Import Tariffs and Informal Labour Market: A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Analysis for Turkey

From the 1980s to onwards trade liberalization policies have been widely used in many countries. This process has significant impacts on many economic aspects one of which is on the labour market. However, the direction of the relationship between trade reforms and the labour market is controversial. This study aims to analyse the effects of a specific trade reform of import tariff changes on the formal and informal labour market for Turkey. For that purpose, we benefit from Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model that relies on nonlinear simultaneous equations. We construct an updated Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) which is compatible with our model. Our findings indicate that while there is a positive relationship between formal labour employment in total and import tariff rates, the negative relationship occurs between informal employment and tariff rates.

What makes Vietnam a Preferred Tourism Destination? An Empirical Analysis

Following the end of the 20-year war against the US and its allies in 1975, Vietnam gradually opened its doors in terms of market-oriented trade reforms in the late 1980s. The Vietnamese tourism sector simultaneously started to grow and, during the last decade, has shown rapid expansion with major contributors being countries who fought against Vietnam. However, very little scientific research has been published in relation to inbound tourism in Vietnam. This study aims to fill this gap by identifying the factors that attract tourists to Vietnam and analyse to what extent the improved relationship with the West has impacted on its tourism sector. Our results indicate that the level of income of the travellers, the exchange rate of the country of origin, word of mouth from travellers, the relative price differential between the country of origin and Vietnam and the normalisation of relationship between Vietnam and the country of origin are the major determinants of demand for tourism. One of the policy recommendations from this study is that, to increase inbound tourism, the Vietnamese government should introduce policies that would reduce the local cost of tourism in Vietnam.

THE EUROPEAN UNION, CHINA AND SOLAR PANEL

The European Union and China are the two countries that have advantages in each of them. The European Union and China have a dispute regarding renewable energies, namely the problem with solar panels. China's policy of making solar panels prices have low bargaining power makes the European Union unable to accept the policy because it can cause a long trade conflict. The case study in this paper also illustrates that the EU is actively approaching it to overcome environmental challenges in China by involving the European Union in dialogue and negotiation on various issues and providing capacity-building support. China also introduced trade reforms and carbon emissions to environmental decision-making bodies in the European Union, and it was supported by the European Union, including through meetings to determine sustainable policies and development projects on energy and the environment. Keywords: EU – China dispute, Environmental Challenges, anti-dumping, China’s policy, World Trade Organization.

How Distortions Alter the Impacts of International Trade in Developing Countries

Substantial research in development economics has highlighted the presence of weak institutions, market failures, and distortions in developing countries. Yet much of the knowledge generated in international trade comes from workhorse models that abstract from these frictions. This review summarizes the recent literature that assesses how these characteristics interact (or may interact) with trade reforms, resulting in different impacts in developing countries relative to what we would expect in developed countries. We discuss understudied areas that warrant further research.

International Trade and Corporate Market Power

This paper examines the effect of international trade on corporate market power in emerging market economies and developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis is based on a large firm-level dataset, tariff data by sector and agreggate indicators of international trade for the period 2000-17. Greater trade liberalization and trade integration are associated with significant declines in market power, with the effect being more pronounced for firms in the manufacturing and ICT sectors, private sector firms, and firms with higher initial markups. Firms in sub-Saharan Africa tend to experience signficantly lower markups after allowing greater trade integration. The effects of trade liberalization on market power materializes over time, and there are significant complementarities between trade reforms and real sector reforms.

Household Impacts of Tariffs: Data and Results from Agricultural Trade Protection

How do trade reforms impact households in different parts of the income distribution? This paper presents a new database, the Household Impacts of Tariffs data set, which contains harmonized household survey and tariff data for 54 low- and middle-income countries. The data cover highly disaggregated information on household budget and income shares for 53 agricultural products, wage labor income, non-farm enterprise sales and transfers, as well as spending on manufacturing and services. Using a stylized model of the first-order impacts of import tariffs on household real income, this paper quantifies the welfare implications of agricultural trade protection. On average, unilateral elimination of agricultural tariffs would increase household incomes by 2.50 percentage points. Import tariffs have highly heterogeneous effects across countries and within countries across households, consumers, and income earners; the average standard deviation of the gains from trade within a country is 1.01 percentage points.