Tariffs and the textile trade between Brazil and Britain (1808-1860)

The commercial treaty with Britain in 1810, along the authorization of foreign trade in ports in 1808, are among the most important institutional changes in nineteenth century Brazil. The 1810 treaty lowered tariffs for British manufactures while maintaining high tariffs in Britain for Brazilian sugar and coffee. These terms are generally viewed as disastrous for the Brazilian economy, although there is still limited quantitative information about how much the tariff affected the demand for British imports. This paper provides new qualitative and quantitative evidence on the operation and effect of Brazil’s imports tariffs in the period. I find that the effect of the tariffs is different from what traditional literature assumes. First, the monetary instability in the 1820s and conflicts over product price assessment often led the de facto tariff to be higher than the 15 percent established by the treaty. Second, even with higher rates, quantitative analysis shows they did not have decrease imports of British textiles.

How did the multi-fiber agreement affect the level of specialization in the textile sector of the countries?

This paper aims to reveal the effects of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which determines the course of the textile trade and the global competition on countries' levels of specialization. In this perspective, we analyze the levels of specialization (competition) of the 10 countries whose exports were the highest in the sector before and after the complete abolition of quotas in a comparatively. In the analyses, we use the Index of Contribution to Trade Balance (ICBT), the Export-Import Ratio Index (EIRI) and the Michaely Index (MI) to measure the progress of countries' level of specialization in the sector by years. All of these indices indicate that the highest levels of specialization in the sector were Pakistan, India and Turkey before the end of the MFA. After 2005, when quotas were completely eliminated, China and Hong Kong increased their level of expertise in the sector and separated positively from other countries. In this context, China achieved a global competitive advantage in the sector, especially with high level of specialization.

On Textile Poetry in Textile Social History in Qin and Han Dynasties

This paper begins with the textile poetry of the Qin and Han dynasties. Using the method of mutual proof of poetic history，as far as possible from the textile production, textile technology, textile trade and textile culture to outline a complete clue of the history of the textile society in the Qin and Han dynasties. Trying to clarify the changes of textile culture and costume system in ancient China and to explore the relationship between textile production and social-economic development.