Export Markets and Labor Allocation in a Low-Income Country

We study the effects of a positive export shock on labor allocation between the informal, microenterprise sector and the formal firm sector in a low-income country. The United States-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement led to large reductions in US tariffs on Vietnamese exports. We find that the share of manufacturing workers in Vietnam in the formal sector increased by 5 percentage points in response to the US tariff reductions. The reallocation was greater for workers in more internationally integrated provinces and for younger cohorts. We estimate the gap in labor productivity within manufacturing across the informal and formal sectors. This gap and the aggregate labor productivity gain from the export-induced reallocation of workers across the two sectors are reduced when we account for worker heterogeneity, measurement error, and differences in labor intensity of production. (JEL F16, J24, O14, O17, O19, P23, P33)

Download Full-text

Taipei seeks new partners in post-TPP world

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db217027 ◽

2017 ◽

Keyword(s):

Trade Policy ◽

East Asia ◽

Bilateral Trade ◽

Trade Agreement ◽

The United States ◽

South East Asia ◽

Content Type ◽

Bilateral Trade Agreement ◽

The Pacific ◽

The Pacific Ocean

Subject Taiwan's trade policy. Significance Washington's abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a comprehensive free trade agreement between economies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, is prompting Taiwan to seek a new direction in trade policy. Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, is seeking to increase trade and investment with partners other than China -- particularly with India and South-east Asia -- and pursue a bilateral trade agreement with the United States. Tsai's Presidential Office has already established a special office to promote trade links with India and South-east Asia. Impacts Taiwan will be subject to intense China-US rivalry, with both seeking to draw the island away from the other. Beijing will put pressure on Taipei to resume cross-Strait economic expansion efforts. Trade with India will expand, but will still be dwarfed by exports to China. Tsai's 'New Southbound Policy' initiative is unlikely to reduce Taiwan’s reliance on the China market significantly.

Download Full-text

United States Requests Consultations Regarding Peru's Environmental Obligations Under Bilateral Trade Agreement

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/ajil.2019.11 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 113 (2) ◽

pp. 400-404

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Free Trade ◽

Free Trade Agreement ◽

Bilateral Trade ◽

Trade Agreement ◽

The United States ◽

Forest Resources ◽

Forest Governance ◽

Bilateral Trade Agreement ◽

Trade Promotion

On January 4, 2019, the United States requested consultations with Peru with respect to its forest governance obligations under the 2007 United States – Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA). The PTPA has an environmental chapter with robust terms that were included largely at the insistence of members of Congress, reflecting concerns that a free trade agreement with Peru could increase the country's export of illegally logged wood to the United States. The request for consultations focused on Peru's decision to relocate its Agency for the Supervision of Forest Resources and Wildlife (OSINFOR) to within Peru's Ministry of Environment—a change that, in the view of the United States, “appears to conflict” with a PTPA obligation that “‘OSINFOR shall be an independent and separate agency.’”

Download Full-text

GLOBAL POVERTY REDUCTION AND PARETO-IMPROVING REDISTRIBUTION

Macroeconomic Dynamics ◽

10.1017/s1365100510000763 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 605-624 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Angus C. Chu

Keyword(s):

Open Economy ◽

Low Income ◽

Developed Countries ◽

The United States ◽

High Income ◽

Income Country ◽

Least Developed Countries ◽

Low Income Country ◽

Wealth Redistribution ◽

Pareto Improving

Can a transfer of wealth from the United States to the least developed countries be Pareto improving? We analyze this question in an open-economy R&D-based growth model, in which the high-income (low-income) country produces innovative (homogeneous) goods. We find that wealth redistribution to the low-income country simultaneously reduces global inequality and increases economic growth through an increase in labor supply in the high-income country. Given that the market equilibrium of R&D-based growth models is usually inefficient due to R&D externalities, the wealth redistribution may lead to a Pareto improvement, which occurs if the discount rate is sufficiently low or R&D productivity is sufficiently high.

Download Full-text

Australia/US/China Preferential Trade Negotiations: Building Alliances and Realizing Workers' Rights to a `Voice at the Table'

Journal of Industrial Relations ◽

10.1177/0022185607082213 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 49 (5) ◽

pp. 647-672

Author(s):

Chris Nyland ◽

Elizabeth Ann Maharaj ◽

Anne O'Rourke

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Civil Society ◽

Bilateral Trade ◽

Trade Agreement ◽

Trade Agreements ◽

The United States ◽

Trade Negotiations ◽

Union Movement ◽

Bilateral Trade Agreement ◽

Alliance Building

When the Australian and Chinese governments announced their intention to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement this news generated apprehension among employee bodies. This was because many workers believe China's competitiveness is underpinned by its government's refusal to allow China's workers to realize basic labour rights and because Australian labour and the wider community has been unable to participate in the debate surrounding the proposed agreement. The latter concern is the focus of this article. We accept organized labour has a right to `sit at the table' when trade policy is being determined and that the union movement needs to forge effective alliances if it is to achieve this goal. To assist this process we draw on submissions generated by the United States—Australia (AUSFTA) and Australia—China (ACFTA) trade agreements to argue that Australian unions and civil society groupings can influence the outcome of bilateral trade negotiations and in so doing offer suggestions regarding the issues likely to be most conducive to alliance building.

Download Full-text

Informal Employment in a Growing and Globalizing Low-Income Country

The American Economic Review ◽

10.1257/aer.p20151051 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 105 (5) ◽

pp. 545-550 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Brian McCaig ◽

Nina Pavcnik

Keyword(s):

Informal Sector ◽

Low Income ◽

Income Country ◽

Informal Employment ◽

Formal Sector ◽

Birth Cohorts ◽

Rural Workers ◽

Low Income Country ◽

Urban Workers ◽

Younger Workers

We document several facts about workforce transitions from the informal to the formal sector in Vietnam, a fast growing, industrializing, and low-income country. First, younger workers, particularly migrants, are more likely to work in the formal sector and stay there permanently. Second, the decline in the aggregate share of informal employment occurs through changes between and within birth cohorts. Third, younger, educated, male, and urban workers are more likely to switch to the formal sector than other workers initially in the informal sector. Poorly educated, older, female, rural workers face little prospect of formalization. Fourth, formalization coincides with occupational upgrading.

Download Full-text

Not If but How

10.1093/oso/9780199593903.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Kenneth C. Shadlen

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Bilateral Trade ◽

Trade Agreement ◽

The United States ◽

Legislative Process ◽

Pharmaceutical Patents ◽

The North ◽

Bilateral Trade Agreement ◽

External Pressures ◽

The Will

This chapter explains early and extreme over-compliance in Mexico. In the 1980s, even while transforming much of the country’s economic strategy, the Executive remained cautious with regard to pharmaceutical patenting. Yet by the end of the decade, external pressures and the promise of a bilateral trade agreement with the United States transformed the Executive’s preferences. The analysis reveals how economic liberalization in the late 1980s and the process of negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement weakened the national pharmaceutical sector both economically and politically, and how Mexico’s export profile and the opportunities presented by a new trade agreement with the United States helped the transnational sector widen the coalition for over-compliance. Examination of the legislative process by which Mexico adopted pharmaceutical patents in 1991 illustrates these stark coalitional asymmetries; we observe a defensive coalition stripped of the will to fight and an expansive and energized coalition for over-compliance.

Download Full-text

Export Markets and Labor Allocation in a Low-income Country

10.3386/w20455 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Brian McCaig ◽

Nina Pavcnik

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Income Country ◽

Export Markets ◽

Labor Allocation ◽

Low Income Country

Download Full-text

The United States Resolves Its Request for Consultations Regarding Peru's Environmental Obligations Under Bilateral Trade Agreement

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/ajil.2019.40 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 113 (3) ◽

pp. 640-642

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Bilateral Trade ◽

Trade Agreement ◽

The United States ◽

Forest Resources ◽

Forest Sector ◽

Bilateral Trade Agreement ◽

Trade Promotion

On April 9, 2019, the United States and Peru reached a resolution regarding concerns about Peru's forest sector obligations under the 2007 United States–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA). At issue was Peru's relocation of the Agency for the Supervision of Forest Resources and Wildlife (OSINFOR) to a “subordinate position” in its Ministry of Environment in December 2018. The United States requested consultations under the PTPA on the ground that this relocation conflicted with a provision in the Environment Chapter's “Annex on Forest Sector Governance” (Forest Annex), which states that “OSINFOR shall be an independent and separate agency.” Following the consultations, Peru agreed to restore OSINFOR to its original location within the Peruvian government.

Download Full-text