Suchergebnisse

Lecture before the Royal united service institution, London, Oct. 12, 1955.

The nature of FTAs is to offer free trade only to members, not to non-members. Thus, FTAs are two-faced: they ensure free trade for members and (relative) protection against non-members. First-year students of international economics would be asked to shift to a different field if they could not grasp this elementary and elemental distinction, and yet today's politicians imagine themselves to be statesmen endorsing free trade when they embrace these inherently discriminatory PTAs. As PTAs proliferate, the main problem that arises is the accompanying proliferation of discrimination in market access and a whole maze of trade duties and barriers that vary among PTAs. I have called this outcome the "spaghetti bowl" phenomenon. (I must confess that I once used this analogy in an after-dinner speech when the chairman was an Italian who did not quite share my difficulty in handling spaghetti and seemed genuinely puzzled!) Mr. David de Pury, a distinguished representative of the globalized private sector and the chief executive officer of ABB, Switzerland, is among the renowned executives who have expressed themselves in public for a precisely on this point and on the advantage, even the necessity, of having uniform nondiscriminatory rules and barriers. I endorse this objective, which only multilateral WTO-sanctioned treaties make possible. In view of its importance, let me say a little more on this question.

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to expand the knowledge base of Baby Boomers' attitudes, behaviours and perceived barriers related to fair trade purchasing.


Design/methodology/approach
– This study included 168 Baby Boomers. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. Data analysis included a combination of both quantitative (descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests and correlation analysis) and qualitative techniques.


Findings
– Findings indicated that the participants exhibited positive attitudes towards fair trade but were minimally engaged in fair trade purchasing. Furthermore, the participants perceived numerous barriers to purchasing fair trade products including the incompatibility of fair trade merchandise with lifestyles, the inability to touch and see fair trade products prior to purchase and difficulty in identifying fair trade items.


Research limitations/implications
– A limitation of this study is that the sample was well-educated university faculty and it is not representative of all Baby Boomers.


Practical implications
– Fair trade entities need to be more effective in marketing the advantages of the fair trade. Fair trade organizations should consider targeting marketing strategies specific to the unique demographic and psychographic characteristics of Baby Boomer consumers.


Originality/value
– This research expands understanding of the consumer behaviours of US Baby Boomers related to fair trade. An additional contribution is the comparison of differences in fair trade knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of Early vs Late Baby Boomers. It also has potentially important implications for fair trade organizations, as the paper discusses marketing strategies specific to Baby Boomers.

AbstractWe estimate the ex‐post agricultural trade impacts of retaliatory measures imposed by foreign countries in response to United States' Section 232 and 301 tariffs using a theoretically consistent, monthly, product line gravity equation. Retaliation led to significant US agricultural export losses of $13.5 to $18.7 billion on an annualized basis. Considerable heterogeneity exists in the average treatment effect of retaliation. First, retaliatory trade actions presented a strong within‐year seasonal impact. Nearly 70% of aggregate trade losses occurred during the US's peak export marketing season. Second, U.S. trade losses were particularly pronounced on homogeneous bulk commodities, whereas product differentiation dampened the impact of retaliation. Third, with few exceptions, the counterfactually estimated direct trade losses line up well with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) trade damage estimates for trade aid programs distributed to farmers impacted by the trade dispute. Finally, we find little evidence that U.S. exports were able to be reoriented to alternative, nonretaliating markets—an indication of high bilateral trade frictions and the destructive consequences of retaliatory trade actions.