University of Macau / Faculty of Law

The focus of this thesis is the question whether or not the WTO discriminates unfairly against developing economies. In the absence of a test of guidelines for detennining unfairness or fairness of WTO provisions or Agreements has been drawn up using welfare economic and constitutional law principles as a foundation. Unfairness is therefore determined by asking whether the provisions of each Agreement are rational, proportional, efficient and whether they prevent the abuse of power amongst states. In addition, the economic effects of the provisions of the selected Agreements have been analysed to determine whether the relevant provisions are welfare enhancing and conclusive to promoting growth and development within developing economies. The Agreements chosed for analysis are the Agreements on Trade-related Investment Measures (TRIMS), Trade-related Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Agriculture and Services (GATS). The dispute settlement and negotiating process, labour standards and the impact of decreasing most-favoured nation rates on developing economy competitiveness is also discussed. Application of the test has shown that the WTO provisions do not reflect the interests of all members. Even though most member states are developing economies, the3 Agreements constantly cater foe developed country concerns and interests. Where provision is made for developing country interests, it is the LDC's who are favoured, with nonnal developing economies being bound by the same provisions as the developed economies. A fonnal, as opposed to a substantive, defmition has been adopted by the WTO, with a result that the process of equality is placed above the outcomes. While concessions have been made to development, members have not gone for enough. A main reason for the imbalance can be attributed to the negotiating process, which is based upon concessionary bargaining and trade-off. Those states with greater economic power are therefore at an advantage as they have the leverage needed to influence the outcomes of negotiations and hence the provisions of the various Agreements. Even with the LDC's, the WTO has been found to discriminate unfairly against developing economies because it does not adequately address developing country concerns. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Thesis (Ph. D. Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of limpopo, 2021 / The study analysed the effects of international trade on employment and wages in the fruit industry of South Africa. However, the study prioritised six industries within the fruit industry which are pertinent contributors to economic growth, international trade, employment and source of wages. The six types of fruits considered for this study are apples, apricots, avocadoes, oranges, pears and table grapes. The relationship between international trade and labour market is continuously significant, especially with increasing number of trade agreements amongst countries and regions. The international trade has been identified by many economic authors to be amongst main contributors of employment and wage source in the exporting countries. The overarching theoretical framework guiding research on the impact of international trade on employment and wages is based on Krugman’s theory of imperfect competition. The theory states that international trade on similar products amongst developed and developing countries works in favour of the developed countries based on the following arguments: developing countries export primary commodities; developed countries export beneficiated goods; firms in developed countries are mostly vertically integrated with a higher market share. The overall aim of the study is to analyse the effects of international trade on employment and wages in the South African fruit industry between the period between 1990 and 2018. There are five objectives for the study and they are broken down as follows: outlining the performance of the South African fruit industry in terms on international trade, employment and wages; secondly, to analyse the impact of international trade flow on employment and wages in the selected six South African fruit industries; thirdly, to determine the causality effects amongst employment, wages and exports within the six South African fruit industry; fourthly, to determine the response of employment, exports and imports on changes in wages within the selected six South African fruit industries; and lastly, to determine the effects of European Union’s Trade Development and Cooperation Agreement on wages in the South African fruit industry. vi The study adopted various analytical techniques to address the objectives. Those analytical techniques were used as follows: descriptive statistics, to profile the six prioritised fruit industries; error correction model, to analyse the impact of international trade flow on employment and wages in the selected six South African fruit industries; granger causality test, to determine the causality effects amongst employment, wages and international trade within the six South African fruit industry; two-staged least squares approach, to determine the response of employment, exports and imports on changes in wages within the selected six South African fruit industries and ordinary least squares, to determine the effects of European Union’s Trade Development and Cooperation Agreement on wages in the South African fruit industry. The findings from descriptive analysis show that all six prioritised fruit industries contributes significantly to the international trade, employment and wages in South Africa. The error correction model for all six fruit industries indicates the existence of a long-run relationship amongst total employment, wages and international trade. Therefore, findings for all fruit industries show that exports output lead to an increase in total employment in a long run, while imports output lead to a decrease in total employment in a long run. The granger causality test for all six fruit industries highlight that there is a causality effect between total employment and exports output. However, there is no causality effect between total employment and imports output, even between exports output and imports output. The results from the two-staged least squares indicate that the wages are affected positively by the exports output. However, there are other factors that affect wages positively such as net realisation from exports, local sales, total gross value of production and foreign direct investment. The wages are negatively affected by imports output, average exchange rate and average prices. The ordinary least squares for all estimated fruit industries show that the volumes of exports to the European Union market affect the wages positively, vii while other variables that are positively affected by the exports to EU market include amongst others the production volumes, productivity, total area planted and foreign direct investment. However, the volumes of exports to the European Union market negatively affect the processing volumes of the fruit industries in South Africa, domestic consumption per capita and average prices. Conclusively, it is recommended that fruit producers, with support of government institutions responsible for trade promotions, should strengthen trade cooperation with various trading blogs, more particularly the European Union; United Kingdom; countries in Asia and Middle East; and African states. This exercise will highly enhance the capacity of South African fruit producers to exploit the untapped international trade opportunities from different markets. Furthermore, it is prudent to recommend that the government should continue to regulate the labour market so that employees could benefit from net realisation from international trade. This will probably reduce the instances of unfair labour practices such as lower wages, child labour, abnormal working hours and overall poor working conditions.

LD2668 .T4 1946 T8 / Master of Science

This thesis seeks to investigate the lack of participation by African countries in the WTO Dispute Settlement System by first providing an overview of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) system and, secondly by explaining the reasons that forestall the participation of African countries.

This study unveiled the trade-environment debate which has been revolving in the World Trade Organization for quite a long time now. While economic integration and trade liberalization offer the promise of growth and prosperity, environmentalists fear that free trade will lead to increased pollution and resource depletion. On the other hand, free traders worry that over-reaching environmental policies will obstruct efforts to open markets and integrate economies around the world. Trade liberalization has the potential to affect the environment both positively and negatively. Trade and environment tensions have therefore emerged as a major issue in the debate over globalisation. This paper examined the contours of these tensions and argued that trade policy and environmental programs can be better integrated and made more mutually supportive.

This thesis examines the regulation of parallel imports of trade marked goods in the European Community (EC), demonstrates its deficiencies and advocates its amendment by the Community legislator. The thesis identifies as a primary characteristic of the regulation the bifurcation of intra-EC and extra-EC parallel importation, that is to say, the fundamental divergence of the regimes of parallel imports coming from another EC Member State and imports coming from third countries.  The split as to the rationale, justification and outcome of the two regimes is so substantial that it is viewed as the existence of ‘parallel regulations on parallel trade’ in the Community. The study establishes four different manifestations of this bifurcation, the most evident one concerning the fact that while internal imports are lawful under EC law, external ones could be repelled by the mark owner as trade mark infringement.  It is submitted that this variable legal tolerance to parallel trade has been legitimised through the Community rule of limited, regional exhaustion of trade mark rights and the manner in which the European Court of Justice has interpreted its application. Against this background, the thesis raises three groups of legal arguments for reviewing the current Community exhaustion policy and implementing a rule of international trade mark exhaustion.  They relate to trade mark law, competition law and certain proclamations of the importance of free unrestricted global trade, made by the Community on international level and in the EC context as well. Finally, the study complements the above legal arguments with socio-economic justifications in support of international exhaustion.  The research suggests that the Community should consider the implementation of international trade mark exhaustion and carry out the necessary preparatory steps outlined by the study in this regard.

This paper examines the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis and tests for causality using Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). There is evidence of long-run relationships in the three models under consideration. The Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) finds no evidence to support the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Zambia in the long-run. The evidence from the long-run suggests an opposite of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), in that the results indicate a U-shaped curve relationship between income and carbon emission. The conclusion on causality based on the VECM is that there is evidence of neutrality hypothesis between either total electricity and income or between industrial electricity and income in the short-run Additionally, there is evidence of conservation hypothesis in the context of residential and agricultural electricity consumption.

With the continuing process of globalization, national economies are intensively interconnecting with external enviroment. It is especially visible for Czech Republic, which geopolitical position stresses the importance of external business relationships. Economic prosperity of countries with open economy is largely determined by export performance and inflow of foreign direct investments, both of which are supported by economic diplomacy. The first scope of this thesis is to evaluate the economic diplomacy of Czech Republic, and secondly to empirically analyze the tools, which economic diplomacy is using - foreign visits of polititians and role of embassies. The gravity model of international trade was used to study the influence of both tools on the foreign trade and investment in Czech Republic between years 1993-2013. The results show, that if at least one visit per year was realized, the export grows by 14%. However, one average high official visit is associated with rising exports by about 4.7%. On the other hand, any realtionship with FDI was not found. Further analysis confirms the importance of the embassies and thier positive impact on foreign trade, in particular with culturally distant countries, where this effect is more pronounced. Futhermore the study showed fading effect of economic...

M.A. / International markets have expanded through the global reduction of protectionist policies, such as tariffs and quotas, which has in turn expanded international trade between states. The reduction of trade barriers and the implementation of trade liberalisation have caused the international trade structure to change; resources are shifting away from traditional industries and into new ones resulting in new trade opportunities and trade-offs. However, the gains from increased international trade have been unequal; some states, mainly the industrialised, developed nations and the East Asian economies, have reaped the benefits from an increasingly integrated trading system. Numerous developing countries have actively reduced their barriers to international trade and have attempted to integrate their economies into the international trading system. Nevertheless, many of these developing countries are highly impoverished and uncompetitive in the global economy. Within this context, it is the purpose of this dissertation to determine with greater clarity why certain developing countries have significantly decreased their barriers to international trade but have not benefited, both politically and economically, from these actions. In other words, why have certain developing countries, such as those in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Africa, increased their trade liberalisation but not benefited from this increased openness. Additionally, why have other developing states, such as the East Asian economies, become key competitors within the global economy? In short, this study investigates why some developing countries trade more yet earn less. The examination of developing countries within the international trading system is presented in a theoretical perspective constructed with a focus on the three classic international relations theories, namely realism, liberalism and structuralism. Each of these theories is employed descriptively as well as prescriptively as tools to evaluate the nature of the international trading system as well as the positioning of developing countries within the trading regime. Applying these prisms of reality, certain developing countries’ position in the global economy are assessed and evaluated through an examination of the WTO and developing countries, the implementation of import substitution policies and export-led industrialisation strategies by various developing countries and the international trends that have caused various developing countries to be uncompetitive in the global trading regime.