International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 388)

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Exclusive Rights, Monopoly Profits and Price Controls

Joel had a post a while back where he wondered if there is "anything in TRIPS that would restrict the ability of a state to set price controls on patented pharmaceutical products." He doubted there was. I was thinking about this issue recently, and while he is probably

In Defense of Child Labor

From economist Steven Landsburg: As any historian could tell you, no society has every pulled itself out of poverty without putting its children to work. Back in the early 19th century, when Americans were as poor as Bangladeshis are now, we were sending out children to work at about the

The Seal Protests Begin

Not sure why I'm on this email list, but here's a message I just received from "Free Trade Kills Animals": ANIMAL CRUELTY OLYMPICS: As Winter Games Begin in Vancouver, Activists Dressed as Canadian & Norwegian Prime Ministers, WTO General Secretary Club "Baby Seals&

More on Gender Discrimination Through Tariffs

Following up on this post, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld the decision of the Court of International Trade rejecting a claim that imposing different tariffs on men's and women's gloves violates the Equal Protection Clause. Lawrence Friedman of the Customs Law

"Procedural Fairness" as a WTO Principle

From a speech by Pascal Lamy on the Government Procurement Agreement: The GPA is a paradigm example of a trade opening instrument that also recognizes the need for governance mechanisms — in this case, the procedural rules that Parties to the Agreement must follow to ensure fair and transparent contracting practices

Who Is Most Hurt by the Yuan's Value?

According to Arvind Subramanian, the biggest harm from the undervalued yuan is to developing countries: .. an undervalued exchange rate is above all a protectionist trade policy, because it is the combination of an import tariff and an export subsidy. It follows therefore that the real victims of this policy are

The Conflicts Inherent in State-Ownership of Industry

From an op-ed by Dan Ikenson of the Cato Institute: When he urged Americans to "stop driving" their Toyotas last week, was Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking as the head of a federal agency concerned with highway safety or as a sales advocate for a nationalized General

Obama on Trade: The Latest

From a soon to be published interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek: In an effort to make U.S. exports more attractive, Obama set a year-end objective for persuading China to allow the value of its currency to rise. “My goal over the course of the next year is for China

“Free Trade Doesn’t Work”

That’s the title of a new book by Ian Fletcher. (I came across it as a sponsored link in a Google search.) There are a number of different reasons people criticize free trade, so I was curious to see what exactly he had in mind. I asked him for

Government Support for Domestic Companies Building Nuclear Reactors Abroad

The Economist has a piece on competition in the market for building nuclear reactors, in which they discuss how state support for domestic competitors may be playing a role: ... the United Arab Emirates (UAE) completed a tender for four nuclear plants in December, Vietnam is planning a similar deal this