The global economy is being reshaped through the overt use of economic power. This marks a point of rupture with the geoeconomic framework of the postwar period, which was largely built on the legalistic rules-based system that grew up under and around the GATT/WTO. In this essay, I interpret...

The trade war between the United States and China is generating significant costs; it is rooted in the technological revolution based on big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, which create the grounds for strategic trade and investment policies and geostrategic rivalry; and...

China appears to have been surprised by the sharp escalation of its rivalry with the United States into a full-blown trade war – and also to have initially mis-read the situation as one it could dispose of by writing a cheque before getting on with business as usual. I argue that there are...

The history of banking crises grows richer with each passing decade, indeed with each passing year. Theories abound: the inherent instability of fractional reserve systems, systemic shocks that overwhelm risk management defenses, myopic optimism, a failure to regulate enough, too much regulation...

This study assesses the potential for enhancement post-Brexit of the UK's non-EU trading relationships by comparing actual levels of UK exports to predicted levels based on gravity model analysis, including by taking into account factors such as similarity/dissimilarity of comparative advantage,...

Intellectual property (IP) and data constitute the essential capital stocks of the knowledge-based and data-driven economy. These intangible capital stocks are not, however, represented in the workhorse models used to assess the impact of international trade agreements. As a result, it is not...

With reference to major global developments including COVID-19, climate change, and digital disruption, this study positions WTO and RTAs reform as key to building robustness and resilience in global supply and value chains. The overall focus of this paper is to combine the demand for resilience...

The emergence of the data-driven economy has profound implications for the role for the state as economic agent, as regulator, and as the agent of power projection internationally to capture global rents. We focus on the role of data as a capital asset, compare the characteristics of data in...

The global economic and political order is being reshaped by a perfect storm of frictions. Chief among them is the deterioration of relations between the great economic powers of the day, the United States, China and the European Union. This paper argues that only technological developments...

The WTO as we know it – version 1.0 – was created for an industrial economy with an overlay of a knowledge-based economy that is now being transformed into a data-driven economy. The content of WTO rules for this new digital economy promises to be very different what is in place now. Not...