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1986 | Buch

Issues in World Trade Policy

GATT at the Crossroads

herausgegeben von: R. H. Snape

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Frontmatter
1. Introduction
Abstract
Towards the end of the Second World War, initiatives were taken on both sides of the Atlantic for the development of a post-war international economic order. In the United States the spirit of internationalism associated with Cordell Hull was not shared by all. On the British side, the conflicting postures, particularly with regard to international trade, were well represented in the differing positions taken over time (or even at the same time) by that country’s chief economic negotiator — Keynes. The choice between a multilateral, open and liberal system of international economic relations on the one hand, and a closed, structured and bilaterally negotiated system on the other was on the table then, and has remained so, in one form or another, ever since. This introductory chapter looks briefly at the consequences of attempts to establish a liberal trading order over the last forty years. It raises the question, as do some of the following chapters, as to whether liberal trade or international ‘industrial policy’ is the way of the future.
R. H. Snape

Decline of the GATT System

Frontmatter
2. The Decay of the Trade Relations System
Abstract
The thesis of this chapter is relatively simple and straightforward. It is my view that there has been a gradual but very definite shift in the operation of the trade relations system from tariffs, as the most important and accepted technique of intervention, to ‘managed’ or ‘administered’ trade and the use of a variety of ‘contingency’ measures. This change in emphasis or shift in balance requires a re-thinking of trade policy.
Rodney C. de Grey
3. Should Unconditional MFN Be Revived, Retired or Recast?
Abstract
The GATT was negotiated in the late 1940s against a backdrop of preferential trade arrangements and highly protective trade barriers — offspring of the Great Depression.1 A major aim of the GATT was to set the institutional stage for international trade liberalisation. To that end US negotiators insisted on a strong statement of the unconditional MFN (most-favoured-nation) principle. During GATT drafting sessions, US negotiators characterised the MFN principle as ‘absolutely fundamental’ (quoted in Jackson, 1969, p. 252).
Gary C. Hufbauer

Industries Outside General GATT Rules

Frontmatter
4. Market Disturbances and the Multifibre Arrangement
Abstract
In any economy, during the normal process of economic growth and structural change, markets are continually disturbed. When disturbances occur, however, specific production units within the economy will be affected — probably ‘damaged’ or ‘injured’. In national and international rules and procedures, there is no shortage of provisions to protect producer interests. In these provisions, however, there is very rarely any recognition that protection of producers imposes costs on other groups, nor is there an apparent awareness that such intervention may serve to unduly retard the process of structural adjustment and impose long-term costs on the economy.1 In many of the arrangements there is a lack of respect for simple economic principles, with a very narrow perception of who is to be protected from injury.
Gary P. Sampson
5. International Effects of Agricultural Policies
Abstract
For centuries, governments have been intervening in agricultural markets.1 Over the past few decades, however, there has been a considerable increase in the extent of agricultural protection and its disruptive effects on international markets. This contrasts with the post-war tendency, at least until recently, to reduce protection against imports of manufactured goods.
Kym Anderson, Rodney Tyers

What Instruments for Assistance?

Frontmatter
6. Policies Towards Market Disturbance
Abstract
The recent revival of protectionism in developed countries seems to be mainly concerned with safeguarding industries against market disturbances of various kinds. This has led to policies or devices which are essentially conservationist in their objective. The purpose of this chapter is to examine in rather general terms some of the basic principles concerning such policies towards market disturbances.
W. Max Corden
7. Free Trade Zones and Their Relation to GATT
Abstract
In this chapter1 I describe briefly free trade and market zones and note their rapid spread in recent years in many countries of the world. I then analyse the basic motives for their establishment. Public choice theory provides a plausible explanation for their political appeal.
Herbert G. Grubel
8. The Choice of Instrument for Industry Protection
Abstract
Governments select the form of protection given to import-competing producers from a wide range of tariffand non-tariff instruments. There has been a worldwide increase in the use of non-tariff instruments. Indeed, the New Protectionism has usually been identified with an increase in the use of non-tariff instruments of protection, both in the form of increasing commodity coverage of non-tariff instruments and in the form of greater trade restrictiveness of the existing coverage. (For details of the forms of non-tariff protection and their spread, see, for example, Krauss, 1979 or Page, 1981). And it has been observed that there is a remarkable similarity across the industrialised countries in the commodity groups or industries in which the growth of non-tariff barriers to import trade has been concentrated. (On this score, see in particular, Walter and Chung, 1972, and Page, 1981.) Therefore, in order to understand the growth of barriers to trade one must understand the reasons why non-tariff instruments have been the chosen instruments for the increased protection granted to certain industries. Yet the commentaries on the resurgence of protectionism have been confined almost exclusively to suggesting explanations that relate to protection per se, such as the growing rate of unemployment of labour and the capital stock, rather than to explanations of the simultaneous and fundamental shift in the pattern of protection by instrument.
Peter J. Lloyd, Rodney E. Falvey
9. Protection Through Government Procurement
Abstract
Recognition of the importance of government procurement as an instrument of protection led to the 1979 Agreement on Government Procurement under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This agreement, which came into effect at the beginning of 1981, aims to limit the degree to which government purchasing practices are used to discriminate in favour of domestic suppliers relative to foreign suppliers.1 The agreement makes an exception in the case of procurements which are essential for national security. By 1982 roughly twenty countries had signed the GATT agreement, including the United States, Japan, Canada, the UK, France and several other northern European countries. Australia has not signed.
Peter G. Warr, Brian R. Parmenter

Politics, Economics, Law

Frontmatter
10. The Interplay of Law and Economics in International Trade Regulation
Abstract
Over the past decade or so, there have been many calls for a new international economic order. The most radical of these have come from the developing countries.1 While such calls are generally resisted by the established developed countries, even they are less than satisfied with the existing economic order which dates essentially from the immediate post Second World War period. Indeed, the Ministerial Declaration on the World Trading System in December 1982 could hardly have put it more plainly in stating:
The stresses on the system, which are reflected in the growing number and intensity of disputes between contracting parties … have made more pronounced certain shortcomings in its functioning. Existing strains have been aggravated by differences of perception regarding the balance of rights and obligations under the GATT, the way in which these rights and obligations have been implemented, and the extent to which the interests of different contracting parties have been met by the GATT. (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 1982)
Andrew Farran
11. The Political Economy of Protection in Eleven Industrial Countries
Abstract
In the second half of the 1970s it was widely claimed that an upsurge of protectionist actions against developing countries was threatening their ability to maintain, let alone expand, their exports of manufactures to industrial countries (for example, Balassa, 1978). Arthur Lewis suggested that the developing countries should react by turning their backs on the industrial countries to trade mainly with each other.1
Helen Hughes
12. Why Have US Tariffs Fallen Since 1930?
Abstract
The most striking feature of American tariff history has been the contrast between the growth of tariff protection to nearly prohibitive levels in 1934, and the decline since that year to an almost negligible figure. This contrast is all the more remarkable because, up to the early 1930s, it was ‘a commonplace that tariff legislation of the United States has been a paradise of pressure groups’ (Chamberlain, 1946, p. 85); ‘The history of the American tariff records the triumph of special interests over the general welfare’ (Tasca, 1938, p. 1). Every student of American politics then knew why the tariff was high and, more important, knew why it would continue to be high. In his brilliant study of the 1929/30 Hawley-Smoot Act — the study was completed after the passage of the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Act — Schattschneider judged that tariff policy ‘has been firmly established in the. public favour. It seems to have been stabilized, and nearly all important opposition has, for the time being, disappeared’. The tariff policy was ‘a great political success’, and was ‘politically invincible’ (Schattschneider, 1935, p. 282). The tariff, to 1934 at least, revealed the true nature of American democracy — its domination by interest groups — in a way that was remarkable only for the transparency of the redistributive means used.
J. J. Pincus
13. Ideas Count, Words Inform
Abstract
Ideas count. The leadership community’s and the public’s perceptions of the effects of alternative policies may differ significantly from each other, as well as from an economist’s perception of these effects. Some of these differences are questions of social science — whether any hypothesised effect will or will not result from a specified policy. Perhaps more often they are differences of social values. Different groups will be aware of and concerned about the different economic, social, and political effects of the actions economists would see as economic policy.
J. Michael Finger

Summary

Frontmatter
14. Summary
Abstract
A great deal of new material is presented in this volume and I have a sense of forward motion in the analysis of trade policy issues. Before attempting to sketch what I think are the salient points of consensus and disagreement, one preliminary observation seems to be called for. While there may be disagreements as to how much that system is threatened, or the means by which the system could effectively become more open, the underlying ethic of the chapters — and of the discussion, between practitioners, academics and government officials, which took place at the conference at which the papers were presented — is the unanimous view that an open multilateral trading system is in everyone’s best interest.
Anne O. Krueger
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Issues in World Trade Policy
herausgegeben von
R. H. Snape
Copyright-Jahr
1986
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-349-08636-8
Print ISBN
978-1-349-08638-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08636-8