Economics - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableInward foreign investment screening targets China: interdisciplinary perspectives(EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING LTD, 2023-06)Screening of inward foreign investment in numerous countries worldwide has heightened in recent years for a range of reasons, one of which is the volume of Chinese outward investment. Moulding screening policies around concerns about Chinese investment has been a common pattern, particularly among developed countries and allies of the United States. The application of screening measures to Chinese investments in particular is also seen in recent practice in numerous countries. These developments create potential inconsistencies with international investment law, at least for those countries with an international investment agreement with China. The 2020 arbitral award in Global Telecom v Canada shows that even a provision that explicitly excludes investment screening decisions from a bilateral investment treaty may not apply to prevent all related investment treaty claims. The increased use of screening as a policy tool, with respect to China and otherwise, also raises questions about economic rationale and impact. Put simply, blocking a foreign investment proposal may have negative effects on shareholders, jobs and the economy itself, while even the existence of a restrictive screening regime and the threat of the imposition of conditions on a deal may dampen the appeal for foreign investors.
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ItemTHE "NEW" ECONOMICS OF TRADE AGREEMENTS: FROM TRADE LIBERALIZATION TO REGULATORY CONVERGENCE?(WILEY, 2021-01)What incentives do governments have to negotiate trade agreements that constrain their domestic regulatory policies? We study a model in which firms design products to appeal to local consumer tastes, but their fixed costs increase with the difference between versions of their product destined for different markets. In this setting, firms' profit‐maximizing choices of product attributes are globally optimal in the absence of consumption externalities, but national governments have unilateral incentives to invoke regulatory protectionism to induce firm delocation. An efficient trade agreement requires commitments not to engage in such opportunistic behavior. A rule requiring mutual recognition of standards can be used to achieve efficiency, but one that requires only national treatment falls short. When product attributes confer local consumption externalities, an efficient trade agreement must coordinate the fine details of countries' regulatory policies.
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ItemInternational trade, product lines and welfare: The roles of firm and consumer heterogeneity(Elsevier, 2020-09-01)A central prediction of international trade models is that increased integration leads to specialization. This mechanism has been used to gain insight into the location of industries across countries, the reallocation of output across firms as well as the variation of a firm's product range as countries liberalize. Nevertheless, the notion that international trade will lead firms to rationalize their product portfolios and concentrate on their “best” products doesn't always square with reality. In particular, firms in prominent industries have, on occasion, extended their offerings to include a lower quality version/option as international competition increases – expanding rather than contracting their product portfolio. This paper demonstrates that such behavior can be generated in a standard trade model if there is consumer heterogeneity within a country and firms leverage these differences to their advantage. In this setting, increased competition can be associated with either product line reductions or extensions. That is, both types of behavior can arise in equilibrium from ostensibly similar shocks. Since trade costs directly influence the intensity of competition, their variation has important implications for product line design and also the distribution of welfare gains. In particular, product line extensions due to trade liberalization have especially large welfare benefits for low income consumers.