Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 421-463). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

abstract: The current study combines field study, survey study, and public financial reports, and conducts an in-depths comprehensive study of the cost of the global tire industry. By comparing the price and the total cost structure of standardized tire products, we investigate Chinese tire industry’s global competitiveness, especially in light of China’s fast increasing labor cost. By constructing a comprehensive cost index (CCI), this dissertation estimates the evolution and forecasts the trend of global tire industry’s cost structure. Based on our empirical analysis, we provide various recommendations for Chinese tire manufacturers, other manufacturing industries, and foreign trade policy makers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2015

The aims of this study are to analyze the situation of the business field in foreign markets, valorize the state support to the firms during entering the foreign markets, comparison of the business possibilities in the Czech Republic with the advanced countries and definition of the crucial areas for the more effective realization of the commercialize and economic policy of the state. The work is separated into six parts. In the first part, there is a short summary of literature, the second part is connected with methods. The third part analyzes the fact, if the manufacturing corporations in the Ceske Budejovice region feel to be competitive in foreign markets, if they have problems during entering the foreign markets, if they use state support of export and if they feel that the state obtain a brief of them well. This study was executed on the basis of survey sampling, which was done by e-mail questioning. The obtain data were analyzed and diagrammatized. The fourth chapter charts the support of export, which are offered to the exporters by the Czech Republic. The fifth part analyzes the support of abroad export and limits the positives and negatives of the Czech firms. The last chapter analyzes the commercialize and economic policy of the Czech Republic and defines its key areas.

Orientador: Sebastião Carlos Velasco e Cruz / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-22T14:56:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mendonca_FilipeAlmeidadoPrado_D.pdf: 4193653 bytes, checksum: 3ee9e71741c7f56116e54ac74910a43c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o processo de institucionalização da política comercial dos Estados Unidos em perspectiva histórica e seus impactos para a constituição do regime GATT/OMC. A hipótese central procura demonstrar que variações da leitura estadunidense sobre reciprocidade comercial têm impactos no desenvolvimento do sistema GATT/OMC. Para captar estas oscilações, parte-se dos estudos sobre o Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act de 1934, passando pelos processos de institucionalização do livre-comércio nas rodadas do GATT, da materialização do unilateralismo agressivo na década de 1980, das estratégias multitrack do início da década de 1990, da ratificação do Tratado de Marrakesh até a participação norte-americana no Órgão de Solução de Controvérsias da OMC. Tal movimento nos ajuda a compreender as causas das mudanças institucionais dos regimes internacionais, o grau de atuação dos Estados Unidos nestas mudanças e seus impactos para a ordem econômica internacional em perspectiva histórica. Deste modo, afirma-se que os avanços e os retrocessos que marcaram o desenvolvimento institucional do sistema GATT/OMC, suas limitações, enviesamentos estruturais e as consequências para seus parceiros comerciais estão intensamente vinculados à estratégia de comércio dos Estados Unidos e à natureza de sua participação em fóruns multilaterais de comércio / Abstract: The objective of this research is to analyze the institutionalization process of U.S. trade policy in historical perspective and its impacts on the constitution of the GATT / WTO regime. The central hypothesis argues that variations in US reading on trade reciprocity have impacts on the development of the multilateral trade regime. To capture these oscillations, the research begins with the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934, capturing the process of institutionalization of free trade in the GATT rounds, the materialization of aggressive unilateralism in the 1980's, the multi-track strategies of the early 1990's, the US ratification of the Marrakesh treaty and the US participation in the WTO dispute settlement body. This movement helps us understand the causes of the institutional changes of international regimes, the degree of US activity in these changes and their impacts on the international economic order in historical perspective. Thus, it is argued that the advances and setbacks that marked the institutional development of the multilateral trade regime, its limitations, biases and structural consequences for the undeveloped countries are strongly linked to the strategy of U.S. trade and the nature of its participation in multilateral trade / Doutorado / Ciencia Politica / Doutor em Ciência Política

This dissertation consists of three independent essays which contribute to the literatures on International Trade and Political Economy. The first essay addresses questions related to the political economy of antidumping (AD). With the remarkable falling in tariff barriers that has characterized the post-World War II period, AD has become the most used non-tariff barrier (NTB).1 Studying the use of AD is thus of great importance, also because the restrictive effects of AD measures on trade can be sizable (see for instance Ruhl, 2014). Moreover, there is an increasing concern that AD has turned to be an industrial policy tool rather than a mean that governments can use to restore the “level-playing field” (Vandenbussche and Zanardi, 2008). This worry is in line with the findings presented in the first chapter of this dissertation, Bureaucrats or Politicians? Political Parties and Antidumping in the US, which shows that the adoption of ADmeasures in the US is heavily shaped by political parties’ interests. I focus on the voting behavior of the International Trade Commission (ITC), a US quasijudicial agency composed by six non-elected commissioners who are supposed to conduct (an important part of the) AD investigations in a fair and objective manner. Using a newly collected dataset containing all ITC commissioners’ votes on AD over the period 1980-2010, I show that political parties can affect the ITC voting behavior in two ways: by selecting ITC commissioners who have a similar stance on trade policy as their own (selection effect) and by influencing them while they are in office (pressure effect). While other studies have emphasised that Congress can put pressure on the ITC, the novelty of this work is to show that this pressure is party-specific. First, I show that Democratic-appointed commissioners are systematically more protectionist than Republican-appointed ones. This effect is sizable (the probability of voting in favor of AD is at least 8 percentage points higher for Democratic-appointed commissioners) and suggests that political parties can play an important role by influencing the choice of ITC commissioners who have a similar preferences on trade. This result is insensitive to several changes in the econometric specifications and to the use of different methodologies. Moreover, commissioners’ votes on AD depend on the trade policy interests of key senators (i.e. Trade subcommittee members) in the party they are associated to.2 In particular, whether (Democratic) Republican-appointed commissioners vote in favor of AD depends crucially on whether the petitioning industry is key (in terms of employment) in the states represented by leading (Democratic) Republican senators at the time. This result is robust to several checks also holds when controlling for any unobserved time-invariant characteristic of ITC commissioners (e.g. the state of origin) that could influence their votes on AD and be correlated with the pressure variables, i.e. when commissioner fixed effects are included in the specifications. In addition, the pressure effect can actually overcome the selection effect, making a Republican-appointed commissioner more protectionist than the average Democratic-appointed one. The second essay, Internationalization and Innovation of Firms: Evidence and Policy, analyzes the link between internationalization and innovation at the firm level.3 The evidence presented Chapter 2 shows that the degrees of involvement in internationalization and innovation activities are inextricably linked. However, the European policy context seems at odds with this evidence: trade-promotion and innovation-enhancing policies are largely unrelated and often carried out through various agencies (see EIM, 2010).4 Thus, understanding the interaction between internationalization and innovation can be crucial for policy makers, especially in a world which is increasingly characterized by global value chains.5 The interplay between internationalization and innovation is investigated in a unique, representative and cross-country comparable sample of manufacturing firms with at least ten employees (EFIGE), across seven European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, UK) for the year 2008. We find that firms in the sample at hand are quite active in both innovation and internationalization: 87% of firms devote resources to R&D projects, IT solutions, or patent/design/ trademark registrations, while 77% of our firms are active in international trade, cross-border outsourcing relations, or FDI. For modes of internationalization, there is a clear ranking of associated firm performance: FDI makers show the highest productivity, followed by outsourcers and traders. Innovation differences across modes are less clear cut. Moreover, defining internationalization (innovation) intensity as the number of internationalization (innovation) modes in which firms are involved, we show that firms with high innovation intensity tend also to show high internationalization intensity. Instrumenting innovation intensity by the share of firms that have benefitted from R&D financial incentives in a given (NACE 2 digits) industry-country pair and by the share of investment in R&D over the value added in the same industry-country pair, for the years 2002-2006, we are not able to find conclusive evidence of a causal effect of innovation on internationalization. Finally, a positive association between innovation and internationalization intensities appears at both firm level and country-industry (milieu) level, and at country level when average intensity is calculated disregarding the relative numbers of firms in the different industries. If country average intensities are computed weighting by firm numbers in the various industries, the correlation between innovation and internationalization intensities across countries appears weaker, suggesting that innovation matters more than internationalization for driving differences across countries. Based on the evidence we collected, we suggest a higher coordination/integration of internationalization and innovation policies at both the national and EU levels, and propose a bigger coordinating role for EU institutions, in order to reduce the current paradox of generally uncorrelated policies aimed at mostly correlated outcomes. The third essay, Cooperation Among Criminal Organizations: Evidence from Organized Crime in Italy, uncovers new facts about the behavior criminal organizations on the Italian territory. Since Becker (1968) the economic analysis of crime has especially focused on the behavior of individual offenders. Much less attention has been devoted to the activities of criminal organizations, especially from an empirical point of view. Nevertheless, organized crime is a prominent and alarming presence in the world economy: it destroys physical and human capital and deteriorates the business environment, ultimately lowering the growth potential of an economy (Acconcia et al. 2014; Pinotti, 2015). The third chapter of this dissertation contributes to the literature on economics of organized crime by shedding light on the interaction between domestic and foreign organizations in Italy, showing that the probability of cooperation among them depends both on the type of crime committed and on the presence of traditional (incumbent) organizations in some regions of the country. More specifically, cooperation between domestic and foreign criminal organizations is studied using a novel dataset containing information on their activities in the Italian territory during 2007-2010. Italian territory during 2007-2010. We first show that cooperation among Italians and foreigners is skewed towards specific crimes (e.g. counterfeiting activities). We then show that the presence of traditional (incumbent) organizations in some regions reduces the probability of cooperating. Interestingly, in these areas the same probability is higher when cooperation takes place for criminal activities in which foreign organizations can play an important role in providing inputs. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Indian economy and trade policy have changed a lot during last 25 years. India opened to the world, became one of the emerging markets and attracted more investors. Trade policy needed to adapt to those changes. Also Czech investors are interested in Indian market and some of them already run their business in India with the help of traditional good relationships between India and Czech Republic. This thesis describes current trade policy of India, its autonomous and contractual tools, promising sectors of the Indian economy with emphasis on opportunities for Czech exporters.

The main objective of this study is to analyse Trade Policy of PRC in Sub-Saharan Africa in a comparison with an approach of western countries. Moreover describe causes of dynamically developing Sino-African cooperation in last fifteen years, when China became a strategic business partner of many countries in the region at the expense of western countries which in the past represented traditional business partners of Sub-Saharan countries. First part describes period of economic reforms in China which started remarkable economic growth and helped the country to become one of the world trade superpowers. Then it defines characteristics of Sub-Saharan Africa which influence international trade relations of the region, both in a positive and negative way. Second part summarize trade between Sub-Saharan Africa and China describing history of trade relations and current territorial and commodity structure of the trade. Third part analyses PRC Trade Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa which is based on principles of Beijing Consensus. This part provides a comparison of different approach of China and western countries (their approach is based on Washington Consensus) towards their business partner in Sub-Saharan Africa. Afterwards, it summarizes different tools of China's trade policy in this region, which are then demonstrated on case studies of Angola and Nigeria.

BRICS Countries belong to dynamically evolving developing countries and some of them aspire to reach the position of a new world economic power, especially since the time when the economic crises hit the world economy and developed countries were largely economically weakened by the crisis. The objective of this thesis is to identify principal trends in the trade policy of BRICS countries, especially in the mutual trade which is characterized by a specific commodity structure and to exemplify these trends on trade and trade policy of the two largest trade partners within BRICS countries - China and India.

The aim of the thesis titled Canada's trade policy is to analyze the current Canadian trade policy including its objectives, trade policy instruments that Canada uses for the implementation of its trade policy and how Canada is trying to contribute to the liberalization on the world trade. The first part of the thesis explains the concept of trade policy, introduces the current economic situation of Canada and analyzes the Canadian foreign trade. The most important chapter is devoted to the autonomous and contractual instruments of the trade policy of Canada. The aim of the last chapter is to show through two examples of Canadian trade disputes at the WTO how the decisions taken in these disputes can affect Canadian trade policy.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2015-12-07T11:29:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 viniciusdeazevedocoutofirme.pdf: 2419643 bytes, checksum: 7c6efd72d9520c77b85963e2233bab99 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2015-12-07T21:39:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 viniciusdeazevedocoutofirme.pdf: 2419643 bytes, checksum: 7c6efd72d9520c77b85963e2233bab99 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-07T21:39:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 viniciusdeazevedocoutofirme.pdf: 2419643 bytes, checksum: 7c6efd72d9520c77b85963e2233bab99 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-27 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta tese é composta por três ensaios que analisaram questões inerentes à prática antidumping (AD), com enfoque na economia brasileira. O primeiro ensaio analisou a evolução na utilização do instrumento antidumping (AD) após a rodada Uruguai, entre 1995 e 2012. Para tanto, buscou-se verificar quais seriam os principais usuários deste recurso e a tendência de uso associada a diversas economias. Testou-se ainda a hipótese de que países poderiam convergir em termos da aberturas de casos AD e de que efeitos espaciais estariam envolvidos neste processo. Por fim, foi criado um critério para identificar países que favorecem os setores mais competitivos através da prática AD. Os resultados revelaram que o Brasil foi o único grande usuário que esteve na contramão da tendência geral de queda na abertura de casos AD. Enquanto isso, a China foi o principal alvo deste mecanismo e uma das poucas a apresentar uma tendência de crescimento neste quesito. Verificou-se que há convergência no uso deste instrumento apenas quando o PIB é considerado e que Turquia e União Européia parecem favorecer as indústrias mais competitivas através da prática AD. O segundo ensaio analisou os principais determinantes da abertura de processos antidumping utilizando dados em painel contendo informações de 46 usuários AD durante 1995 a 2013. Para tanto, foi realizada uma extensa revisão dos trabalhos empíricos desta área a fim de elaborar um modelo abrangente, contendo diversas variáveis consideradas relevantes. As estimações, realizadas via Poisson ou Binomial Negativo, revelaram que uma diminuição nas importações, um crescimento na renda externa, uma redução na renda interna, uma desvalorização cambial ou uma melhora nas transações correntes poderia reduzir os casos AD. Enquanto isso, países que pertencem às faixas de renda mais altas, que adotam elevadas tarifas de importação, que são alvos frequentes de casos AD e que são exportadores intensivos de produtos de metais, químicos e plásticos tenderiam a abrir mais casos AD. Além disso, não pertencer à OCDE e fazer parte da Europa ou da Ásia Central inibe a abertura de casos AD. O terceiro ensaio analisou a influência de fatores macroeconômicos sobre a abertura de processos antidumping no Brasil e na Argentina. Notavelmente, somente um trabalho deste tipo havia sido realizado para um destes países (Brasil) e os autores rejeitaram o efeito de fatores macroeconômicos. Como este tipo de análise geralmente não conta com grandes amostras, o que limita a inclusão de variáveis no modelo, optou-se por selecionar as variáveis relevantes com base no teste de Sala-i-Martin (1997), fato que permitiu superar os demais trabalhos no que se refere à inclusão de variáveis. Conforme recomenda-se, os modelos foram estimados via regressão de Poisson. Os resultados revelaram que tanto o Brasil quanto a Argentina são afetados por fatores macroeconômicos. Contudo, os modelos tradicionais (agregados) tenderiam a negar ou minimizar tal influência sobre a economia brasileira e supervalorizar este efeito na Argentina. Assim, a utilização de dados desagregados se mostrou útil a este tipo de análise. / This thesis consists of three studies that analyzed the use of antidumping (AD), focusing on the Brazilian economy. The first article verified how the main economies have used the AD after the Uruguay round, between 1995 and 2012. Therefore, some techniques were employed in order to reveal the main users of this instrument and the trend of using associated to each one of them. We also tested the hypothesis that countries could converge in terms of the number of AD cases and if spatial effects could be involved in this process. Finally, a criterion was established in order to identify countries that usually favor the most competitive sectors through AD practice. The results revealed that Brazil was the only heavy user that was counter to the general downward trend verified on the AD cases. Meanwhile, China was not only the main target of this mechanism but the cases against this country showed a growth trend also. Furthermore, we found convergence in the use of this instrument only when the economic weight of these countries was considered and our index indicated that Turkey and the European Union seem to be favoring the most competitive industries through the AD practice. The second article analyzed the main determinants of opening of AD cases using a panel data containing information of 46 AD users during 1995 to 2013. For this purpose, an extensive review of the empirical work of this area was performed in order to develop a comprehensive model, containing several variables considered relevant. The estimates carried out by Poisson or Negative Binomial, revealed that a decrease in imports, an increase in foreign income, a reduction in domestic income, currency devaluation or an improvement in the current account could reduce AD cases. Meanwhile, countries that belong to the higher income groups, which adopt high import tariffs, which are frequent targets of AD cases and are intensive exporters of metal products, chemicals and plastics, tend to open more AD cases. Also, countries that do not belong to the OECD and those from Europe or Central Asia tend to use less AD measures. The third article analyzed the influence of macroeconomic factors on the opening of AD cases in Brazil and in Argentina. Notably, such research had been done only to one of these countries (Brazil) and the authors rejected any macroeconomic influences. Since this type of analysis usually does not have large samples, the relevant variables were selected using the Sala-i-Martin (1997) test. This procedure allowed us to surpass the other articles regarding the inclusion of variables. As recommended, the models were estimated by Poisson regression. It was evidenced by the results that both Brazil and Argentina are affected by macroeconomic factors. However, the traditional (aggregated) models would tend to deny or minimize such influence on Brazilian economy and overestimate this effect in Argentina. Thus, the use of disaggregated data seems to be useful in this type of analysis.