Simon J. Evenett

• University of St. Gallen

I examine the ways in which the global financial crisis that began in 2007, and whose effects arguably condition policymaking to the present day, affected the ongoing global power transition as manifested by the unilateral decisions undertaken by official agencies comprising national regulatory states. The theory of that power transition articulate...

Provision of government contract information in English reduces the barriers to participation by foreign suppliers. We measure this effect using data from the country of Georgia, where English translations of government tenders were provided above specified contract size thresholds, which varied over time and across contract types. The provision of...

In our interconnected world, whenever a global crisis occurs governments must decide whether discriminating against foreign suppliers is part of the solution—or whether foreign know‐how and resources can be tapped for mutual advantage. Decisions to sacrifice open borders on the altar of some other goal are typically influenced by the steps—real or...

The extent to which the Sino-US trade war represents a break from the past is examined. This ongoing trade war is benchmarked empirically against the Smoot–Hawley tariff increase and against the sustained, covert discrimination by governments against foreign commercial interests witnessed since the start of the global economic crisis. The Sino-US t...

Der amerikanische Präsident Donald Trump hat die globalen Handelsbeziehungen umgekrempelt. Die Globalisierung war jedoch schon vor Trump angeschlagen. Vier Ökonomen geben Antworten zur Entwicklung in der Handelspolitik.

The manner and extent of state discrimination against international business since the start of the Global Financial Crisis is documented and interpreted. Without resorting to 1930s-style across-the-board tariff increases, governments have tilted the playing field in favor of local firms so often since November 2008 that 70% of the world’s goods ex...

According to the European Commission (EC), the WTO is struggling to credibly remain the go-to place for trade negotiations.1 Indeed, after the Commission stated its concerns, EU-Ambassador to the WTO Marc Vanheukelen commented that if the organisation does not take measures to move forward, the result would be “the demise of the rules-based trading...

At the beginning of its G20 year, the German Presidency attached little priority to trade policy. That stance had to change with the ascension to office of a U.S. President unwilling to follow the diplomatic niceties on trade policy of his predecessors. Moreover, following the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the first qu...

Based on a dataset of over 11,000 government announcements and measures implemented, it is shown that trade distortions faced by exporters from G-20 nations have grown markedly since November 2008. In terms of trade coverage, the largest trade distortions are export incentives. Research findings concerning the impact of these export incentives esti...

Despite initial intentions to better align transatlantic regulation and associated practices in the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), this was not possible for rules concerning genetically modified organisms and data privacy. By 2016 both matters effectively fell off the TTIP negotiating agenda. This paper id...

This special issue focuses on the difficulties of negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), with contributions by scholars from different perspectives. This introductory article briefly examines the trend to mega-FTAs of which TTIP is a leading example. It then reviews the contributions to this special issue, drawing on...

This paper critically evaluates the contention that the implementation of the TransPacific Partnership would adversely affect the centrality of the World Trade Organization. Not only are many Asian nations members of the WTO, but some undertook major reforms to join. Contrary to much existing literature, it is argued here that governments in the As...

By negotiating a far-reaching Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, American and European trade negotiators hope to set the global trade agenda for years to come. But how will the governments of other major trading nations react? Will TTIP be the catalyst that Washington and Brussels are hoping for? The collection of short analyses in thi...

By negotiating a far-reaching Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, American and European trade negotiators hope to set the global trade agenda for years to come. But how will the governments of other major trading nations react? Will TTIP be the catalyst that Washington and Brussels are hoping for? The collection of short analyses in thi...

The factors responsible for the spatial reorganization of contemporary manufacturing are presented here and the predictive power of long-standing notions of comparative advantage revisited. While a growing number of commercial tasks and technologies are in principle mobile internationally, giving rise to the perception of evermore footloose manufac...

The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 was a landmark in the development of the liberal international economic order. Yet the global economic crisis of 2008 put the spotlight on the longstanding question whether WTO membership limited the policy choices of governments coping with distress. This Special Issue of Business and Poli...

Several factors potentially responsible for the failure to conclude the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations are analyzed. A two-stage negotiation and ratification game between the “North” (industrialized countries) and the “South” (developing countries) is employed and collapses into a single diagram. The choice of negotiating agenda, pri...

Although the global economy has begun to recover from the 2008-2011 financial crisis, challenges to the world trading system have increased. Several trends are taking public policies further away from the core WTO disciplines of non-discrimination, namely MFN and national treatment. This has manifested itself in 1) growing resort to protectionism i...

Access to the fast-growing Chinese economy is prized by policymakers and business people. Concerns that European firms are missing out on the Chinese boom have caused soul-searching in Europe about "competitiveness" and led to accusations of Chinese protectionism. For the first 15 members to join the European Union this paper estimates the factors...

This paper provides an account of how governments in the Asia and Pacific region have resorted in recent years to discrimination against foreign commercial interests. As in previous systemic economic crises, policymakers altered the mix of discriminatory policies employed. This time around governments of higher income economies in the region freque...

During the crisis era, while considerable attention was given to Chinese management of its currency’s exchange rate with the US dollar, the frequent alteration of rebates on value-added taxes (VAT) paid by exporters on the inputs they have imported has been overlooked. In this paper the relevant Chinese policy changes are documented and evidence pr...

This paper examines the multilateral governance of trade along with the prospects for its meaningful reform, in the light of recent, crisis-era discrimination against the many types of cross-border commerce. Prior episodes of protectionism provide a useful benchmark. The findings are not optimistic. The current set of multilateral rules is incomple...

Using an extensive database of non-macroeconomic state interventions implemented since the global economic crisis began, this paper provides quantitative evidence on the resort to selectivity by several major economic powers. The propensity to promote certain sectors, certain firms within sectors, and domestic over commercial interests is contraste...

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007 governments have resorted to beggar-thy-neighbour measures. Conforming to previous historical bouts of protectionism the form of discrimination against cross-border discrimination changed. As well as documenting government attempts to tilt the playing field towards domestic firms, this paper di...

This paper challenges the contention that WTO rules had much impact on state behaviour during the recent global economic crisis. Evidence on the variety of discrimination implemented by governments, characteristics of the recent systemic crisis, as well as on certain, often overlooked features of WTO obligations are used to support a conclusion tha...

Having recognised that the completion of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations during 2011 is unfeasible, governments and the WTO Director-General are exploring whether a ‘downpayment’ on the Round could be negotiated before the December 2011 WTO Ministerial Conference. The initial indications are not promising. Worse, as argued here, a...

The EC-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement was the first full Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to be negotiated and signed between the EC and an African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region, as required by the terms of the Cotonou Agreement of 2000. It is also the only EPA under negotiation to dedicate a chapter to the regulation of governm...

A dataset of state measures implemented between November 2008 and October 2010 that discriminate against foreign commercial interests is used to estimate the determinants of the resort to protectionism by governments during the Great Recession. A well known theory of protectionism is found to be systematically at odds with one important aspect of t...

The recent Great Recession has triggered substantial government intervention – not all of it macroeconomic. This article presents evidence that the sectoral incidence and forms of government intervention appear to have changed from pre-crisis regularities. Once the commercial significance of a sector is taken into account, pre-crisis measures of tr...

Without international commerce living standards would be fettered by national resources, prejudices and spending. Perhaps more importantly, international commerce also provides new vistas to explore, creating opportunities unavailable in traditional, hidebound societies. It is no wonder that such freedom is feared by insecure rulers and elites, tho...

In this chapter a conservative methodology is used to identify those crisis-era state measures that are likely to adversely affect both a large number of trading partners and a sizeable amount of international trade. Identifying such "jumbo" measures serves two policy-relevant purposes. First, it helps trade officials sort through the many crisis-e...

Perhaps it is because both competition law (or antitrust law as it is known in North America) and international trade law ultimately influence commercial outcomes that the question arises as to whether the regime of sanctions applied in one branch of law may have lessons for the other. The purpose of this brief chapter is to describe, where the aut...

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This is a series of short papers dedicated to a discussion of the effects of the 2008-2009 global financial and economic crisis from the international trade perspective. The questions addressed by contributors were: What changes could be observed in trade and what transmission channels were involved? Has the international competitiveness of the Eur...

As part of the Doha Development Agenda, many members of the World Trade Organization and, in particular, its director-general have actively promoted the so-called Aid for Trade initiative. Rather than offer a comprehensive account of this initiative, the purpose here is to consider its implications for proposals to fill in the WTO's "missing middle...

Introduction World trade is now influenced markedly by a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of regional trade agreements and, given the strong current interest in negotiating more such initiatives, this influence will almost certainly become heavier over time. Regionalism, it seems, is here to stay. The economic inefficiencies created by reciprocal, preferential tra...

Drawing upon a comprehensive database of contemporary protectionism, this paper offers an initial assessment of the extent to which our understanding of protectionism may have to evolve. While some long-standing features of protectionism appear to have endured (such as the distribution of discriminatory measures across economic sectors), specific c...

The purpose of this Report is to evaluate the available economic evidence on the operation and effects of the European Union's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). Eight principal findings of this GSP scheme are identified and their implications for policy discussed. The Report critically assesses the two of the leading empirical approaches to...

As part of the Doha Development Agenda many members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in particular its Director-General have actively promoted the so-called Aid-for-Trade initiative. Rather than offer a comprehensive account of this initiative, the purpose here is to consider its implications for proposals to fill in the WTO's "missing mid...

The purpose of this concluding chapter is to summarize and interpret the main findings for Central America and for Mexico of the research conducted for this volume and, more importantly, to relate those findings to the experiences of nascent and relatively newer competition agencies in other parts of the world. In principle, the following discussio...

The rules of the trade policy arena differ from those in academia. How can an economic researcher survive, let alone thrive, in what may appear to be a trade policy jungle? The purpose of this paper is not just to offer guidance in this respect but also to think through the factors that determine the supply and demand for timely, relevant, policy-r...

Mergers and acquisitions represent two important means by which resources are reallocated within capitalist economies. Such combinations can result in lower costs of supply, which are often referred to as efficiencies. However, mergers and acquisitions can also result in the greater exercise of market power by the parties concerned. The latter typi...

Abstract Since 2001, the Administration of George W. Bush has pursued a trade policy known as Competitive Liberalization. This policy envisages a series of mutually-reinforcing and sequential steps to open markets abroad to US companies, to strengthen market-oriented laws and regulations overseas, and to place the United States at the centre of the...

This paper contains an independent empirical analysis of the effect of a Notice, issued by the Swiss Competition Commission in 2002 concerning vertical agreements between manufacturers and distributors of motor vehicles, on the degree to which the subsequent prices of cars in Switzerland exceeded those charged on the same models in neighbouring cou...

This Paper suggests that in developing countries, especially where small and poor markets prevail, abuse of dominant power - or monopolization, as it is known in the United States - can be much more damaging to the economy than in developed countries. It pays special attention to the abuses that state-owned firms and recently privatized monopolies...

This paper contains an independent empirical analysis of the effect of a Notice, issued by the Swiss Competition Commission in 2002 concerning vertical agreements between manufacturers and distributors of motor vehicles, on the degree to which the subsequent prices of cars in Switzerland exceeded those charged on the same models in neighbouring cou...

The study has been prepared by Jacques Bourgeois (WilmerHale and College of Europe), Kamala Dawar (Uni-versity of Amsterdam) and Simon J. Evenett (University of St. Gallen) at the request of the Chief Economist Unit of DG Trade. The views and opinions presented in this document do not necessarily reflect those of DG Trade or the European Commission...

An abridged version of this note is to be published soon on www.voxEU.org, a neat new blog for economists writing on all manner of public policy matters (not just trade). Some fabulous stuff has been posted there…you might want to take a look for yourself. Many worry that regionalism is undermining the multilateral trading system, but are past unil...

In recent years a number of prominent legal scholars have joined a longer-standing tradition among economists in analysing treaties using a positivist and rationalist approach, often invoking game theoretic tools. This paper seeks to assess the boundaries of this research programme, identifying not only questions that this scholarship seeks to answ...

In recent years the bipolar multilateral trading system of the post-war years has given way to a multipolar alternative. Although many specifics have yet to be determined, some contours of this new trade policy landscape are coming into focus. This article examines their implications for the EU's external commercial policy. Particular attention is...

The European Union is the world's largest trader, a fact that on the face of it ought to convert into considerable clout in international commercial negotiations. Yet, since the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) creation in 1995, it is difficult to point to a string of successes for the European Commission's (EC's) often beleaguered trade negotiat...

The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations was suspended for almost six months in 2006. The purpose of this paper is to ask what scholars can learn about the political economy of reciprocal trade liberalisation from this suspension. Specifically, four potential explanations for this suspension are examined and, in turn, these suggest a numbe...

At the Cancún Ministerial Conference, the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) disagreed on whether to launch negotiations on multilateral disciplines concerning the four areas of government policy collectively known as the ‘Singapore issues’. This amounted to a decision not to expand the WTO's boundaries along these dimensions. In this pa...

The principal elements of the European Commission's recent Communication on its external trade policy (titled "Global Europe") are assessed in this paper. Certain shifts are discernible in the Commission's position, in particular as they relate to the prominence given to market access objectives and to bilateral and regional trade agreements. Even...

Many observers are now pessimistic about the prospect of completing the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, at least in the short run. The realisation that so much remains to be negotiated before the forthcoming U.S. presidential primaries and elections has raised the prospect of the Doha Round unravelling or drifting from later this yea...

The year 2007 may well represent a turning point in the trade relations between Asian nations and their Western counterparts. At the very moment when the European Union is set to launch free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with several countries in East and South Asia, for principally internal reasons the United States is winding down its FTA ac...

In recent years the bipolar multilateral trading system of the post-war years has given way to a multipolar alternative. Although many specifics have yet to be determined, some contours of this new trade policy landscape are coming into focus and in this short essay I examine their implications for the European Union's external commercial policy. P...

During the current phase of international market integration one important form of corporate restructuring is through cross-border merger or acquisition. Even though such restructuring typically affects the markets of more than one economy, almost all reviews of mergers and acquisitions consider only intra-jurisdictional effects. A prominent intern...

Executive Summary Any assessment of the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference depends critically on the benchmark employed. Surely, compared to its predecessor, the Hong Kong Ministe-rial Conference was a success. Having said that, no major participant in that meeting and no commentator afterwards has suggested that enough progress was made that the end...

Using a standard linear version of the Bertrand duopoly model of competition, I analyse the effect on firm pricing behaviour of three prominent features of the U.S. antidumping system. I identify the circumstances under which these features eliminate dumping entirely as well as their effects on the profitability of the import-competing and foreign...

While some prefer to think of the effects of competition law and policy in terms of efficiency and resource allocation, many senior policymakers in developing countries, in aid agencies that finance technical assistance and capacity building, and in leading international organisations devoted to advancing development, see economic policies through...

The continuing deep divisions between developed and developing countries have given rise to concerns that the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference to be held on 13-18 December in Hong Kong will - like its predecessor, the Fifth Ministerial in Cancún - end in failure. The contributions to this Forum explore the key negotiating issues.

The last ten years have seen many Latin American and Caribbean nations enact or reform competition laws, and numerous other jurisdictions are considering following suit. The evidential base to guide such policymaking is, however, limited. In this paper we have assembled two databases, one concerning allegations of anti-competitive acts in newspaper...

This paper examines one political-economy aspect of the European Communities' (EC) anti-dumping policy that has tended to be overlooked in prior studies; namely, the role that member states play in deciding whether to impose definitive duties on imports that have been found to be dumped and that are deemed to have injured a European industry. We fi...

This paper examines the conventional wisdom concerning competition advocacy, paying particular attention to the applicability of such wisdom to developing countries. The definition of competition advocacy, its evaluation, and the likelihood of its successful implementation are discussed in some detail. The paper concludes with a call for considerab...

Although WTO agreements contain a variety of provisions to encourage compliance by signatories, little attention is given to the incentives created by the mechanisms other than dispute settlement. The WTO's Agreement on Government procurement contains a number of such mechanisms, including detailed reporting requirements. This chapter examines the...