News: Opinions
Managing the risks of rising government support: a case for policy transparency
Ken Ash is an Independent Consultant, IIT Visiting Fellow, and former OECD Director of Trade and Agriculture.
Governments generally support the smooth functioning of their domestic economies, through maintaining systems of good governance and the rule of law and ensuring a coherent macroeconomic and structural policy environment. Extraordinary support is sometimes also warranted, as is the case today to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19. Few would dispute that these are essential roles for governments.
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New Data links Outward Investment in Services to Australia’s Services Export Performance
Jane Drake-Brockman is Industry Professor with the Institute for International Trade and Founder of the Australian Services Roundtable, which in 2020 celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Measurement of trade in services is notoriously difficult. The official statistics on imports and exports contained in the Balance of Payments (BOP) are well known, for example, as measuring poorly at best only three of the four modes of international supply of services.
China-EU Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations in a crucial time: A Chinese Perspective
Chenye Zhang, IIT Visiting Researcher and PhD Candidate at the University for International Business and Economics.
A Chinese perspective: In November 2013 BIT negotiations between China and the EU officially commenced. The goal was to reach a high-level agreement covering investment protection and market access. At the China-EU Summit in 2019, both parties reached consensus on achieving a high-level BIT by the end of 2020. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused difficulties, China and the EU have been actively pushing the negotiations forward.
Resilient Teams for Trade
Lisa Hunt, Business Manager, Institute for International Trade, The University of Adelaide and Professor Peter Draper, Executive Director, Institute for International Trade, The University of Adelaide.
Over the past four months COVID-19 has exacerbated existing trade and geopolitical tensions, fuelled scepticism about the benefits of globalisation and seen already high-levels of economic uncertainty rise. As governments across the globe respond to protect their citizens lives and livelihoods, the resulting restrictions on the movement of people, capital, goods and services across borders has proven catastrophic for many businesses working in Global Value Chains (GVCs).
Australia-Singapore Digital Trade Agreement: Setting new benchmarks in Trade Governance
Jane Drake-Brockman, Industry Professor, Institute for International Trade, The University of Adelaide.
Australia has achieved its most comprehensive deal on digital trade. The government has put down clear markers for other bilateral and regional trade negotiations, including with the EU; and taken a global leadership role, along with Singapore, in signalling vital directions for the WTO negotiations on Electronic Commerce (e-commerce).
Prospects for Australian free trade with a post-brexit United Kingdom
Andrew Stoler, former WTO Deputy Director-General; former Office of the United States Trade Representative senior trade negotiator; and former Executive Director of Institute for International Trade.
Now that the United Kingdom (UK) is once again pursuing an international trade policy independently of its previous membership in the European Union (EU), the UK Government has made clear that it intends to pursue free trade agreements (FTAs) with “Anglosphere” countries (United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
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What can Australia gain from agricultural subsidy reform?
Kym Anderson, George Gollin Professor Emeritus, School of Economics, University of Adelaide; CEPR Fellow; and Honorary Professor of Economics, Arndt-Corden Dept of Economics, Australian National University.
Even though research earlier this century suggested market access barriers were far more important than domestic subsidies in restricting global farm trade, new analysis suggests farm subsidies have become far more important in recent years.
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The “German” debate on supply chain ethics: assessing the role for businesses in human rights enforcement
Andreas Freytag, Professor and Chair of Economic Policy, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, and Dr Naoise McDonagh, Lecturer in Political Economy, Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide.
International supply chains have become a topic of fierce debate in Germany over the past weeks, and perhaps surprisingly not for pandemic-related issues. Proposed new laws requiring due diligence by firms to prevent human rights violations in their supply chains sparked controversy over the degree of responsibility firms can realistically be expected to bear, and how they may enforce this obligation.
The Perfect Storm: Interventionism, Inequality, Decoupling and Zombies
Carlos A. Primo Braga, Associate Professor, Fundação Dom Cabral and former Director, Economic Policy and Debt, The World Bank.
Covid-19 already ranks among the most impactful pandemics of the last 100 years. Most governments have put their economies in a temporary “coma” with a view to mitigate the spread of the virus (SARS-CoV2). This inevitably increases the economic pain associated with the pandemic in the short run and generates pressures for a quick return to normality. Lessons from the past, however, suggest that the health crisis can go on for much longer than most politicians anticipate.
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COVID-19 provides a rare chance for Australia to set itself apart from other regional powers. It can create a Pacific ‘bubble’
Peter Draper Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide and Jim Redden Senior Lecturer & Visiting Fellow, Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide.
For a short time Australia has an unrivalled opportunity to set itself apart from donors to the Pacific including China, Japan and the European Union. As Victoria’s current COVID-19 spike shows, it will take Australia some time to open its borders to the world and allow residents to travel wherever they like. But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t open its borders to some parts of the world sooner than others, especially those in which it has a special interest and in which the spread of coronavirus is slowing.
The views expressed here are the author’s, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute for International Trade.
This work is licensed under Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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