Imagined Economies and the Re-Framing of Trade Policy:


Book Description

In 2010, Taiwan and China concluded a landmark trade agreement: the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) that sought to pave the way for closer commercial ties by lowering tariffs on several trade items. Just a decade earlier, both sides of the Taiwan Strait were ratcheting up rhetoric that seemed to point to growing political uncertainty across a region once a hotspot during the Cold War. What was behind this political sea change? The paradox of state policy in the cross-Strait political economy over the past three decades is that despite increased economic activity between both sides, national identity remains an important barometer in framing the prospects and limits of policymaking. In accounting for this paradox and how actors have dealt with it through problem definition and trade policy adjustment, this research utilizes economic imaginaries, a discursive field that shapes the conceptualization of economic life. As discourse and structure are dialectical in relation to one another, an economic imaginary represents an analytical concept to map out ideational shifts concerning economic life and national identity. Specifically, the author aims to address the following questions with the regard to the reconceptualization of cross-Strait commerce in Taiwan government policy: - What ideas and practices are selected and drawn upon by political elites in Taiwan to create new economic imaginaries? - How are these ideas being negotiated and resisted in rebuilding of social relations? - What are the areas of unevenness and contradictions within the discursive process? This research utilizes a combined methodological approach toward navigating economic imaginaries, including critical discourse analysis, analysis of collective action frames and the critical junctures that challenge their hegemonic power. Drawing upon expert interviews, key policy texts from political and intellectual elites, critical discourse analysis demonstrates the linkage between imaginaries and framing actions by revealing the cognitive mapping of the cross-Strait political economy, the dominant discourses that inform them and the ways in which hegemonic ideas are reproduced within the discourse.







World Trade Law After Neoliberalism


Book Description

It is often argued that there is an inherent tension between international human rights law and the rules of free trade. This book explores the assumptions underlying this debate and argues that we need to reconsider them, focusing more on how expert knowledge and informal relationships shape trade law and its interaction with human rights.




A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis


Book Description

Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development










The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa


Book Description

This book maps the process and political economy of policy making in Africa. It's focus on trade and industrial policy makes it unique and it will appeal to students and academics in economics, political economy, political science and African studies. Detailed case studies help the reader to understand how the process and motivation behind policy decisions can vary from country to country depending on the form of government, ethnicity and nationality and other social factors.




The Globalization Paradox


Book Description

For a century, economists have driven forward the cause of globalization in financial institutions, labour markets, and trade. Yet there have been consistent warning signs that a global economy and free trade might not always be advantageous. Where are the pressure points? What could be done about them? Dani Rodrik examines the back-story from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Although economic globalization has enabled unprecedented levels of prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it is a concept that rests on shaky pillars, he contends. Its long-term sustainability is not a given. The heart of Rodrik’s argument is a fundamental 'trilemma': that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. Give too much power to governments, and you have protectionism. Give markets too much freedom, and you have an unstable world economy with little social and political support from those it is supposed to help. Rodrik argues for smart globalization, not maximum globalization.




Dealing with Losers


Book Description

Winner of the Donner Prize for the best book on public policy by a Canadian in 2014.Whenever governments change policies - tax, expenditure, or regulatory policies, among others - there will typically be losers: people or groups who relied upon and invested in physical, financial, or human capital predicated on, or even deliberately induced by the pre-reform set of policies. Theissue of whether and when to mitigate the costs associated with policy changes, either through explicit government compensation, grandfathering, phased or postponed implementation, is ubiquitous across the policy landscape. Much of the existing literature covers government takings, yet compensationfor expropriation comprises merely a tiny part of the universe of such strategies.Dealing with Losers: The Political Economy of Policy Transitions explores both normative and political rationales for transition cost mitigation strategies and explains which strategies might create an aggregate, overall enhancement in societal welfare beyond mere compensation. Professor Michael J.Trebilcock highlights the political rationales for mitigating such costs and the ability of potential losers to mobilize and obstruct socially beneficial changes in the absence of well-crafted transition cost mitigation strategies. This book explores the political economy of transition costmitigation strategies in a wide variety of policy contexts including public pensions, U.S. home mortgage interest deductions, immigration, trade liberalization, agricultural supply management, and climate change, providing tested examples and realistic strategies for genuine policy reform.




Re-imagining Economic Sociology


Book Description

The purpose of this book is to explore new developments in the field of economic sociology. It contains cutting-edge theoretical discussions by some of the world's leading economic sociologists, with chapters on topics such as the economic convention, relational sociology, economic identity, economy and law, economic networks and institutions. The book is distinctive in a number of ways. First, it focuses on theoretical contributions, by pulling together and extending what the contributors believe to be the most important theoretical innovations within their own particular areas of the field. Second, there are contributions by leading economic sociologists from both the US and Europe, which gives the book both wider scope and appeal, while also creating the opportunity for some interesting dialogue between distinct theoretical traditions. The book will be of interest to researchers, Ph.D. students, and advanced students on both side of the Atlantic, and indispensible in advanced economic sociology courses.