Economic Complexity and Trade Diversification in the Western Hemisphere Between 1962 and 2017

Trade diversification patterns help explain the level of utilization of trade opportunities by countries, mainly the least developed. Empirical analyses show an inverse U relationship between trade diversification and level of development. Trade diversification measures used do not take into account differences in complexity of exports, and complexity indices only consider products with comparative advantages. This study seeks to cover both gaps by analyzing the differences in the determinants of trade diversification, considering the complexity of products exported by 19 Western Hemisphere countries from 1962 to 2017. The results show that after controlling for economic complexity, the inverted U relationship disappears. Development of financial markets positively affects the complexity of trade diversification in the long term, while the terms of trade that have a negative effect on trade diversification does not affect the complexity-corrected indices. In the short term, transaction costs and trade openness appear to have a significant effect.

Informal Regional Institutions and National Resilience

With the apparent demise of globalization, many states are turning to regional solutions to achieve trade and development goals while institutional structure is fundamental to the strategic and managerial operations of such associations. This study seeks to understand the strategic costs and benefits, as well as the management opportunities and challenges, of a regional institution that maintains an informal structure while specifically examining the relationship between informal regional structure and member (national) resilience. This investigation develops a resilience framework and tests it against a unique structural form, the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), which operates without incorporation as a legal entity, without a centralized budget, and without a secretariat. This study reasons that an informal regional institution supports national resilience through an adaptation strategy but not an adaptability strategy and concludes that an informal regional model appears to support continual national development through the adoption of member ‘best practice'.

Globalization, International Trade, and CO2 Convergence

The goal of this study is to investigate the potential effects of international trade on per-capita CO2 emissions among trade partners. To achieve this purpose, the Group of Seven (G7) countries and each of their developing trade-partner countries with the highest trade volume have been selected as the sample. The stochastic convergence methodology has been employed using Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP), and Enders-Lee Fourier unit root tests in order to test for convergence or divergence. Various results have been obtained from the unit root tests. These results suggest international trade to have no general or common effects on per capita CO2 emissions.

China's Geostrategic Approach to Trade in Pursuit of Global Centrality

The geostrategic approach refers to China's method to rise as global power through worldwide trade expansion and the development of its military and naval capabilities. It creates clusters of countries interlinked as China's trade partners, thus being assets to its global ascent. China's importance in global trade is a function of its partners' behavior embracing its trade mechanism. The edges connecting nodes are multidirectional, implying that countries are as much interested in their China-induced interlinkages as they are in their partnership with China. This results in China's centrality, a quality gained from being dominant in trade partnerships in terms of numbers and significance. This chapter examines the approach, process, and historical, geographic, and behavioral components that China uses in its ascent as central node in the international trade network. It explores how underlying dimensions making China's national character conjointly devise its behavior in global trade.

The Impact of Entrepreneur Personal Characteristics on New Firm Growth

Entrepreneurship has emerged as a key vector, introducing dynamism in stagnant markets, through technological change, innovation, and process restructuring. However, despite all the potential benefits, this is a very arduous and uncertain process, to the extent that many of the companies created end up failing in the first five years of activity. This chapter aims to study the entrepreneur as an individual, focusing on the analysis of their personal characteristics and their impact on the growth of the new created firm. A mixed methodology was developed to test which personal characteristics impact growth. A questionnaire was carried out on a sample of 87 Portuguese entrepreneurs and, additionally, 10 interviews were held with the purpose of complementing the information of the collected data with a qualitative approach and a more personal perspective. Finally, the results revealed that there are certain characteristics that enhance and influence the growth of startups, the most crucial being leadership, the need for achievement, proactivity, and resilience and adaptability.

Evaluation of India's Proposed Regional Trade Agreements With Major Economies Using General Equilibrium Analysis

This chapter attempts to analyze trade effects of India's liberalization with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and five Asia-Pacific countries (ASEAN Plus Five), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), European Union (EU), India-Japan-Australia trilateral framework, and Southern African Customs Union (SACU). It also tries to look at how they can create new opportunities for trade among the member countries. The authors sort out which of the above-recorded arrangements will be the most welfare upgrading for India. The chapter attempts to comprehend whether India ought to pull out for the occasions to be essential for value-chains in the areas. Maximum gains occur when India liberalizes with all, that is, liberalizes multilaterally followed by ASEAN 10, RCEP, Indo Pacific, CPTPP, MENA, EU 27, 54 nations African FTA, GCC, among others. Services and investment liberalization would bring further dividends to India.

Sectoral Trade Globalization

This chapter aims to shed light on the trends of sectoral trade globalization. This component of trade globalization is often neglected. An accurate evaluation of sectoral trade requires the analysis of the interdependencies of countries and the consideration of distance as a central dimension of trade globalization. As such, sectoral trade globalization is one aspect of a more complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Data show that sectoral trade globalization has increased significantly over the last 50 years irrespective of the characteristics of individual sectors. One relevant insight is that the level of trade globalization is on average still different for high-tech sectors compared to low-tech and medium-low-tech sectors even though the former could increase their bilateral trade relationships over time. Even though protectionist tendencies as well as the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a vivid discussion about the return to more local or regional production schemes, digitalization processes could still have the potential to further integrate countries' trade networks.

Exchange Rate Regime Preferences and Budget Deficits in Open Economies

This study investigates the impacts of exchange rate regime (ERR) choice, economic, institutional, and demographic factors on the budget deficit. The recent literature states that fiscal discipline is affected by the ERR preferences in open economies. In this study, the effect of de facto ERR preferences on fiscal discipline were analyzed between 1995 and 2016 for 76 countries classified into income groups. The estimates by Feasible Generalized Least Squares and Panel Corrected Standard Errors estimators show that flexible ERRs provide much more fiscal discipline. The findings highlight the importance of institutional quality, demographic factors, and inflation to ensure fiscal discipline. A country with a high level of trade openness is more vulnerable to exchange rate shocks, which leads to uncertainty in the fiscal policy. The results confirm that ERR preferences affect countries' fiscal disciplines differently, depending on the countries' characteristics.

The Era of the Dragon

The upcoming decades are expected to be marked by the rise and consolidation of the People's Republic of China, PRC, as the world's first economy, dethroning the U.S. and altering global economic geopolitics. The Dragon Age will mark the 21st century, with all the consequences that can come from it. This chapter analyzes the changes that are already underway and that prepare China to be the world's great economy. The departure point will be the examination of China's economic situation. Following, the authors move on to analyzing the Belt and Road Investment, the Chinese mega investment that aims to connect China to Europe inspired by the ancient Silk Road, making a geoeconomic analysis of the main world markets and how China has long prepared this economic rise and implicates a political and military ascension statement.

A Roadmap to India Liberalizing With Major Economic Groups

This chapter aims to look at various existing international economic cooperation groups and analyze the impact of India liberalizing with each of them using the GTAP model. This chapter aims to discuss each of these economic groups composition and identify the key sectors they are specialized in. Further, they analyze the product aggregations in which India and these groups would benefit if we liberalize with them. This chapter looks at different linear and nonlinear methods while performing the simulations and compares them. The chapter looks at the different scenarios with (1) India reducing tariff by 10%, (2) both Indian and the economic group reducing tariff by 10%, (3) both reducing the tariffs to 0%. The chapter then further looks at the impact of each cooperation liberalizing with India in terms of terms of trade (ToT), trade balance, and import and export quantities. Thus, this chapter attempts to get some insights into what product aggregates would be beneficial for India and the economic groups and therefore build a roadmap for the same.