The gravity model of trade is the workhorse model for international trade. In its most basic form, it stipulates that bilateral trade flow between two countries is proportional to the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the distance between them. According to the gravity model, the elasticity of trade flows to distance, or the “distance effect,” has increased since the early 1970s, a confounding empirical result known as the “distance puzzle.” This paper investigates the distance effect more closely by decomposing it. More specifically, it aims to isolate the effects from culture, constructing measures of cultural distance and examining their effects on bilateral trade levels and the distance effect. The results show that cultural differences do not account for the distance puzzle. However, it also finds that cultural distance has both a substantial and statistically significant effect on bilateral trade.

We address empirically the factors affecting the dynamics of income inequality among industrialized economies. Using a panel for 32 developed countries spanning the last four decades, our results indicate that the predictions of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem concerning the effects of international trade on income inequality find support in the data if we concentrate on imports from developing countries as a trade measure, as theory would imply. We find that democratization, the interaction of technology and education and changes in the relative power of labour unions affect inequality dynamics robustly.

1 Resume in English International trade in military materials from the perspective of Czech law The goal of this thesis is, mainly, to introduce laws and legal mechanisms governing this part of international trade with focus on export from Czech republic, mainly outside European Union. Thesis consists from 3 major logical parts divided to 8 chapters, that goes from theory of laws of private international law, thru description of current legislation, both Czech and European, to public procurement according to European directives and latest cases of European Court of Justice. First major part deals, apart from theory of international private law, with description of defence equipment excluded from trade, also describes defence equipment as it is defined by current Czech legislation, and briefly shows history of Czech law of international trade with defence equipment. Under the definition of defence equipment is also brief notice about possibility that some firearms can be in one moment seen as defence, or military, equipment, and in the second moment as a firearms intended for civilan use. First major part ends with short propsal of solution to problems of export companies that comes from European countries without access to sea. Second major part describes process of issuing trade permission to companies and...

Resumé: Standardized forms of concluding contracts in international trade The contemporary international trade is defined by the standardized approach to commercial transactions. The purpose of my thesis is to analyse legal issues concerning contract formation by means of standardized legal forms in international trade. Chapter One describes the development of standardization in international trade. It introduces and defines basic terminology covering standardized forms of contract formation: standard terms, standard clauses, boilerplate terms, form and model contracts and legal manuals. Chapter Two addresses the process of contract formation under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods (CISG) in comparison with the regulation in the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL), Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UNIDROIT Principles, UPICC), Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) and the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Common European Sales Law (CESL). The emphasis is placed on the incorporation of standard terms into a contract, i.e. into an offer or an acceptance. It is followed by an analysis of the battle of forms and its possible solutions including last shot rule, first shot rule, knock-out rule and...

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors affecting the trade flow on forestry products within the European Union. A gravity model was used to estimate the factors affecting the trade flow. The study used a panel data set with observations of two forestry commodities between 28 EU member countries over the years 2005 to 2014. The commodities are Wood chips and particles and Industrial roundwood. The parameters are estimated with fixed effects, the result indicated for Wood chips and particles that exporting countries GDP affect the trade flow positivly (0.64) and the importing countries GDP affect positively aswell (0.36). For Industrial roundwood the exporting countries GDP affect the trade flow negatively (-0.69) and the importing countries GDP affect positively (0.80). With the estimated parameters a forecast of Wood chips and particles over the years 2015 to 2020 was made, the forecast indicated an increase in the trade flow value with 27.2%

<p>The aim of this dissertation is to examine, model and estimate firm responses to</p><p>demand shocks by focusing on specific industries where demand shocks are well</p><p>identified. Combining reduced-form evidence and structural analysis, this dissertation</p><p>extends the economic literature by focusing on within-firm responses of firms</p><p>to two important demand shocks that are identifiable in empirical settings. First,</p><p>I focus on how firms respond to a decrease in effective demand due to competition</p><p>shocks coming from globalization. By considering China's accession to the World</p><p>Trade Organization in 2001 and its impact on the apparel industry, the aim of these</p><p>chapters is to answer how firms react to the increase in Chinese import competition,</p><p>what is the mechanism behind these responses, and how important they are in explaining</p><p>the survival of the Peruvian apparel industry. Second, I study how suppliers'</p><p>survival probability relates to the sudden disruption of their main customer-supplier</p><p>relationships with downstream manufacturers, conditional on suppliers' own idiosyncratic</p><p>characteristics such as physical productivity.</p> / Dissertation

The objective of this diploma thesis is to analyse all factors influencing the international trade in bananas. First chapter describes in general banana sector in national economies including ecological, social and political consequences related to the banana production. Second chapter is about the development of the trade from a macroeconomic point of view and concentrates also on the trade rules of the European Union as the main import region of the world. Third chapter is oriented on a business perspective of the trade and focuses on the marketing chain and position of the most important companies in this domain. One part of the chapter concentrates on the business on the European market. Final chapter summarizes all critical factors of the trade and shows a possible future functioning of the marketing chain with regard to actual tendencies in the world economy.

Orientador: Rogério Gomes / Banca: Stela Luiza de Mattos Ansanelli / Banca: Paulo César Morceiro / Resumo: O presente trabalho analisa os padrões de comércio internacional do setor automobilístico brasileiro entre 2000-2016, através dos indicadores de comércio intraindustrial (CII) com as variáveis determinantes do CII para um produto complexo, como é o caso do automóvel. De acordo com as Novas Teorias do Comércio Internacional (NTCI), são: economias de escala, distância geográfica ponderada (hipótese gravitacional), semelhanças na renda e investimento direto estrangeiro (IDE). Essas variáveis são analisadas, assim como, a trajetória seguida pelos indicadores de CII em suas características verticais (grande diferença entre os valores comercializados de um produto semelhante entre dois países) e horizontais (quando a diferença é pequena). O rumo dessa trajetória auxilia também na avaliação do sobre o processo de fragmentação da produção e convergência setorial, ou seja, sobre a evolução das cadeias globais de valor do setor. Considerando que o setor automobilístico e seus padrões de comércio não podem ser compreendidos sem a devida observação dos elementos históricos-institucionais, este estudo deu ênfase, principalmente, à relação com o MERCOSUL, os regimes automotivos e o Programa INOVAR-AUTO. Para os testes empíricos utilizamos uma amostra de 14 países e 84 indústrias, desagregadas a 6 dígitos do Sistema Harmonizado (SH), compreendendo além de veículos finais, carroceria, peças de veículos, transmissões, partes metálicas, outras peças. Como principais resultados temos a confirma... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present paper analyzes the international trade patterns of the Brazilian auto industry between 2000 and 2016, through the indicators of intraindustrial trade (CII) with the determining variables of the IIC for a complex product, as is the case of the automobile. According to the New Trade Theories (NTT), are: economies of scale, geographic distance weighted (gravitational hypothesis), similarities in income and foreign direct investment (FDI). These variables are analyzed as well as the trajectory followed by the CII indicators in their vertical characteristics (large difference between the values marketed of a similar product between two countries) and horizontal (when the difference is small). The course of this trajectory also helps in the evaluation of the process of production fragmentation and sectoral convergence, that is, the evolution of global value chains in the sector. Considering that the automobile sector and its trade patterns can not be understood without due consideration of the historicalinstitutional elements, this study mainly emphasized the relationship with MERCOSUR, the automotive regimes and the INOVAR-AUTO Program. For the empirical tests we used a sample of 14 countries and 84 industries, disaggregated to 6 digits of the Harmonized System (HS), comprising in addition to final vehicles, bodywork, vehicle parts, transmissions, metal parts, other parts. As main results we have the confirmation of the relationship between IIC and NTCI variables, except for the income similarity variable. It has also been verified that the IIC tends to be horizontal with the great Latin partners, Argentina and Mexico and tends to be vertical with the developed countries. / Mestre

Orientador: Rogério Gomes / Banca: Tatiana Massaroli de Melo / Banca: Vinicius Cardoso de Barros Fornari / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o fluxo de comércio internacional de serviços das doze maiores economias em um contexto de cadeias globais de valor. O estudo do tema proposto torna-se relevante em virtude do expressivo crescimento das atividades de serviços nos últimos anos, em especial, dos serviços com potencial gerador de valor adicionado, e que vem ganhando espaço nas discussões e agendas de negociações. A pesquisa será realizada a partir da Análise de Redes com dados de matrizes de insumo-produto disponíveis no World Input-Output Database (WIOD, 2016) para os anos 2000 e 2014. Para isso, será utilizado o software Gephi que possibilita a geração de redes, cujo layout facilita a visualização do fluxo de comércio e permite a identificação do país e setor de origem e destino das exportações de serviços. / Abstract: This work aims to analyze the flow of international trade in services from the twelve largest economies in a context of global value chains. The study of the proposed topic becomes relevant due to the significant growth of service activities in the last years, especially services with potential to add value, which has gained space in negotiations and discussions agendas. The methodology proposed for this research is to execute the Network Analysis with input-output matrix data, available from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD, 2016), for the years 2000 and 2014. For this, the Gephi software enables the generation of networks, whose layout facilitates the visualization of the trade flow and allows the identification of the country and sector of source and target of services exports. / Mestre

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2017. / This study examines the relationship between major commodity exports and the real exchange rate of commodity exporting countries. We make use of monthly commodity price time series data to determine the causality relationship between exchange rates and the top three commodity exports from 5 commodity exporting countries (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Norway and South Africa). Due to the phenomenon called “Dutch Disease” commodity exporting countries’ economies are found not to experience large economic success during periods of booming export commodity prices. Using data from the IMF IFS database, only one country out of the five included in this study shows evidence of conitegration relationship between commodity prices and exchange rates, although there is some evidence of commodity prices explaining the movement of exchange rates in all five countries. We find that commodity prices do play a role in the exchange rates movement in commodity exporting countries. / MT2017