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Simon Lester

Simon Lester

Co-founder of WorldTradeLaw.net and China Trade Monitor. Non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute.

http://simonlester.com

Debating Industrial Policy

The Economist has been debating industrial policy. Well, sort of. They were debating the proposition, "This house believes that industrial policy always fails." I'm not sure that's how opponents of industrial policy would put it. It would be something more like, "On balance,

Development Aid: Show Them the Money?

I'm pretty sympathetic to this idea: In the last decade ... the governments of the nations where most of the world’s poorest actually live have begun to turn to an idea that seems radical in its simplicity: Solve poverty and spur development by simply giving out money. In

A Brief History of Subsidies Regulation

With all this recent talk about subsidies, I was happy to stumble accross this excellent paper from former DDG Andy Stoler, "The Evolution of Subsidies Disciplines in GATT and the WTO." Very informative and useful.

The Aircraft Report: The EU Appeal

The FT reports: The European Union will next week launch an appeal against a World Trade Organisation ruling that found EU members were illegally subsidising Airbus. ... People familiar with the dispute said the EU appeal will focus on alleged export subsidies for the A380, Airbus’s largest jumbo launched in

More on Nicolas Diebold's Non-Discrimination Paper

I want to say a bit more about Nicolas Diebold's SIEL conference paper "Non-Discrimination and the Pillars of International Economic Law – Comparative Analysis and Building Coherency". I've read it more closely now, and I like it even better than when I first skimmed

California's High Speed Rail and Foreign Companies

The Economist reports on a California law that may make it hard for certain foreign companies to bid on high speed rail contracts: LAWMAKERS in California voted unanimously on June 29th to approve a proposed law which would force any company bidding for contracts to build the state’s new

Responses to Anti-Dumping Measures

From BusinessWeek: Beijing blocked imports of soybean oil from Argentina in response to anti-dumping investigations by the South American country on Chinese goods ranging from steel pipes to textiles, according to a state-backed trade group. Isn't this a clear violation of DSU Article 23? Shouldn'

Is the Aircraft Dispute All About the Threat from China?

From the LA Times: The issues raised by both [WTO Aircraft] cases are important, and together they should help clarify what governments can and cannot do to support the aviation industry. Tougher limits on subsidies would assist both Boeing and Airbus — they can raise capital relatively cheaply to develop new

Krugman on Protectionism

He has been a little unclear at times, but I think this Paul Krugman post, which is about his view that Hayek misunderstood the sources of the Depression, summarizes his (Krugman's) position nicely: Just to be clear, I don’t think the Smoot-Hawley tariff was a good

Mankiw on Chinese Currency Issues

From a NY Times article: What is the trilemma in international finance? It stems from the fact that, in most nations, economic policy makers would like to achieve these three goals: • Make the country’s economy open to international flows of capital. Capital mobility lets a nation’s citizens diversify