Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACT
Trade sustainability impact assessments (SIAs) are the main tool used by the European Commission to assess the potential effects of trade policy initiatives and to engage with stakeholders. SIAs have two elements: a model-based quantitative analysis and a consultation process (CP). Both include a focus on a broad range of non-trade issues, many of which are included in sustainable development chapters of EU trade agreements. This paper argues for making CPs a more useful input into the design of trade cooperation. Scaled responses to a survey with closed end questions on a broad range of non-trade policy objectives combined with deliberative polling of a representative sample of survey respondents could help identify what stakeholders in the EU and partner countries perceive to be priority non-trade objectives, as well as issue-specific baselines, performance targets, and appropriate instruments to apply. Building bridges between a revamped ex ante CP and mechanisms that encompass public and private actors to support implementation, resolve problems, and assess progress over time could further help achieve trade and sustainable development goals.

We propose a stochastic indicator to assess government debt sustainability. This indicator combines the effect of economic uncertainty –represented by stochastic simulations of interest and growth rates– with the expected fiscal response that provides information on the long-term country specific attitude towards fiscal sustainability. We apply our framework on post-war data for nine OECD countries and find that our indicator –the potential increase in debt in bad states of the world– distinguishes countries that have sustainability concerns: Italy, Spain, Portugal and Iceland, from those that do not: United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

We analyze general equilibrium relationships between trade policy and the household distribution of income, decomposing social welfare into real income level and variance components through Gini and Atkinson indexes. We embed these inequality-adjusted social welfare functions in a general equilibrium structure mapping from tariff protection to household inequality. This yields predictions regarding the linkages between trade protection, country characteristics and inequality in Heckscher-Ohlin and Ricardo-Viner frameworks. In addition, we can separate the efficiency and equity effects of tariffs on welfare. We then examine endogenous tariff formation when policy makers care about both equity and special interests.

Trade sustainability impact assessments (SIAs) are the main tool used by the European Commission to assess the potential effects of trade policy initiatives and to engage with stakeholders. SIAs have two elements: a model-based quantitative analysis and a consultation process. Both include a focus on a broad range of non-trade issues, many of which are included in sustainable development chapters of EU trade agreements. This paper argues for making consultation processes a more useful input into the design of trade cooperation. Scaled responses to a survey with closed end questions on a broad range of non-trade policy objectives combined with deliberative polling of a representative sample of survey respondents could help identify what stakeholders in the EU and partner countries perceive to be priority non-trade objectives, as well as issue-specific baselines, performance targets and appropriate instruments to apply. Building bridges between a revamped ex ante consultation process and mechanisms that encompass public and private actors to support implementation, resolve problems and assess progress over time could further help achieve trade and sustainable development goals.

We develop a generalized approach to the treatment of household inequality aspects of social welfare in general equilibrium models of trade. We follow a dual approach, highlighting how general equilibrium distributional aspects of social welfare related to import protection may be examined alongside corresponding efficiency aspects. We work with a social welfare function that is explicitly separable between mean income and income dispersion. Our results compliment the set of standard inequality results in trade theory that are focused strictly on functional rather than household inequality. As an application of the theoretical framework, we then examine the direct impact of inequality on a government's objective function. We nd that equity consider- ations may serve to counter lobbying interests in both capital-rich and capital-poor countries, though with an opposite marginal impact on the nal policy outcome. We also identify a new theoretical basis for potential protectionist bias on the part of welfare maximizing governments in capital-rich countries in the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Our dual framework also offers a possible empirical framework for decomposition of policy-induced price changes into household inequality for a broad class of models.