International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Accession Protocol Commitments

Henry recently mentioned the issue of paragraph 15 of China's protocol of accession. Here's the text (link is to a Word document): 15. Price Comparability in Determining Subsidies and Dumping Article VI of the GATT 1994, the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General

Market Access for Safe Toys

Whenever I am talking with someone about the purpose of the WTO (or trade agreements generally), I like to draw the distinction between discrminatory trade barriers and non-discriminatory trade barriers, with the point being that we may want to treat the two categories differently. Putting aside the difficult question of

Gilston on Trade

I'm not sure I know how to link to this properly, but Sam Gilston of the Washington Tariff & Trade Letter was on C-Span's Washington Journal talking U.S. trade policy. He comes on at about 2:07:30 of the program, so you have to

An Anti-Dumping Case on Toilet Paper

An opportunity for some good puns, as you can probably imagine, courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald.

More on Carbon Taxes

Somewhat related to yesterday's post on using consumption taxes to fight carbon emissions, Congressman Bob Inglis and economist Arthur Laffer argue in the NY Times for a carbon tax that is offset by income tax cuts. In doing so, they say: The United States can’t solve climate

Trade and Carbon Emissions: Consumption versus Production Models

How can we effectively fight carbon emissions, while at the same time limiting trade conflicts that result from such measures? Geoff Carmody explains that the answer is to focus on consumption rather than production: But an emissions production model only works if all nations sign on at the same time.

Investment Protectionism

Claude Barfield worries about recent actions taken to restrict foreign investment: There is, however, one ominous sign of protectionism in an area that is mostly outside the scope of WTO trade rules: foreign direct investment (FDI). The leading advocate of investment protectionism is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has proposed

Trade in Everything: Christmas Products

From Jonathan Dingel: The US nominal average ad valorem tariff rate for (12 Days of) Christmas this year, which I calculated using the handy Harmonized (Tariff) Christmas schedule, is only 1.9%. I assume that Santa has MFN status. Drums 4.8% Pipes 0% Milking machines 0% Swans 1.8%

Krugman on Reducing the Trade Deficit

Paul Krugman writes: A more plausible route to sustained recovery would be a drastic reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, which soared at the same time the housing bubble was inflating. By selling more to other countries and spending more of our own income on U.S.-produced goods,

Are Tariffs High Enough to Worry About?

In Foreign Affairs, Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian argue: But the issues now at stake in Doha are marginal, and, more important, Doha distracts attention from other matters of greater significance, such as the consequences for trade from misaligned exchange rates and environmental protection. One of the points -- although