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AbstractThis article examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) pertaining to labor standards in apparel and tax transparency in extractives and explores how domestic regulatory traditions shape CSR in large international US and UK firms. Reflecting their more collaborative business‐government traditions, British firms are more willing to join international CSR multi‐stakeholder initiatives with business‐critical actors such as unions and civil society actors. The US has a more top‐down regulatory approach, which promotes hard law international CSR or encourages business‐driven voluntary CSR initiatives. This article makes three contributions. First, it argues that while corporations are the key actors in international CSR, their behavior reflects their respective national business systems. Second, focusing on a range of international CSR initiatives, this article finds that UK firms are more interested in adopting international (multi‐stakeholder) CSR initiatives than US firms. Finally, the article shows that the US and the UK governments play a key role in driving an international CSR agenda, and in doing this it highlights government agency more so than other research has.

In Germany, where manufacturing has traditionally dominated the economy, this article examines the opening up of telecommunications, insurance, & to some extent postal services to international competition. It highlights two issues for policymakers to consider when they engage in service sector reforms. First, it is difficult to measure trade in services. However, this problem can be addressed by supplementing price analyses with proxy indicators of market access such as market share, availability of licenses, etc. The use of such indicators promotes transparency & facilitates negotiations to reform services. Second, the article argues that lobbying by producers & users of services cannot fully explain reform nor does EU membership significantly constrain reluctant member states. A major key to reform was the ability of the government to re-interpret services as regular tradable products combined with new regulation to shelter exposed groups such as consumers & workers against harm. The implication is that domestic governments have a key role to play in 'selling' services reform to the electorate. 46 References. Adapted from the source document.

Discusses the opening up of telecommunications, insurance, and postal services to international competition, the impact of EU membership, and the government's ability to re-interpret services as tradable goods combined with regulation to shelter exposed groups such as consumers and workers against harm.

In Germany, where manufacturing has traditionally dominated the economy, this article examines the opening up of telecommunications, insurance and to some extent postal services to international competition. It highlights two issues for policymakers to consider when they engage in service sector reforms. First, it is difficult to measure trade in services. However, this problem can be addressed by supplementing price analyses with proxy indicators of market access such as market share, availability of licenses, etc. The use of such indicators promotes transparency and facilitates negotiations to reform services. Secondly, the article argues that lobbying by producers and users of services cannot fully explain reform nor does EU membership significantly constrain reluctant member states. A major key to reform was the ability of the government to re-interpret services as regular tradable products combined with new regulation to shelter exposed groups such as consumers and workers against harm. The implication is that domestic governments have a key role to play in "selling" services reform to the electorate.

Although general trade theories are useful for specifying which groups support or oppose trade, these frameworks see preferences as static and do not explain how they change over time. Instead, this article proposes a dynamic perspective that considers how economic adjustment and liberal trade policies alter trade preferences. The article examines why the traditionally protectionist German textile and apparel sectors accept the recent trade agreements with Eastern Europe. Producers can exploit technological and product changes by gaining access to export markets. Furthermore, to take advantage of low labor costs abroad, producers shift production to these countries for later reimportation. Lower trade barriers are therefore attractive to producers. This strategy is also supported by increasingly liberal trade policy orientations in Germany, the European Union (EU), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). German producers have therefore modified their protectionist focus to a qualified support for more free trade, and German workers have reluctantly followed suit.

Examines why the traditionally protectionist German textile and apparel sector accepted recent trade agreements with Eastern Europe for textiles and apparel goods; focuses on standard trade theories in forming trade preferences, effects of political constraints in Germany on preferences, and implications for producers and labor; 1980s and 1990s, chiefly. Examines action of the Gewerkschaft Textil Bekleidung (GTB), and of the European Trade Union Congress for textile, clothing, and leather workers (ETUC-TCL); some focus on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA).