<p>The main objective of this study was to examine the prospects and challenges facing ACFTA (Asean-China free trade area). It examined what ought to be done by the ASEAN member nations to match China's competitive ability having recently joined the World Trade Organization. The study also examined the compatibility of the ACFTA with the World Trade Organization rules and mode of dispute settlement under ASEAN and NAFTA as well as profound issues relating to ACFTA.</p>

This thesis addresses issues concerning trade effects of a particular RTA: AFTA. In the first part of the thesis, 2 different but related gravity frameworks are constructed as to evaluate the independent effects of AFTA on relevant countries' trade flows. The first paper proposes examining ‘AFTA-effects' on members' trade, specifically within the AFTA context. This aims to distinguish trade effects that AFTA has had on early and delayed members' trading patterns. The panel ‘Gravity Model' is constructed, pointing to control for several biases commonly observed in the cross-section model. Although the result implies that early members do share trade benefits from AFTA more than non-members, the overall ‘AFTA-effects' on the membership's trade have not been benign. Another paper measures ‘AFTA-effects' on both members' and non-members' trade. This aims to assess whether AFTA has played a role as an export base for the international market. In this case, ‘AFTA-effects' appeared positive. Such effects are driven by an enhancement in extra-export bias, suggesting that the membership's exports to outside destinations have increased post-AFTA. The last paper provides a theoretical framework addressing the incidence of RTA-membership expansion. The fact that AFTA was gradually established and empirical results indicating AFTA's impacts on members and non-members brings about the idea that bloc-membership expansion could plausibly be explained by the economic effects that these countries have received. The corollaries of trading with/without RTA-membership of a potential member's gains of trade and welfare levels are related to the decision towards membership. Even though welfare effects are not always greater, the RTA-membership status surely benefits member countries in gains from trade more than non-members. This can be perceived as one of the important reasons to explain the widespread regionalism worldwide and why joining the RTA is often seen as a safe haven strategy for a country.

<p>The main objective of this study was to examine the prospects and challenges facing ACFTA (Asean-China free trade area). It examined what ought to be done by the ASEAN member nations to match China's competitive ability having recently joined the World Trade Organization. The study also examined the compatibility of the ACFTA with the World Trade Organization rules and mode of dispute settlement under ASEAN and NAFTA as well as profound issues relating to ACFTA.</p>

Magister Legum - LLM / The main objective of this study was to examine the prospects and challenges facing ACFTA (Asean-China free trade area). It examined what ought to be done by the ASEAN member nations to match China's competitive ability having recently joined the World Trade Organization. The study also examined the compatibility of the ACFTA with the World Trade Organization rules and mode of dispute settlement under ASEAN and NAFTA as well as profound issues relating to ACFTA. / South Africa

Over the years, South Africa has embarked on significant strides towards trade liberalisation with a view to generate economic growth that enhances employment and reduces poverty. The purpose of this study is to determine whether trade liberalisation has enhanced economic growth in South Africa. The specific research objectives were to (i) provide an understanding of the country’s trade liberalisation policies (ii) empirically determine the short-run and long-run effects of trade liberalisation on economic growth between 1970 and 2017 and (iii) to provide policy recommendations based on the findings. To this end, utilising three different proxies of trade liberalisation, the study employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model to determine the long-run and short-run impact of South Africa’s trade liberalisation on economic growth. The study found that trade liberalisation enhanced economic growth in South Africa and noted that the results hold only when using trade openness and real effective exchange rate as proxy for trade liberalisation. This suggest that trade liberalisation in South Africa has had a general positive effect on economic growth. Despite the positive effect on economic growth, there is still a need to ensure that within the trade policy, increased focus on sectors that have the potential for value added and job creation. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

More than 2.7 billion people have less than US$2 a day on which to live. The world's 358 richest people have more money than the combined annual incomes of countries with 45% of the world's population. Traditionally social and political philosophy has focused on intra-national issues and institutions. But the fact that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected raises an important philosophical question: To what, if anything, are the global poor entitled? This book does two things. First, it argues that to be legitimate, the global institutional system must do what it can to enable people to meet some of their basic needs. Second, it considers which ways of altering the global institutional system might make it more legitimate.

Supporters of free trade argue that one of its benefits is to increase wellbeing and enhance respect for workers’ rights. Nevertheless, this will not happen unless concrete requirements concerning such protection are inserted within the actual agreements. This thesis argues that trade agreements should include labor provisions that provide effective protection for core labor rights and that those rights are enforced by the Parties. In the case of Taiwan, it has signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras; but only in the FTA with Nicaragua, a Labor Chapter (No. 18) has been introduced in the accord. It follows the United States- Dominican Republic- Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) design, and the signatories agree to enforce their own domestic labor laws and reaffirm their commitment to the internationally recognized labor rights. However, the language of the agreement is merely aspirational, directing Parties to strive to improve their laws, but providing no effective reward or sanction in this reward.

This thesis examines visual and material culture in relation to free trade in North America, focusing on cultural production between 1985 and 2012. These dates broadly encompass a period in which the Canadian state entered into progressively larger free trade agreements with neighbouring states, including the United States in 1989 and Mexico in 1994. This period resulted in significant changes to the dominant understandings of North America. I trace the substantial role that art endeavors played in establishing and naturalizing economic integration in the continent. Through discussion of diverse examples of art production, I posit that consideration of the selected artworks and exhibitions is integral to properly assessing histories of free trade in North America. Each chapter deals with a different case study of forms of art production, chosen because they helped promote new understandings of North America after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. These case studies deal with how exhibitions of modern and contemporary landscape art and exhibitions of indigenous visual and material culture contribute to constructing narratives of North America. They also cover the contemporary art festival inSite, as well as the history of Mexican modern art in Canada. I demonstrate that visual and material culture played an integral role in deploying new understandings of the continent, while concurrently serving as a means to circulate counter-narratives of North America. To foreground Canadian artistic responses to free trade, I insert interstices between every chapter, each focused on a specific work of contemporary video art from the period. These six interstices demonstrate a sustained engagement by Canadian contemporary artists to respond to and comment on North American integration, and thus provide a map to the key issues of neoliberal expansion. / Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-26 20:06:23.882

In the last thirty years, there has been a significant increase in the globalization process, or as other refer to it, the internationalization, free trade, or liberalization. This trend was reflected in the increasing number of newly formed international organization (economic and security) as well as in the increased membership in the already existing ones. The evidence of this trend has been particularly visible since the end of the Cold War, when the race of the Eastern European countries to enter international organizations has been as competitive as ever. Nonetheless, a number of countries, upon careful evaluation and consideration of membership, has opted out of the opportunity to enter such international agreements. The question that this paper addresses is how do countries decided whether to enter or not international organizations? In other words, what elements, processes, and motives lie behind the decision of countries to commit to a new membership? Most of the studies that have addressed this topic have done so from an international perspective as they addressed the politics between countries, as well as the costs and benefits in terms of power, sovereignty, and national income once in the organizations. This paper, on the other hand, approaches the issue from a comparative perspective, both economic and political. It attempts to answer the research question by looking at the domestic sources of decision -making and how they influence this decision. Namely, a decision to become more open to trade has several implications for a country, depending on its size, and already established trade openness, among other factors. The impact of increased openness will most seriously affect the domestic players, both negatively and positively. Thus, in considering the impact that the policy could have on their welfare, players align their interests in order to express their preferences on the issue to the decision makers. The ability of the domestic actors to have their preferences considered in turn depends on the structure of the institutions through which they can participate in the political process i.e. how are their votes turned into seats, and who has most impact in the policymaking. Thus, depending on the impact of globalization on a country's domestic welfare, as well as the composition of the domestic players (export versus import intensive), the decision of the country on whether to participate or not will finally depend on the preference filtering mechanism given by the electoral and representative systems a country has. Thus, the decisions to join or not to will sometime reflect a special interest, while at other times it will be the result of an agreement reached by all of the existing groups.