milliard roubles per annum to 70 milliard roubles per annum and, whilst part of this increase can be attributed to the world-wide inflation in those years, a considerable part is the result of the Soviet Union increasing its participation in world trade. Within this impressive trebling of its total foreign trade with the rest of the world, the proportion with the Third World has remained remarkably consistent (see Table 3.1). In the decade under examination Soviet trade with the Third World fluctuated between 11 and 15 per cent of its total foreign trade. The average is 12.9 per cent and six of the ten years are within 0.5 per cent of that average. That Soviet foreign trade has increased is not in itself surprising for, during the years of the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR claims to have become the world’s largest producer of many major commodities — oil, coal, iron, steel, iron ore, coke, mineral fertilisers, diesel and electric engines, tractors, timber, cement, woollen cloth, leather footwear, sugar, animal fats — and in numerous speeches and articles the aim of developing Soviet foreign trade rapidly has been proclaimed. The rapid growth of the Soviet merchant marine has also foreshadowed an expansion in Soviet foreign trade (see Appendix 1 to this chapter).

Participation in Six Australian Trade Unions

Abstract: The paper examines members' involvement in six trade union organisations. Two of these are relatively large, two are medium-sized, and two are relatively small, In addition, three of the unions can be characterised as 'white-collar' and three as 'blue- collar'. Impressions. are then drawn as to the influence of size, and the broad character of members' work, on the extent and nature of mernbers' participation in this small number of unions. The paper is divided into four sections. The first con siders the importance of members' participation. The second introduces the six trade unions and comments on a variety of factors which appear likely to influence the pattern of members' involvement. The third section investigates the particular experience of members' participation with regard to the reading of union literature, voting in union elections and referenda, and attendance at annual general meetings, mass meetings, and branch and work-place meetings. The fourth section draws some conclusions.

Spain and the Latin American Wars of Independence: The Free Trade Controversy, 1810-1820

Abstract: S PAIN S response to the revolution of its American provinces was determined by a single, consistent policy: recognition of independence would not be granted. Starting from that fundamental position, however, which never varied and before 1820 was rarely even questioned in public, successive Spanish governments explored every conceivable avenue open to them in the hope of finding the means of pacifying America and effecting its reunification with the mother country. Numerous ways of achieving this objective were put forward and many were tried. These included conciliation talks with leading insurgents; offers of amnesties, pardons, and bribes; industrial and agricultural reforms; the creation of empires headed by Spanish princes; and the widespread use of military force. Among these and other options suggested, the most controversial solution, fervently promoted as the best means of pacifying America and equally fervently opposed by those who argued that it would bring about the ruination of the peninsula, was the granting of international free trade to the American provinces. This article seeks to trace the course of the free trade controversy, which was at the center of Spain's American policy for much of the decade between 1810 and 1820 and which affords considerable insight into the vested interest groups and motives of those who influenced Spain's response to the independence movements. Spain's traditional trading monopoly with its American empire had been the subject of extensive debate and change, particularly during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Cadiz, Barcelona, Malaga, Santander, and other city-ports in the peninsula and in America that had benefited from the liberalization of the commercial system enacted main-