determinants of bilateral trade protection in this paper determinants of bilateral protection levels are empirically identified when controlling for multilateral trade regulation and importing country specific factors strong empirical support is provided of that three bilateral factors are influencing the bilateral protection level specifically a country s protection level on goods from a trade partner is positively affected by the domestic import penetration of goods produced by the trade partner negatively influenced by the intra industry traded share of these imports and positively affected by the trade partner s protection level on domestic goods moreover very high explanatory values are provided in the cross section estimations indicating that these determinants policy regulations and importer specific factors jointly explain almost all of the variation in bilateral protection levels the results are general in the sense that estimations are performed for a large sample of bilateral trade relations including 22 trade partners that are highly differentiated in terms of country characteristics the overall results indicate that to the extent that policy makers can affect bilateral protection levels under multilateral trade regulation they act on political economy rather than economic goals

vehicle scrappage and gasoline policy abstract we estimate the sensitivity of scrap decisions to changes in used car values and show how this scrap elasticity produces emissions leakage under fuel efficiency standards a process known as the gruenspecht effect we first estimate the effect of gasoline prices on used vehicle values and scrappage of vehicles with different fuel economies we then estimate the scrap elasticity itself which we find to be 0 7 when applied in a model of fuel economy standards 13 16 percent of the expected fuel savings leak away through the used vehicle market this effect rivals or exceeds the importance of the often cited mileage rebound effect jel h23 l62 l78 q35 q38 q48 q58

technology international trade and pollution from us manufacturing pollution emitted by us manufacturers declined markedly over the past several decades even as real manufacturing output increased i first show that most of the decline in us manufacturing pollution has resulted from changing production processes technology rather than changes in the mix of goods produced i then show that increased net imports of polluting goods international trade accounts for only a small portion of the pollution reductions from the changing mix of goods together these two findings demonstrate that shifting polluting industries overseas explains only a minor part less than 10 percent of the cleanup of us manufacturing jel f18 l23 l60 o30 q52 q53

a political economy theory of trade agreements we develop a model where trade agreements in addition to correcting terms of trade externalities help governments to commit vis a vis domestic industrial lobbies the model allows us to explore how the characteristics of the political environment aect the structure of the trade agreement and the extent of trade liberalization the model also highlights the role of intersectoral capital mobility in determining trade liberalization in a dynamic extension of the model we explore the extent to which trade liberalization occurs gradually and how its speed depends on the fundamentals of the problem

is trade good or bad for the environment sorting out the causality we seek to contribute to the debate over globalization and the environment by asking what is the effect of trade on a country s environment for a given level of gdp we take specific account of the endogeneity of trade using exogenous geographic determinants of trade as instrumental variables we find that trade tends to reduce three measures of air pollution statistical significance is high for concentrations of so2 moderate for no2 and lacking for particulate matter although results for other environmental measures are not as encouraging there is little evidence that trade has a detrimental effect on the environment

willingness to pay for sustainability labelled chocolate an experimental auction approach this study evaluates young consumers attitudes to sustainable food and analyzes the determinants of their willingness to pay wtp for chocolate bars with different sustainability labels data were collected through experimental auctions in italy assessing respondents n 80 aged between 18 and 35 wtp for chocolate bars with three selected labels i e fair trade rainforest alliance and carbon footprint econometric outcomes reveal that several socio demographic factors exert a positive and statistically significant effect on wtp for all the selected chocolate bars namely age cohort older gender female and household income high respondents lifestyles and food consumption habits also had an effect on final bids this study offers valuable insights to policy makers and practitioners for efficiently targeting young consumers in campaigns to increase sustainability labelled food consumption

the political economy of declining industries senescent industry collapse revisited many observers have noted a strong tendency for protection once it is instituted to persist over time this paper first shows that persistent protection arises whenever lobbying is an alternative to costly adjustment with endogenous protection the level of tariffs is an increasing function of past tariffs the more an industry lobbies the greater the current protection it receives and the less it adjusts and the less the industry adjusts the more effective it is as a lobby in the future when the costs of lobbying and adjustment are fully variable declining industries contract more slowly over time and never fully adjust however the paper shows that adding a fixed cost of lobby formation or maintenance is sufficient to generate an endogenous collapse of protection such as that predicted by cassing and hillman 1986 american economic review 76 516 523 in which an industry abruptly terminates its lobbying and loses its protection finally the paper examines the well documented bias against growing industries in the lobbying process

the value of trade agreements in the presence of political pressures an argument often heard in favor of trade agreements is that by committing to free trade a government can credibly distance itself from domestic lobbies but several existing models of endogenous protection suggest that governments have no interest in foreclosing interest group pressures since governments derive rents from the political process we develop a small country model in which factors are sector specific in the short run but mobile in the long run we show that in this setting a government may be worse off in the political equilibrium than under commitment to free trade and hence it may value a trade agreement

lobbying counterlobbying and the structure of tariff protection in poor and rich countries a political economy model of protection is used to determine endogenously the intersectoral patterns of protection three propositions are derived that are consistent with the stylized patterns of tariff protection in rich and poor countries nominal protection rates escalate with the degree of processing protection is higher on average in poor countries and rich countries protect agriculture relatively more than they protect manufacturing whereas poor countries do the reverse numerical simulations for archetypal rich and poor economies confirm that the endogenously determined structure of protection is broadly consistent with observed patterns of protection

the importance of consumer trust for the emergence of a market for green products the case of organic food consumer trust is a key prerequisite for establishing a market for credence goods such as green products especially when they are premium priced this article reports research on exactly how and how much trust influences consumer decisions to buy new green products it identifies consumer trust as a distinct volition factor influencing the likelihood that consumers will act on green intentions and strongly emphasizes the needs to manage consumer trust as a prerequisite for the development of a market for green products specifically based on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods it is found that lack of consumer trust is a barrier for the development of a market for organic food in thailand two focus groups and ten in depth interviews revealed low knowledge about and low trust in organic food certification control and labeling further a mall intercept survey n 177 revealed that lack of especially system trust reduces consumer expectations about benefits of buying organic food and it makes them less likely to buy organic food mistrust in the control system and in the authenticity of food sold as organic has a significant negative impact on self reported buying behavior implications for policy and future research are discussed

distributional and efficiency impacts of increased us gasoline taxes we examine the impacts of increased us gasoline taxes in a model that links the markets for new used and scrapped vehicles and recognizes the consider able heterogeneity among households and cars household choice parameters derive from an estimation procedure that integrates individual choices for car ownership and miles traveled we find that each cent per gallon increase in the price of gasoline reduces the equilibrium gasoline consumption by about 0 2

on the incidence of us tariffs this paper provides evidence on the incidence of tariffs on products of export interest to developing countries by investigating the relationship between per capita incomes of us trading partners and tariff rates it constitutes the first attempt to assess the incidence of tariffs imposed by the us on countries that span the entire range of per capita incomes average tariff rates are lower for the poorest and richest countries and higher for countries in the middle of the income distribution this finding is not consistent with the widely held view that tariffs used by industrial nations bear more heavily on products of export interest to poorer developing countries than on imports from industrial nations it is consistent with the tariff escalation pattern reported in earlier studies if advanced countries account for most products at the high end of the fabrication scale results show that poorest countries will find it difficult to escape tariffs by attaining higher levels of economic development

lobbying competition over trade policy competition between opposing lobbies is an important factor in the endogenous determination of trade policy this article investigates the consequences of lobbying competition between upstream and downstream producers the theoretical structure underlying the empirical analysis is the well known grossman helpman model of trade policy determination modified to account for the cross sectoral use of inputs itself a quantitatively significant phenomenon with around 50 of manufacturing output being used by other sectors rather than in final consumption our empirical results validate the theoretical predictions importantly accounting for lobbying competition also alters substantially estimates of the welfare mindedness of governments in setting trade policy

intraindustry trade sources and effects on protection this paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of intraindustry trade we demonstrate that two way trade flows occur where conditions are favorable to international specialization consistent with the stigler williamson analysis of the division of labor the results are inconsistent with the prevailing product differentiationcum scale economies model of intraindustry trade in addition we show that intraindustry trade has a significant impact on protectionist pressures exports of closely related products have the effect of mitigating the tariff raising effects that imports would otherwise exert

the political economy of the tariff cycle how can protectionism and free trade succeed one another our answer focuses on the changing balance of private actors political demands these actors acquire interests in tariff policies because their assets are spatially concentrated and trade in these assets is subject to various limitations actors in regions experiencing no new investment in an established industry old regions have interests that sometimes differ from those in regions where there is new investment we show that old regions have no reason to be involved in tariff politics at business cycle peaks during troughs whether a state becomes more or less protectionist depends ceteris paribus on the relative political strength of old import competing and old exporting interests if old import competing industries outweigh the old exporters then protection will tend to increase at the trough and decrease at the peak of a business cycle the opposite result occurs when old exporters are more influential

factors influencing willingness to pay for the energy star label abstract in the united states nearly 17 of greenhouse gas emissions come from residential energy use increases in energy efficiency for the residential sector can generate significant energy savings and emissions reductions consumer labels such as the us environmental protection agency s energy star promote conservation by providing consumers with information on energy usage for household appliances this study examines how the energy star label affects consumer preferences for refrigerators the results of an online survey of a national sample of adults suggest that consumers are on average willing to pay an extra 249 82 349 30 for a refrigerator that has been awarded the energy star label furthermore the results provide evidence that respondent willingness to pay was motivated by both private energy cost savings and public environmental benefits

beyond ecolabels what green marketing can learn from conventional marketing ecolabels have emerged as one of the main tools of green marketing although a great deal of effort has been invested in making them more effective and efficient the market share of ecolabelled products is still low partly because they have been addressed mainly to green consumers in a theoretical exposition of marketing theory we find that green marketing could learn from conventional marketing in discovering other means than labelling to promote green products examples include addressing a wider range of consumers working with the positioning strategies of price place and promotion and actively engaging in market creation

a study of the link between a corporation s financial performance and its commitment to ethics a number of studies have tested the relationship between a corporation s social and ethical performance and its financial performance in contrast this is the first study to demonstrate a link between overall financial performance and an emphasis on ethics as an aspect of corporate governance it identifies the 26 8 percent of the 500 largest u s public corporations that in their annual report to shareholders commit to ethical behavior toward their stakeholders or emphasize compliance with their code of conduct the financial performance of these corporations ranks higher than that of those who do not at a significance level of p 0 005 using the 1997 business week ranking which averages eight publicly reported measures of historical financial performance these findings should motivate more corporations to utilize the principles of social and ethical accounting auditing and reporting seaar

the agency problems embedded in firm s equity investment we find that agency problems are embedded in firm s excess and abnormal equity investments that are mainly dictated by controlling shareholder s motives and ethical choices manifested in ownership and board structure the excess equity investment is gauged with respect to industry average the abnormal equity investment is specifically referred to the number of nominal investment companies that are fully controlled by the controlling owners while subject to little governance our empirical evidences of 345 taiwanese non financial listed firms show that firm s excess and abnormal equity investments are negatively correlated with controlling shareholder s cash flow rights while are positively correlated with the control cash flow deviation and board affiliation the results are supportive of the positive incentive hypothesis and the negative entrenchment hypothesis put forth by la porta et al 2002 journal of finance57 1147 1171 and claessen et al 2002 journal of finance57 2741 2742 the negative relation between equity investment and firm s value further supports the agency postulation that corporate excess and abnormal equity investments represent a leeway for controlling shareholder to exploit wealth of minority shareholders this study potentially contributes to the literature of business ethics by portraying an empirically testable linkage from controlling owner s ethical choices to his actions and therefore firm s value

why is pollution from u s manufacturing declining the roles of environmental regulation productivity and trade between 1990 and 2008 air pollution emissions from u s manufacturing fell by 60 percent despite a substantial increase in manufacturing output we show that these emissions reductions are primarily driven by within product changes in emissions intensity rather than changes in output or in the composition of products produced we then develop and estimate a quantitative model linking trade with the environment to better understand the economic forces driving these changes our estimates suggest that the implicit pollution tax that manufacturers face doubled between 1990 and 2008 these changes in environmental regulation rather than changes in productivity and trade account for most of the emissions reductions

trade wars and trade talks when governments meet in the international arena their actions reflect the political situations at home previous studies of trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest here we introduce domestic politics into the analysis of international economic relations we study the interactions between national leaders who are concerned both with providing a high standard of living to the general electorate and collecting campaign contributions from special interest groups our analysis sheds light on the determinants of the structure of protection in non cooperative and cooperative policy equilibria

the use of regression statistics to analyze imperfect pricing policies corrective taxes can solve many market failures but actual policies frequently deviate from the theoretical ideal because of administrative or political constraints we present a method to quantif

the kennedy round evidence on the regulation of international trade in the united states the purpose of this paper is to analyze and provide empirical evidence regarding the regulation of international trade flows our goal is to provide an explanation of the changes in the interindustry pattern of trade restrictions which emerged from the kennedy round of tariff negotiations the principal conclusion of the analysis is that the pattern of protection which resulted from the kennedy round was shaped to minimize the domestic political disruption resulting from liberalization industries which faced significant import threats and whose characteristics enhanced their potential political influence were able to maintain tariff protection in the face of overall liberalization the potential impact of the agreed upon tariff reductions was partially undermined by the introduction of offsetting nontariff trade barriers ntbs in addition ntbs were introduced systematically in industries that were becom

lobbying competition over trade policy counterlobbying over trade policy competition between opposing lobbies is an important factor in the endogenous determination of trade policy this paper investigates empirically the consequences of lobbying competition between upstream and downstream producers for trade policy the theoretical structure underlying the empirical analysis is the well known grossman helpman model of trade policy determination modified suitably to account for the cross sectoral use of inputs in production itself a quantitatively significant phenomenon with around 50 percent of manufacturing output being used by other sectors rather than in final consumption data from more than 40 countries are used in our analysis our empirical results validate the predictions of the theoretical model with lobbying competition importantly accounting for lobbying competition also alters substantially estimates of the welfare mindedness of governments in setting trade policy

the environmental bias of trade policy author s shapiro joseph s abstract this paper documents a new fact then analyzes its causes and consequences in most countries import tariffs and non tariff barriers are substantially lower on dirty than on clean industries where an industry s dirtiness is defined as its carbon dioxide co2 emissions per dollar of output this difference in trade policy creates a global implicit subsidy to co2 emissions in internationally traded goods and so contributes to climate change this global implicit subsidy to co2 emissions totals several hundred billion dollars annually the greater protection of downstream industries which are relatively clean substantially accounts for this pattern the downstream pattern can be explained by theories where industries lobby for low tariffs on their inputs but final consumers are poorly organized a quantitative general equilibrium model suggests that if countries applied similar trade policies to clean and dirty goods global co2 emissions would decrease and global real income would change little

a model for fair trade buying behaviour the role of perceived quantity and quality of information and of product specific attitudes in a sample of 615 belgians a model for fair trade buying behaviour was developed the impact of fair trade knowledge general attitudes towards fair trade attitudes towards fair trade products and the perception of the quality and quantity of fair trade information on the reported amount of money spent on fair trade products were assessed fair trade knowledge overall concern and scepticism towards fair trade and the perception of the perceived quantity and quality of fair trade information influence buying behaviour directly and indirectly through product attitudes interest in fair trade products price acceptability and product liking have a significant impact on fair trade buying behaviour product interest is the most important variable influencing buying behaviour implications for the campaigns of governments and for the marketing strategy of fair trade organisations are offered

jobs jobs jobs a new perspective on protectionism this paper analyzes the determinants of protectionism in a small open economy with search frictions in this environment jobs generate rents whose access depends on the level of trade protection by raising the domestic price of a good a government may attract more firms in a particular industry this raises the probability that workers will find jobs in this sector and in turn will benefit from the associated rents though simple this channel may help explainavarietyofstylizedfactsonthestructureoftradeprotectionandindividualtrade policy preferences jel f130 f160

environmental regulations transfers and trade theory and evidence abstract this paper develops a theory of compensation of producers for the costs associated with environmental regulations we show that the existence of transfers can give counter intuitive effects of environmental policy on both output and trade flows in particular the compensation obtained by producers neutralizes the effect of environmental policy on output and consequently on trade flows this may help explain why previous empirical research has found weak evidence that environmental regulations affect trade patterns the theory is tested using agricultural sector data the evidence supports the hypothesis that environmental regulations and transfers are positively correlated

do fair trade and eco labels in coffee wake up the consumer conscience abstract in this study a face to face survey was conducted in order to reveal consumer preferences for ethical and environmentally sound labeling programs in coffee valuation questions regarding the fair trade shade grown and organic coffee labels were asked using a payment card format after consumers were previously informed about each of the labeling programs results suggest that consumers are very receptive toward both fair trade and shade grown coffee labels and consequently are willing to pay higher premiums for these labeling programs than for the organic coffee

identification of endogenous social effects the reflection problem this paper examines the reflection problem that arises when a researcher observing the distribution of behaviour in a population tries to infer whether the average behaviour in some group influences the behaviour of the individuals that comprise the group it is found that inference is not possible unless the researcher has prior information specifying the compisition of reference groups if this information is available the prospects for inference depend critically on the population relationship between the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes inference is difficult to implossible if these variables are functionally dependent or are statistically independent the prospects are better if the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes are moderately related in the population

the political economy of pollution taxes in a small open economy abstract this paper develops a positive theory explaining pollution tax policy outcomes in a small open economy the equilibrium tax rate depends on lobby group membership the relative importance of lobbying activities and the tax elasticity of pollution the equilibrium properties are investigated the model is extended to incorporate pollution abatement and a pollution abatement subsidy we show that total pollution may be increasing in the pollution abatement subsidy rate this effect arises because the equilibrium pollution tax rate may be decreasing in the subsidy rate due to altered political influence of the lobby groups in the political equilibrium

the determinants of exit in an open economy in this paper the determinants of exit are investigated for the manufacturing sector of the united states economy which has been subjected to growing international influences the analysis uses united states cross sectional data the results of the exit equation suggest that low profitability declining industry growth and displacement of incumbents by entrants foster exit international influences are also seen to have an impact on u s manufacturing exit specifically imports into an industry have a small effect on exit and protection has little influence in stemming exit

unveiling ethical product features the importance of an elaborated information presentation abstract despite growing consumer awareness of ethical consumption market sales are not growing accordingly because the presentation of appropriate ethical product information may influence consumers to choose ethical products this paper analyses the requirements necessary for the successful communication of ethical product features based on mcguire s 1976 information processing model and a review of current literature the information s comprehensibility meaningfulness and credibility are investigated in an online survey of us american citizens n 595 for two product categories representing fast moving consumer goods and durable goods a generalized mixed logit model revealed that all three communication factors affect consumers choices the more concerns about or expertise in organic production and fair trade purchase the consumers expressed the less important their price sensibility and the more they preferred a comprehensive addendum and credible sources e g government certificate or traceability the results strongly suggest that advertisers and marketers can customize product communications in order to better engage both the mass market and ethically oriented consumers

the effect of firm profit versus personal economic well being on the level of ethical responses given by managers members of organizations are continually making decisions that have important consequences for themselves and the firms for which they work in some cases these decisions affect human well being and social welfare and thus have important ethical impacts for those affected by the decisions

on modeling and interpreting the economics of catastrophic climate change with climate change as prototype example this paper analyzes the implications of structural uncertainty for the economics of low probability high impact catastrophes even when updated by bayesian learning uncertain structural parameters induce a critical tail fattening of posterior predictive distributions such fattened tails have strong im plications for situations like climate change where a catastrophe is theoretically possible because prior knowledge cannot place sufficiently narrow bounds on overall damages this paper shows that the economic consequences of fat tailed structural uncertainty along with unsureness about high temperature damages can readily outweigh the effects of discounting in climate change policy analysis

the relationship of ethical decision making to business ethics and performance in taiwan this paper examines the relationship of ethical decision making by individuals to corporate business ethics and organizational performance of three groups i smes small and medium enterprises ii outstanding smes the key stone award winners and iii large enterprises in order to provide a reference for taiwanese entrepreneurs to practice better business ethics the survey method involved random sampling of 132 enterprises within three groups some 524 out of 1320 questionnaires were valid the survey results demonstrated that ethical decision making by individuals corporate business ethics and organizational performance are highly related in summary then high levels of organizational performance were directly attributable to high levels of applied corporate and individual ethics furthermore there is a demonstrable tendency for outstanding smes to reject ethically unsound practices such as padded expense accounts tax evasion and misleading advertising the measurement criteria used to assess organizational performance however did not include an objective evaluation of financial performance