Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-158). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (LL. M.)--McGill University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156).

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Economics

The Free Trade Area of the Americas is a proposed treaty that would encompass the Western Hemisphere-800 million people and a 13 trillion dollar economy. It is a regional agreement that cannot be understood without the interrelated issues at both the international and domestic level. The single most important issue that resides at the nexus of all three of these levels is domestic subsidies on agriculture. FTAA cannot move forward at the regional level without reduction in the U.S. domestic subsidies. The United States is not willing to reduce its domestic protection without reciprocal reductions from the European Union, specifically, France. Even if international agreement is reached, the domestic level interest group politics must be factored in. Furthermore, the clock is ticking at the domestic level with both the President's Trade Promotion Authority set to expire along with the Farm Bill in 2007. The final analysis will indicate international negotiations will not yield enough genuine concessions soon enough to break the regional level loggerheads and that domestic interest group politics will not allow unreciprocated unilateral reductions to break that stalemate either. Free Trade in the Western Hemisphere is, therefore, likely to continue to progress as a series of subregional and bilateral agreements.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Caribbean Basin Trade Protection Act (CBTPA) of the USA are trade preference programmes offering reduced tariffs to African countries. We investigate the impact of the preferences on the exports of the recipients in this thesis. Using annual data on mirror exports, macroeconomic, social, cultural and religious variables, we evaluate the impact of the preferences in three different ways—(1) difference-in-differences, (2) quantile and (3) matching estimators. As part of our review of the empirical evidence, we conduct a meta-analysis to summarise the quantitative AGOA literature. This is augmented with a meta-regression to investigate the presence of publication bias. In chapter 3, the first of the three empirical chapters, the question asked is, “has there been an observed increase in the exports of AGOA and CBTPA recipients to the USA compared to their exports to the rest of the world?” The identification of the impact consists of modelling the selection in exporting that occurs and accounting for the zero trade occurring at the HS-6 digit level of disaggregation. One result is that, the impact of the preference varies with the level of product aggregation. The two remaining chapters focus on the AGOA preference and is identified due to the exogenous provision of the preference. Chapter 4 adopts a matching approach while chapter 5 is based on a quantile regression. The matching estimates providing the mean impacts are negative for exports to the USA compared to the counter-factual. In Chapter 5, we show that, the impact of the preference on the recipients is unequal—oil exporters are the largest gainers. We decompose the impact by using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition found in Machado and Mata (2005) for quantile regressions. We find that, the gains to AGOA recipients are confined to the top half of the export distribution—implying that the gains from AGOA are unequal and thus heterogeneous in their impact on the recipients.

No description available.

On account of China¡¦s dynamic economic growth, its relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states to its south have expanded rapidly in recent years, culminating in the conclusion of the landmark ¡§China-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement¡¨ in 2002. Beyond trade and economic activities, China-ASEAN cooperation has been broadened to cover environment, science and technology, non-traditional security areas and related legal issues. Thus, China¡¦s relations with ASEAN have reached a new era where the two sides have established an economic, political and legal framework for their comprehensive cooperation. Of course, economic cooperation is most important in China-ASEAN relations. The most significant of the initiatives, in terms of members, is the China¡VASEAN Free Trade Area now under negotiation and will be established in 2010. If agreement is reached, this will be the world¡¦s biggest free trade area, encompassing 2 billion people, a collective GDP of almost US$2 trillion, and intra-regional trade of US$1.2 trillion. On the political aspect, China succeeded by means of the bilateral cooperation in economy and trade reached to sign the agreement of ¡§on Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity¡¨ and ¡§Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea¡¨. China also accessed ¡§Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia¡¨ in 2003. These movements want to eliminate the ¡§China threaten¡¨ concepts which exist in the ASEAN countries. China, however, needs stable international environment to expand its economy. The aim of this dissertation is to examine the China¡¦s roles and strategies in the process of forming a new Asian regionalism. Currently, Ease Asia is witnessing the emergence of a few trade blocs and many ambitious projects implying closer integration in the region. According to the neo-realist perspective, regionalism is developing more full in those areas of the word where there is a local hegemonic power that is able to create and maintain regional institution. China to make use of regional hegemony offers the public goods stabilizing and developing its relations with ASEAN countries. On the basis of friendly neighboring diplomacy and peaceful rise, China and ASEAN will create free trade area, cooperate to achieve various kinds of sub-region developing, and initiate security mechanism (include the non-traditional security). China would like to build a ¡§China-ASEAN regionalism¡¨ by means of comprehensive cooperation in the future.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 116 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 56 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 14).