DSpace Community:
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/36267
2024-03-28T08:16:25ZHow China challenges the liberal trade order: Coercion, contestation and the socialist market economy
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/139372
Title: How China challenges the liberal trade order: Coercion, contestation and the socialist market economy
Author: McDonagh, N.2022-01-01T00:00:00ZAid for Trade in Lowering Trade Costs: Overcoming Infrastructure and Institutional Constraints. Indonesia
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/138473
Title: Aid for Trade in Lowering Trade Costs: Overcoming Infrastructure and Institutional Constraints. Indonesia
Author: Lacey, S.; Limenta, M.; Chandra, S.
Abstract: This study takes a hard and somewhat sobering look at the state of Indonesia’s physical (hard) and institutional (soft) infrastructure as the country moves into its second year under the presidential leadership of the recently elected Joko Widodo. The study’s focus is predominantly on how well (or poorly) the country is currently positioned to benefit from the positive and welfare enhancing effects of trade and investment liberalization, something that the country implicitly agreed to embrace when ‐ together with over 120 other economies ‐ it became a founding member of the World Trade Organization in 1995. We first examine some critical infrastructure bottlenecks as they affect roads, electricity generation and ports and conclude that, although the country has made some progress in addressing these, there is still much that needs to be done. The next section of the report focuses on the institutional constraints holding back Indonesia’s integration into the world trading system, particularly the glaring shortcomings that affect the judiciary and law enforcement, as well as the legislative and executive branches of government. Our report then turns to an analysis of the prevailing import and export regimes and finds that these are becoming more rather than less restrictive as various actors at different levels of government seek to establish and assert their permit‐issuing powers in a barely concealed effort to generate rents as well as induce shortages that connected parties can benefit from commercially. Finally our report turns to a brief discussion of the need to implement genuine and effective reform, arguing that this is what the Indonesian people voted for when they elected President Widodo, and discusses how the new president has fared in the face of entrenched elites and well‐organized opposing interests. We conclude that policymakers in Indonesia need to take another long hard look at how they ultimately perceive the national economic interest and how trade and investment liberalization frameworks like the WTO, ASEAN and the still ongoing RCEP negotiations can be harnessed to realize the ambitions of the new president and the electorate who voted for him.2015-01-01T00:00:00ZNegotiating strategies for LDCs to make the most of Aid for Trade
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/138470
Title: Negotiating strategies for LDCs to make the most of Aid for Trade
Author: Lacey, S.
Abstract: This paper explores the kinds of demands governments in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) could and should be formulating and submitting in the context of the e-commerce negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as any current or proposed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) they are engaged in with advanced industrialized countries. It begins by discussing the differences between Special and Differential Treatment (S&D) and Aid for Trade (AfT) and affirms that in today’s environment, developing countries and LDCs should never miss an opportunity to engage in trade negotiations with more economically advanced trading partners, since even if limited market access gains are on offer, the prospect of obtaining other concessions in different parts of the AfT agenda could still make for tangible and significant negotiating outcomes for these countries. This paper focuses on negotiating strategies with respect to two kinds of broadly formulated AfT commitments. The first is infrastructure to alleviate supply-side constraints across transport infrastructure, testing and certification capacity and communications network infrastructure for online connectivity. The second set of AfT commitments this paper seeks to provide developing country negotiators advice on is in the area of trade finance, which has become such a prevalent problem for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries that even the WTO Secretariat has started to refer to this as a non-tariff measure. As in all negotiations, the key to success here is preparation. This paper provides some advice on how best to prepare, formulate and substantiate any AfT requests in order to both maximize the chance of success as well as maximize the difficulty for negotiators from developed countries (who must decide on whether to grant an AfT request) to decline any reasonable requests that are tabled.
Description: ARTNeT Working Paper Series No. 195,2020-01-01T00:00:00ZEnabling growth in the new economy: Industrial policy choices in a world of disruptive technological change
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/138469
Title: Enabling growth in the new economy: Industrial policy choices in a world of disruptive technological change
Author: Lacey, S.
Abstract: This paper examines recent technological developments and how they could impact efforts by policymakers and political leaders in developing countries to harness trade and investment liberalization to achieve economic development outcomes. It begins by discussing some of the proven elements to moving up the development ladder but then warns that the tried and trusted methods and pathways could be closing in light of new technological developments such as automation and artificial intelligence, the impact of which on labor markets promises to be disruptive in the short to medium term. The paper provides a set of policy prescriptions that governments could and should be contemplating in order to position their economies to benefit from the opportunities of the new economy but also to shelter their workforces from any possible downsides that these new and disruptive technologies may bring with them. Perhaps the most important finding this report has to offer is that the most decisive factor in achieving genuine change and tangible development improvements is political will and the determination to override the resistance to change that will inevitably come from entrenched interests (including political and economic elites) that benefit from the status quo. This is about improving the state of economic governance in countries and can only be achieved by embarking upon serious and results-driven reform. The report discusses some areas of reform that seem particularly important in light of the technological transformations unfolding, namely skills and education, empowering the private sector and embracing digitization. It was written before the global health pandemic and ensuing economic shocks unleashed by COVID-19, but its findings remain relevant and the urgency for implementing its recommendations has increased as a result of the many sudden and drastic changes the global economy has been forced to undergo as a result of this crisis.
Description: ARTNeT Working Paper Series No. 1932020-01-01T00:00:00Z