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Emerging from Lockdown: Threats to the international trade system
Richard Pomfret - Professor of Economics & Jean Monnet Chair Economics of European Integration, The University of Adelaide
As COVID-19 curves flatten globally and policymakers’ attention turns to resuming economic activity safely, attention is inevitably focused on domestic matters. What is the trade-off between the economic costs of caution that delays economic revival and the health costs of over-hasty removal of measures that are holding back the spread of the virus?
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Europe Day 2020
On 9 May the EU celebrates peace and unity in Europe. It marks the anniversary of the day in 1950, when Robert Schuman, the then French foreign minister and former German soldier, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe's nations unthinkable.
Kick-starting international travel, tourism, and trade: A roadmap for the Morrison government
Simon Lacey, Senior Lecturer, Institute for International Trade
We are all looking forward to restarting our economy or getting out from under the doona as Prime Minister Scott Morrison colourfully put it. And we are all hoping for a return to the work lives, social existences, and economic freedoms we enjoyed and thoroughly took for granted before March 2020.
Is Competition from China So Special?
Dr Benedikt Heid, Senior Lecturer - School of Economics The University of Adelaide
The rapid increase in China’s exports in recent decades has led to concerns that they are displacing other countries’ exports. As the sophistication of Chinese exports has increased, the concerns are now shared by high-income countries including Australia.
In a new Discussion Paper (Is Competition from China So Special?), Dr. Benedikt Heid from the University of Adelaide School of Economics and two co-authors from Spanish universities analyse Spanish exports from 1997 to 2016.
Jean Monnet Network: Trade and Investment in Services Associates (TIISA) Research Grants - Round 2
The TIISA Network is currently offering research grants of between €500 - €5000 to support research in the field of trade and investment in services and which improves knowledge of or contributes to the process of European economic integration in services.
Industrial Subsidies, market competition, global trade and investment: Towards a research agenda
Subsidization by states of their domestic industries to gain competitive advantage abroad is a perennial topic in international trade discussions. As the world moves into a multipolar environment and China rises in economic prominence, the rules governing subsidies, particularly to the industrial sector, are in the spotlight.
Global Trade Cooperation after COVID-19: Can the G20 contain disintegration?
By Professor Peter Draper - Institute for International Trade
If ever the G20, the self-styled apex forum for international economic cooperation, needed to step up to the plate it is now. However, while it did so for the 2009 London Summit - in the eye of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) - it is highly unlikely to this time. It is also not clear what the definition of success is, unlike the GFC when the core objective was to save Western financial systems from collapse. Each G20 country is correctly focused on managing its own health trajectory, with little policy bandwidth left to devote to international economic cooperation.
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Digital technologies, services and the fourth industrial revolution
Jane Drake-Brockman, Industry Professor, Institute for International Trade, and Christopher Findlay, Emeritus Professor, Institute for International Trade
From 3D printing (3DP) and artificial intelligence (AI), to cloud computing, 5G, and the Internet-of-Things (IoT), digital technologies are prompting radical new business models offered through digital platforms that promise unparalleled productivity gains and global increases in standard-of-living. Adoption of new technologies is also impacting traditional demand and employment patterns in highly disruptive ways and radically altering the nature of consumer and business transactions. The changes underway raise major questions for traditional domestic regulatory settings and for trade, investment, innovation and industry policies for the digital age.
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Back to autarky? How to respond to supply shortages in medical devices during the Corona-crisis
Andreas Freytag – Professor and Chair of Economic Policy, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.
The ongoing covid-19 crisis has brought to the fore the vulnerability of societies relying on highly efficient global value chains (GVC) and single suppliers for specific goods. During the crisis, which first severely hit China as the central link in many GVCs, most countries have suffered a shortage of both simple and technologically complex medical devices (e.g. face masks and ventilators respectively). Fierce competition for these devices has emerged, leading to global tensions and trade restrictions, but also to a discussion about the organization of supply-chains and the need for national emergency stockpiling of medical devices.
Globalization; on hold or in reverse
Country after country has now imposed restrictions on international travel, and foreign trade is collapsing in tandem with falling demand and disruptions in supply chains. The coronavirus has put globalization on hold. But will globalization be reversing in the longer term? Magnus Lodefalk provides perspectives from research in international economics.
This work is licensed under Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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