Introduction to "Trade and Protectionism: NBER-East Asia Seminar on Economics, Volume 2 (original) (raw)
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The East Asian trading bloc: an analytical history
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The phenomenal expansion of East Asia's' intraregional trade-from 116billionto1 16 billion to 116billionto265 billion between 1985 and 1990-has raised the prospect of an East Asian economic bloc that could more than match the scale of either the European or North American trading area. This bloc would inevitably be dominated by Japan, and thus trade frictions between Japan and the United States could be generalized into a massive confrontation among giant economies. Against the background of declining U.S. competitiveness and suspicions about the "fairness" of global markets, some observers see sinister motives behind growing East Asian interdependence. Some scholars even go so far as to argue that Japan's recent investment, aid, and trade patterns "cloak political and conquistadorial designs similar to those in the past" (Montgomery 1988, xiii). These issues are examined here in a historical and analytical context. I will show that East Asia has been and continues to be a trading bloc in the sense that its trade is more regionally oriented than would be expected on the basis of random trade patterns. As Frankel shows in chapter 2 of this volume, this is true even while controlling for geographical proximity. Moreover, East Asian interdependence has intensified in the last five or so years. But I will also show that recent increases in interdependence are small in a historical context, and that the East Asian economy has steadily disintegrated during the previous three decades. East Asia is less interdependent today than it was for most of
Trading Blocs and Multilateralism in the World Economy
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1997
The resurgence of continental trading blocs throughout the 1980s will influence the nature and evolution of the world economy in the 1990s and beyond. In this paper, we argue that classical economic analysis of trading blocs is inconclusive, and regionalism cannot be understood in economic terms alone. We focus on an examination of the relationship that exists between trading bloc formation and more fundamental economic and social trends taking place in the industrialized economies since the Second World War. Our contention is that regionalism represents one of the most fundamental restructuring processes affecting the world economy since the principles of international trade were established at the Bretton Woods Conference. Regionalism and multilateralism represent competing, but not necessarily mutually exclusive, principles underpinning economic integration and trade in the global economy. The end products of this competition are the two potentially complementary, spatial processes of trade bloc formation and globalization. Consequently, not only globalization but also regionalism are at the center of the economic transformation of contemporary industrial society and changing international relations.
US and EU Trade Policies and East Asia
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This article identifies a number of examples of apparent lack of coherence in United States and European Union trade policies. They include the effect of preferential policies that lock in trade shares and inhibit growth promoting structural adjustment, biases in tariff structures, policies that affect incentives of developing countries to make commitments in the World Trade Organisation, the use of anti-dumping actions and the nature of tariff peaks and escalation. The origins of the lack of policy coherence lie within the domestic policy-making processes of the developed economies. An important question, then, is whether opportunity exists for East Asian economies to mobilise to induce an external shock sufficient to shift policy consensus in the United States and the European Union The key elements of such a grand bargain on trade in manufactured goods would include an explicit East Asian commitment to bind more tariff lines, initiatives to resolve the problem of accelerating ant...
US and EU Trade Policies in East Asia
Asia Pacific Economic Papers, 2006
This article identifies a number of examples of apparent lack of coherence in United States and European Union trade policies. They include the effect of preferential policies that lock in trade shares and inhibit growth promoting structural adjustment, biases in tariff structures, policies that affect incentives of developing countries to make commitments in the World Trade Organisation, the use of anti-dumping actions and the nature of tariff peaks and escalation. The origins of the lack of policy coherence lie within the domestic policy-making processes of the developed economies. An important question, then, is whether opportunity exists for East Asian economies to mobilise to induce an external shock sufficient to shift policy consensus in the United States and the European Union-The key elements of such a grand bargain on trade in manufactured goods would include an explicit East Asian commitment to bind more tariff lines, initiatives to resolve the problem of accelerating anti-dumping actions and a replacement for the program of tariff preferences. A package of trade policy reforms of this type in East Asia would constitute a substantial offer and benefit to the United States and the European Union. It has the potential to trigger a response of equal benefit to East Asian economies.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper examines the prospect of realizing regional economic integration via the mechanism of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). The FTAAP initiative represents a politically ambitious, high potential benefit option for achieving Asian regional integration. Among its desirable attributes, the FTAAP initiative could help revive and promote a successful conclusion of the Doha Round negotiations; constitute a "Plan B" hedge if Doha fails; short-circuit the further proliferation of bilateral and sub-regional preferential agreements that create substantial new discrimination and discord within the Asia-Pacific region; defuse the renewed risk of "drawing a line down the middle of the Pacific" as East Asian, and perhaps the Western Hemisphere, initiatives produce disintegration of the Asia-Pacific region rather than the integration of that broader region that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was created to foster; channel the People's Republic of China (PRC)-United States economic conflict into a more constructive and less confrontational context; and revitalize APEC, which is of enhanced importance because of the prospects for Asia-Pacific and especially the PRC-US fissures. An incremental approach to the FTAAP, explicitly embodying enforceable reciprocal commitments, offers the best hope delivering on the concept's abundant benefits. JEL Classification: O16; O53; R11 ADBI Working Paper 336 Bergsten, Noland, and Schott