In December of 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the cessation of beef imports by the largest traditional beef trading partners with the United States, resulting in immediately realized losses to the U.S. industry. This thesis evaluates the short- and long-term impact this discovery and subsequent policies had on the global beef market. We utilize market share analysis to examine the loss realized by the U.S. over a 13-year time frame, then employ a log-linear gravity model with fixed effects to quantify the changes in global export and import values and quantities using a novel bilateral trade database spanning 16 years. We find that the policies implemented immediately on discovery of the single BSE case were often slow to be rescinded even though additional related cases of BSE were not found in the United States. We also find that the removal of said policies does not guarantee full reentry of U.S. beef products, even after a lag of several years. Finally, we find that both traditional and newly emerging suppliers of beef and beef products contributed to the slow reentry of U.S. beef within critical markets. The losses and implications of the aforementioned policies detailed within this thesis suggests a different approach be undertaken by regulators should another similar threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future. / Master of Science / This thesis evaluates the impact of the 2003 discovery of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, widely known as “mad cow disease”, within the state of Washington. This event had a significant immediate and lasting negative impact on international beef trade, and was especially damaging to U.S. producers. Upon the announcement, many of the largest traditional importing nations of U.S. beef halted all purchases in order to protect their domestic food supplies. While extensive research has been produced looking at the immediate impact to U.S. producers, no similar study exists that exhaustively looks at both the short- and long-term impact on the global market for beef. We find that the policies put into place were unnecessary and highly destructive to U.S. producers, and beneficial to many of the largest competitors in the global beef market. Furthermore, our main findings indicate that the removal of these policies did not quickly allow the reentry of U.S. exports to these traditional markets. The results of this paper suggests a different approach be taken by policymakers should another threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This case study explores how Toshiba Corporation, a Japanese electronics company, managed the crisis caused by its subsidiary. Toshiba Machine Co. (TMC)'s illegal exporting activities to the Soviet Union. Between 1981 and 1984, TMC sold eight military sensitive machine tools to the Soviet Union. It was a violation of COCOM (Coordinating Committee on Export Controls) regulations that monitor the sales of sensitive military equipment to the Communist countries. Because the sales allegedly damaged the U.S. national security, the Congress accused TMC as well as its parent company, Toshiba, and threatened sanction to ban importing an Toshiba products. How did Toshiba identify and confront the crisis? What was the impact and the effect of tactics and strategies employed by Toshiba? The major discussions focus on Toshiba's crisis management efforts. This study is based on articles from American and Japanese newspapers and magazines as well as documents and news releases obtained from Toshiba. Furthermore, interviews with two managers of Toshiba's public communications office, one in charge of domestic and the other in charge of overseas public communications, were conducted in order to get Toshiba's insights and perspectives towards the crisis. The results of this study show some influential factors which arise from the diversity of infrastructures and characterize the public relations strategies of a Japanese company manufacturing its product in the United States. Moreover. the interdependency of the multinational corporations is clarified through the study. / 2999-01-01

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This dissertation contains three papers that contribute to the theory of international trade, political economy, and trade and environmental protection. The first paper develops a model to examine the costs and benefits of trade in differentiated products. It focuses on how relative ability in exporting variety between two countries determines economic welfare in both countries. The results shed light on the question of why export-promotion programs in many countries aim not only to help their existing exporting firms export more, but also to help domestic firms become new exporting firms or enter new foreign markets. The paper also discusses the possibility of over-provision of export variety and raises some questions regarding the benefits of trade in differentiated products. The second paper suggests some coherent explanations for tariff reductions and substitution of non-tariff barriers for tariffs, taking into account both organized special interests and unorganized consumer interests. It focuses on how the presence of informed consumers affects the political equilibrium choice of trade policy - both the level of protection and the policy instrument. The paper identifies three effects that interact with each other as an incumbent government substitutes a NTB for a tariff and finds, among other things, that an increase in foreign competition will not cause the government to substitute NTBs for tariffs but a rise in the government's valuation of political contributions might. The third paper shows that small or financially constrained environmentalist groups can compete indirectly through changing public preferences over environmental quality, though they may be in a weak position relative to polluting industries in the direct competition for political influence. It is also shown, however, that in a small open economy where the output price is exogenously determined, the value of domestic persuasion falls and government environmental policies will be determined by direct political competition. Moreover, direct competition for political influence in the open economy becomes more intense because positions of different groups on environmental policy become more extreme. The analysis also shows that moving to free trade would increase a country's environmental protection as long as the median voter were not very 'green'.

The GATT Anti-Dumping Code provides that anti-dumping proceedings may be concluded without the imposition of duties if the exporters of the dumped product offer undertakings which the authorities of the importing country consider acceptable. Undertakings are, in essence, formal commitments by exporters under anti-dumping investigation to abstain from dumping or to ensure that their exports will not injure the domestic producers of the product concerned. In accordance with the GATT rules, he anti-dumping laws of the European Community and the United States contain provisions allowing the anti-dumping authorities to accept price undertakings. In practice, however, the use of undertakings in the two jurisdictions has been considerably different. This thesis analyzes and compares the law and practice of the European Community and the United States with regard to price undertakings.

This thesis reveals key issues that have been identified by practitioners, Japanese and South African, supported by the appropriate theory, that may pre-empt potential problems that arise between South Africans and Japanese as a result of behavioural differences, expectations and general approach to business. By understanding, addressing, or altering behaviour, the competitive advantage and synergy may be realised. The objective of this study is to assist individuals and companies by offering ten recommendations for consideration when entering into a Japanese-South African business relationship. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

The European Union-South Africa Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement (EU/SA TDCA), signed in October 1999, is viewed by some in South Africa as not only one of the most important trade and development agreements entered into by the 'new' South African goverrunent, but also a significant agreement for setting precedents for other bi-lateral trade and development pacts between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states. This thesis considers two major issues related to the EU/SA TDCA. First, it describes and evaluates the structures that supported the South African side of the TDCA decision-making process. Second, it discusses the potential economic impact of the agreement on South Africa and part of southern African. Prior to the election of the 'new' South African government in 1994, the majority of South Africa's population was excluded - both in terms of access to decision-making structures and from economic prosperity. By exploring the TDCA, the thesis provides a window through wl-dch to examine contemporary access to decision-making processes in South Africa and the likelihood of the TDCA promoting economic prosperity for sections of southern African society, particularly the 'traditionally excluded'. Interviews with key actors who helped formulate the TDCA provide information that enabled the evaluation of the TDCA decision-making process and highlighted potential economic 'winners' and 'losers'. Interviewing representatives of the South African wine and textile sectors provided an opportunity to examine in more detail the likely impact of the agreement and decision-making processes, associated to the TDCA, within South Africa. The results indicate that an overriding message of this thesis is one of complexity. The description of the structures that underpinned the EU/SA TDCA portrayed complex relationships between decision-making 'actors'. In evaluating the inclusivity of the policy formulation process, there was a lack of consensus over who had been included or excluded. Likewise, the identification of potential economic 'winners' and 'losers' proved to be somewhat problematic.

The objective of this thesis is to highlight the Egyptian experiment concerning its economic reform programme, and to determine whether this programme has affected Egypt's stock market performance. Using 18 years of data, which covered the period 1980/8 1 to 1997/98 and incorporates time periods prior to and after adopting the economic reform programme, the thesis empirically investigates three main issues. Firstly, there is an examination of whether the Egyptian government succeeded in implementing its economic reform programme by looking to the main economic indicators: nominal interest rates, real interest rates, the inflation rate, exchange rate stability, the real GDP growth rate, per capita income and the budget deficit in Egypt after 1991, and comparing them with the same indicators prior to this period. Secondly, the thesis considers the changes in Egypt's stock market after the introduction of the economic reform programme by measuring the changes in four main dimensions: market activity, market size, market liquidity and market concentration. Thirdly, and this is the main part of the thesis, the research concentrates on examining the impact of Egypt's economic reform programme on its stock market performance. For the first two issues, several logistic regressions are performed to determine whether the data prior to 1991 can be separated from the data relating to the period after 1991. The results from this analysis indicate clearly that both type of data series witnessed dramatic changes after 1991. As to the third issue, cointegration analysis is used to model the relationship between economic reform programme variables and the stock market performance variables within an error correction model form. Generally speaking, the results from this analysis demonstrate that economic variables have an impact upon various features of market activity, market size, market liquidity and market concentration. An important observation in this thesis is that Egypt still needs to accelerate its rate of growth, as it was the only independent variable, which did not show any significant change or significant impact upon the stock market performance variables.

Although the WTO anti-dumping rules have been created to reconcile and monitor domestic anti-dumping measures, different jurisdictions still have tremendous variations in their domestic anti-dumping legislation and interpretations. Such differences may suggest opportunities for further innovations, especially for countries where the anti-dumping legislation is under-developed, such as China. Through a comparative study of the domestic anti-dumping legislation among the United States, the European Community, and China, problems and opportunities for the innovation of China's anti-dumping law will be found.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic format on the Internet.