Protecting labor rights in preferential trade agreements: The role of trade unions,left governments,and skilled labor

This paper investigates variation in the design of labor provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) by focusing on the power of trade unions, the role of government partisanship, and the relative strength of skilled labor. We expect strong trade unions and left-leaning governments to be associated with more, and more far-reaching labor provisions in PTAs. We also expect the strength of skilled workers relative to the strength of unskilled workers to negatively correlate with the depth of labor provisions in PTAs. In addition, the effect of trade unions should be conditional on both the presence of left government and democracy. We test these hypotheses relying on an original dataset of labor provisions included in 483 PTAs signed between 1990 and 2016. This dataset covers 140 different labor provisions that relate to six overarching dimensions. The quantitative analysis finds support for the expectations concerning the influence of trade unions and the role of a country’s skill profile.     

Who Can Reform the Labor Market? IMF Conditionality,Partisanship, and Labor Unions

Labor market reforms are critical for economic growth. Yet, they are politically contentious, and governments, more often than not, are faced with strong opposition from interest groups. Scholarly work shows that governments often rely on external intervention to implement politically difficult reforms. This is the case with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that typically conditions its financing on the implementation of required reforms. Do borrowing governments benefit from IMF programs to overcome domestic opposition to reform by organized interests? Utilizing a unique new data set on IMF conditionality, I show that partisan and electoral concerns and domestic alliances strongly affect the implementation of labor market reforms, even when the IMF imposes them. When faced with increasing number of strikes, left-wing governments are more likely to implement labor market reforms than center/right-wing governments. However, the left is less likely than the center/right to fulfill its international commitments during election years when labor groups are militant. These findings highlight the left’s unique ability to form pro-reform coalitions and the IMF’s conditional role in removing domestic political opposition to reform. Counter-intuitively, right-wing governments still struggle to reform the labor market, even during economic crises and under IMF programs.     

Seeing the Lexus for the Olive Trees? Public Opinion,Economic Interdependence,and Interstate Conflict

Many scholars argue that economic interdependence and more extensive economic ties between countries decreases the risk of violent conflict between them. However, despite considerable research on the “capitalist peace” at the macro or dyadic level, there has been less attention to its possible individual-level microfoundations or underpinnings. We argue that public perceptions about economic ties with other states and the costs of conflict should influence the expected constraints on the use of force for leaders. Actual high interdependence and potential economic costs may not suffice to create political constraints on the use of force if people are unaware of the degree of interdependence or fail to understand the benefits of trade and the likely economic costs of disruptive conflict. We examine the linkages between individual perceptions about economic interdependence and their views on conflict and peace through a survey experiment, where we ask respondents in Japan about approval for belligerent actions in a territorial dispute with China and varying information about economic ties. Our findings indicate that greater knowledge and information about economic interdependence affects attitudes about territorial disputes and increases support for peaceful solutions with China.     

Do Globalization and Free Markets Drive Obesity among Children and Youth? An Empirical Analysis, 1990–2013

Scholars of public health identify globalization as a major cause of obesity. Free markets are blamed for spreading high calorie, nutrient-poor diets, and sedentary lifestyles across the globe. Global trade and investment agreements apparently curtail government action in the interest of public health. Globalization is also blamed for raising income inequality and social insecurities, which contribute to “obesogenic” environments. Contrary to recent empirical studies, this study demonstrates that globalization and several component parts, such as trade openness, FDI flows, and an index of economic freedom, reduce weight gain and obesity among children and youth, the most likely age cohort to be affected by the past three decades of globalization and attendant lifestyle changes. The results suggest strongly that local-level factors possibly matter much more than do global-level factors for explaining why some people remain thin and others put on weight. The proposition that globalization is homogenizing cultures across the globe in terms of diets and lifestyles is possibly exaggerated. The results support the proposition that globalized countries prioritize health because of the importance of labor productivity and human capital due to heightened market competition, ceteris paribus, even if rising incomes might drive high consumption.     

泛北部湾区域经济合作的法律分析及广西的应对

东盟10国领导人于2007年11月20日在新加坡签署《东盟宪章》，这预示着东盟共同体将正式建立。泛北部湾经济合作是中国与东盟经贸合作关系在次区域的进一步深化和细化，对该区域内相关国家及地区的经济社会发展将产生重大影响。笔者不揣浅陋，就泛北部湾经济合作可能面临的法律问题与注意事项，及广西应采取的应对措施，谈些管见。     

Why is There No Race to the Bottom in Capital Taxation?

This article explains the absence of a race to the bottom in capital taxation by analyzing fiscal competition under budget rigidities and tax equity constraints (fairness norms). We outline a political economic model of tax competition that treats the outcome of tax competition as one argument in the governments utility function, the others being public expenditure and tax equity. In accordance with previous theoretical research, tax competition tends to cause a reduction in taxes on mobile capital and an increase in the tax rates on relatively immobile labor in our model. Yet, our model predicts that governments do not fully abolish taxes on mobile capital. Instead, the government being least restricted by budget constraints and equity norms cuts tax rates to levels slightly below the lowest tax rates of those countries, in which governments are more constrained, where effective constraints are country size, budget rigidities and fairness norms. Analyzing data from 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries between 1975 and 2004 we find empirical support for the hypotheses derived from our theoretical model.     

基于经济整合理论的广西对东盟开放战略分析

进入21世纪,随着中国-东盟自由贸易区、泛珠三角经济区、西南六省七方协调会、湄公河次区域合作、泛北部湾经济区的深入发展,处于多区域合作框架下的广西无疑迎来了一个加快对东盟开放的大好机遇.但在激烈的国际市场竞争格局下,广西要提高开放的水平和质量,还必须要以经济整合理论为指导,有针对地制定对外开放战略.     

区域一体化背景下的中国与东盟贸易——一种政治经济学解释

20世纪90年代以前中国东盟双边贸易的相互依赖程度一直很低,经济缺少互补性、产品在世界市场上相互竞争被认为是主要原因。哪些因素导致了90年代以来中国东盟贸易相互依赖的深化呢?本文分析发现,虽然从1993年以来中国东盟双边经济互补性有很大提高,但在世界市场上的竞争性并没发生大的变化。中国东盟经济相互依赖的深化需要引进经济以外的因素来解释。本文认为,中国东盟从各自利益出发对它们之间相互关系的认知与重视推动了双边经济合作的深化,这在一定程度上改变了双方的对外贸易结构。     

Compensating the Losers: An Examination of Congressional Votes on Trade Adjustment Assistance

Globalization intensifies political conflict between citizens whose circumstances improve from foreign trade and those whose lives deteriorate as a result of trade. To pacify these rival interests, governments may assist citizens who become unemployed due to trade. When and under what conditions will legislators fund such assistance programs? The current study addresses this question by examining Congressional roll call votes in the United States during a period of rapid economic integration (1980–2004). The analysis reveals that protrade legislators who represent relatively more exporters are more likely to vote for increased spending on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs. Exporters and their elected representatives arguably support such expenditures to broaden the protrade coalition.     

The cost of complying with human rights treaties: The convention on the rights of the child and basic immunization

The determinants of compliance with human rights treaties likely vary according to the right in question, yet heterogeneity in the pathways through which ratification affects various human rights outcomes has received limited attention. This paper first develops an account of treaty compliance that incorporates the intrinsic benefits to the state of compliance, regime costs associated with certain rights, the political costs that NGOs, judges, and others are able to impose for non-compliance, and the fiscal and economic costs of compliance. The paper argues that for child survival rights, fiscal and economic costs are likely to be dispositive, and that as a result richer countries are more likely to comply. The paper then uses an instrumental variable approach to investigate whether ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child was associated with stronger effort at the country level on child survival rights. It finds that ratification of the CRC was correlated with a subsequent increase in immunization rates, but only in upper middle and high income countries.     

Trade unions and NGOs: the need for cooperation

The challenges posed by economic globalisation make it imperative that civil society organisations break down the barriers that have traditionally divided them, in order to ensure that the rights of those who are marginalised or vulnerable are kept firmly on the international agenda. In particular, globalisation brings fresh impetus to the need to forge alliances between the trade union movement and NGOs concerned with social and economic development. While there is plenty of evidence of successful cooperation, major problems, fears, suspicions, and at times hostilities remain between them. Some of these are substantial and sharp policy differences, but others are the consequence of colliding political or organisational cultures, prejudices, financial competition, and a mutual lack of understanding of respective roles and objectives. Debates surrounding the organisation of workers in the informal economy, including the ILO discussion in June 2002, provide a useful case study.     

印尼一印度战略伙伴关系：动因、发展及影响

自2005年11月印尼与印度建立战略伙伴关系以来,两国在政治与安全、经济与贸易等领域取得了快速发展,特别是两国的贸易额提前完成政府规定的目标。在未来5—10年,将是两国关系加速发展时期,经济与贸易仍然是两国关系的主轴。鉴于两国日益增强的国力,两国关系的发展不仅对于两国本身,而且对整个亚州区域一体化将起到积极的推动作用,成为南南合作的典范。印尼一印度战略伙伴关系的发展将对中国与东盟关系产生一定的制衡作用,但更多地是机遇。     

Lobbying as a Private Good with Intra-Industry Trade

Intra-industry trade—trade in different varieties of the same product between countries with similar factor endowments—has been an important and surprising feature of the postwar international economy. Economists have explained this trade with models of monopolistic competition, which suggest that intra-industry trade does not have the stark distributional consequences that the more traditional "endowments-based" trade does. I do not dispute that claim here, although I do dispute a political implication drawn from it—that intra-industry trade produces less political action than endowments-based trade. I argue that, because firms involved in intra-industry trade are monopolists, lobbying essentially becomes a private good . If intra-industry trade places costs on firms, they do not have less incentive to take political action to stop it, as the conventional wisdom suggests. I provide evidence for this contention from complaints lodged with the International Trade Commission. The results show that the higher the degree of intra-industry trade the more likely an industry will request protection from the ITC.     

Buying National: Democracy,Public Procurement,and International Trade

Many studies show that democracy promotes freer trade. However, because they typically focus on “at-the-border” barriers such as tariffs, we know little about democracy’s effects on “behind-the-border” barriers such as discrimination in government procurement. We address this question by asking how democracy affects governments’ incentives to discriminate against foreigners when buying goods and services. We argue that “buy national” policies have unclear costs and are harder to attack than policies that visibly interfere with consumers’ ability to buy foreign goods. This makes such provisions more attractive than tariffs to democratic leaders seeking reelection. We thus hypothesize that democracy leads to lower tariffs but to greater discrimination in public procurement. We support this hypothesis with an analysis of procurement and imports in 138 countries from 1990 to 2008. Our results imply that a full understanding of the democracy–trade policy relationship requires attention to increasingly prominent behind-the-border barriers to trade.     

Economics,security, and individual-level preferences for trade agreements

Empirical research on the determinants of individual-level support for trade liberalization has focused almost entirely on the economic effects of trade. Yet, international relations scholarship has long recognized that commerce also has a variety of security implications. This paper explores if and when security considerations influence individual attitudes toward trade. In this study, we ask two questions: First, to what extent do expectations about the security implications of trade affect individual-level attitudes toward trade agreements? Second, does the introduction of security concerns into the discussion of trade agreements influence how heavily individuals weigh their economic costs and benefits? We employ an original experiment embedded in a conjoint survey to investigate the relative impact of a variety of economic and security considerations on respondents’ support for trade. Our findings suggest that security information matters and undermines the appeal of some, though not all, economic arguments for trade liberalization among our respondents.     

日韩工会发展比较及启示

日韩两国工会组织的发展与其工业化的进程密切相关,两国已形成多层次的三方机构,形成了维护工人利益、亦使经营者受益的各种规则和制度,劳动关系发展也由冲突向合作推进。中国尚处于工业化中期阶段,三次产业构成仅相当于日本20世纪60年代、韩国20世纪80年代的水平,劳动关系的某些表现也与当时的日韩相似。借鉴日韩经验,构建适合中国国情的工会组织机制,应增强企业工会的独立性和影响力;维护非正规就业群体利益;设置经济与工会问题专门研究机构;探索与日韩工会的跨国合作与联合。     

Worker Influence on Capital Account Policy: Inflow Liberalization and Outflow Restrictions

How do workers impact openness to international investment flows? This article distinguishes between two types of openness: openness to inflows and openness to outflows of investment. Workers benefit from inflow openness due to increases in wages, productivity, and efficiency and due to reductions in borrowing costs, which are associated with investment inflows. Workers are hurt by outflow openness, as investors gain investment options, and therefore bargaining power, when outflows are permitted. Labor rights help workers overcome collective action problems, and democratic institutions increase policymakers’ responsiveness to labor organizations and make their commitment to labor rights credible. The theory thus predicts that, particularly under democratic institutions, labor rights are positively correlated with inflow openness and negatively correlated with outflow openness. Evidence from time-series, cross-sectional data is consistent with the theoretical expectations.     

是共赢不是依赖——试析韩国对华投资与贸易的新特征

上世纪90年代中国经济的高速增长和中韩建交加快了韩国对华投资和贸易的速度,之后的1997年亚洲货币危机时期,中国为稳定亚洲货币而展现出的高度责任感以及中国加入世贸组织,进一步加大了其规模。在投资引导下,贸易中严重偏于以原材料和零部件为主的结构特征,虽使韩连续保持巨额的对华贸易顺差,但也同时提高了和中国经济的联系程度。针对如何看待以对外投资刺激贸易从而带动经济的增长模式,笔者认为,投资国不应只顾虑到外来投资会提升受资国竞争实力、加深依赖甚至产生“飞镖效应”,而应从本国贸易顺差、产业结构升级乃至合作利益的角度出发,认识到这是经济全球化条件下共赢原则的必然选择。     

Community involvement in constructing village health buildings in Uganda and Sierra Leone

Three public health projects in Uganda and Sierra Leone are used to illustrate a new approach to construction of health buildings in villages. Emphasis is placed on community involvement. The health projects were comprehensive and relied on health education, employment of local village health workers, and establishment of village health committees. The objective of community involvement was described as encouragement of people to change their own diets and living conditions. This approach to primary health care is considered to be a strong basis for sustainable social development. Each of the three communities initiated the building projects slightly differently. There was a range of structures: traditional meeting halls, simple rooms with imported materials and a pit latrine, new buildings combining local and imported materials and labor, new nontraditional buildings, rehabilitated existing nontraditional buildings with imported labor and materials, and temporary mobile clinics. Community involvement was at different levels. All three projects were the result of a combined effort of national governments or mission hospitals, nongovernmental organizations, and the host community. The following should be considered before beginning construction: a suitable site, appropriate staff accommodation, the likely motivation of the host community, seasonality, local materials available, availability of skilled labor, and design. A plan of work during construction should include a building design, site supervision, transportation of local and non-local materials, unskilled labor, and skilled labor. Village health committees with or without government help would be responsible for maintenance of buildings after construction. A key feature of this approach is the assessment of the community's ability and capacity to contribute.     

90年代国际产业竞争对日本经济的影响

20世纪80年代末90年代初,随着冷战的结束,贸易自由化、全球化蓬勃发展,各国纷纷加强国家干预,努力提高本国产业的国际竞争力。美国政府采取扶植战略性产业、"国家出口战略"等政策措施,使美国产业的国际竞争力明显提高。欧洲工业经过革新,在传统工业和新型工业上再次位居世界前列。随着东亚产业竞争优势的出现,日本不但在传统产业而且在高技术产业上面临东亚等新型工业化国家的激烈竞争。因此,90年代美欧以及东亚产业竞争力的提高,导致日本产业竞争力相对下降,对外出口增长缓慢,日本国内出现产能过剩,从而加剧了日本经济的衰退。