Recently, the world economy has seen its greatest down turn since World War II. Although not as bad as during the Great Depression, there was still a worrisome increase in protectionist measures, in an attempt to mitigate the economic downturn. Protectionism can have many different faces. It can...

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements,...

As dumping can harm industries by distorting competition, the World Trade Organization holds the option for its members to take anti-dumping measures. The European Union (EU) responds collectively to such threats and adjusts the supposedly dumped goods’ prices through tariffs back to their...

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US,...

As dumping can harm industries by distorting competition, the World Trade Organization holds the option for its members to take anti-dumping measures. The European Union (EU) responds collectively to such threats and adjusts the supposedly dumped goods' prices through tariffs back to their...

This paper examines the impact of safeguard import tariffs on market diversity in Ecuador from 2015 to 2017. Using firm-level data, we estimate the effects of tariffs on revenue and market shares in the Manufacturing and Wholesale & Retail (W&R) sectors with a Quantile Treatment Effect on the...

The global economic crisis has led to a massive increase in unemployment, and nearly all governments have declared the protection of domestic jobs to be a central economic policy aim. In the US, an additional $790-billion economic stimulus package was adopted immediately after President Obama...

China's growing trade surplus with the USA has triggered a discussion whether the Yuan is fundamentally undervalued in relation to the US Dollar. So far, China has resisted the demand to drastically revalue its currency. This creates tension as the US economy is only slowly recovering and...

Die globale Wirtschaftskrise führt zu einem massiven Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit, und fast alle Regierungen haben die Sicherung der heimischen Beschäftigung zu einem zentralen Ziel ihrer Wirtschaftspolitik erklärt. In den USA wurde sofort nach dem Amtsantritt von Präsident Obama ein...

This paper studies the effects of protectionism as a business cycle instrument. In normal times, protectionism reduces international trade, distorts production and reduces output. However, in a liquidity trap protectionism lowers the real interest rate because inflation goes up while the nominal...