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The European union's economic partnership agreements with Africa and the scramble for the African market
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Increasing interest has been shown by governments in maintaining the competitiveness of their economies by the use of policies designed to encourage advances in science and technohgy, and the adoption of new tachniques by industry. This paper is the result of a literature review and a sumvey of researchers on the concepts of innovation and competitiveness, the relationships between them and the efficiency ofpolicies to promote them. Those policies an considered in the context of alternative economic perspectives, as is the (rather limited) empirical euidence available. Conclusions are drawn on the current stab of the art of innovation policy research.
South Africa with its recent major socio-political transformation to a full democracy, has also inherited a considerable technology base from the past. Although some of this asset has already been severely weakened by erosion, the correct management of this national asset to serve the needs of the new society being created in this country, can be a considerable force in the reconstruction of our economy and our society. In particular, the following roles will be dealt with: 1.• technology as a driver of greater productivity and increased global economic competitiveness;2.• technology as a force to transform the South African industry from an exporter of base minerals to a manufacturing base through value-addition to its minerals;3.• technology as a catalyst in the reconstruction of South African society through a refocused value system.Technologically based decision making, such as LIFEX and many others, is a typical example where the productive use of scarce capital resources, can be optimised and spread over a greater part of the economy.
The United States now competes in a hyper-competitive global economy in which all nations have ready access to advanced technology. Consequently, U.S. industrial survival will depend upon accelerated and sustained investments in “next-generation” products, services, and in automated manufacturing processes. Cooperative efforts increasingly will be required among companies to share risks and to pool resources and skills. This paper quantifies the overriding importance of R&D as it relates to industrial competitiveness in different industrial sectors.
A conceptual framework of the nature, structure, and dynamics of technological innovation is developed and applied to the small satellite industry. Important components of this framework include: the speed and acceleration of technological innovation; and the linear and nonlinear interactions between technology producers and users. The technology development and commercialization are conceptualized as an ongoing cooperative and competitive process involving enabling and inhibiting factors or mechanisms which govern the speed and acceleration of technological innovation.
Rules of origin of free trade arrangements limit the use of inputs from outside the preferential trade zone. A government negotiating a future FTAcan manipulate these rules in order to achieve national welfare objectives. The correct definition of rules of origin may help to enhance demand for domestically produced goods, promote national technological development, and maximize labour income. This paper proves that a more stringent rule of origin implies an increase of demand for the domestic factor if the substitution effect prevails over the effects caused by the decrease of the scale of operation in the domestic plant, and the reallocation of output between domestic and foreign plants. We further show that policy decisions regarding rules of origin that intertemporally maximize welfare and foster domestic technological evolution should be made at the greatest level of disaggregation that is feasible.
Trade preferences are a key element in industrial countries'efforts to assist the integration of least developed countries (LDCs) into the world economy. Brenton provides an initial evaluation of the impact of the European Union's recently introduced"Everything but Arms"(EBA) initiative on the products currently exported by the LDCs. He shows that the changes introduced by the EBA initiative in 2001 are relatively minor for currently exported products, primarily because over 99 percent of EU imports from the LDCs are in products which the EU had already liberalized, and the complete removal of barriers to the key remaining products-rice, sugar, and bananas-has been delayed. Brenton looks at the role EU preferences to LDCs in general have been playing and could play in assisting the integration of the LDCs. He shows that there is considerable variation across countries in the potential impact that EU preferences can have given current export structures. There is a group of LDCs for whom EU trade preferences on existing exports are not significant since these exports are mainly of products where the most-favored-nation duty is zero. Export diversification is the key issue for these countries. For other LDCs, EU preferences have the potential to provide a more substantial impact on trade. However, the author shows that only 50 percent of EU imports from non-ACP (Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific) LDCs which are eligible actually request preferential access to the EU. The prime suspect for this low level of use are the rules of origin, both the restrictiveness of the requirements on sufficient processing and the costs and difficulties of providing the necessary documentation. More simple rules of origin are likely to enhance the impact of EU trade preferences in terms of improving market access and in stimulating diversification toward a broader range of exports.
This article examines the role of rules of origin as a commercial policy instrument that targets the input composition of imports. Using a three-country, partial equilibrium structure, we demonstrate conditions under which the imposition of a binding rule will be welfare improving for an importer facing competitive export suppliers. We further show that employing rules of origin in this way would be complementary to, rather than a substitute for, conventional optimal tariffs. Copyright Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association
Most computable general-equilibrium (CGE) studies assessing the welfare impact of moving from a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to a deeper form of integration, for example a customs union (CU), typically proxy the integration as the adoption of a common external tariff toward the rest of the world. However, a CU is also an arrangement that allows for the elimination of FTAs' preferential rules of origin (ROO), which is typically not captured in CGE studies. This paper addresses the issue using a multicountry, multisector dynamic CGE model. Although the removal of distortionary ROO is likely to lower the unit costs of production within North America, it may also deteriorate North American terms of trade with the rest of the world. Thus, the net effect of the removal of NAFTA ROO on welfare is ambiguous and is an empirical issue. Copyright © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
A great deal of post-war trade liberalization resulted from regional, preferential trade agreements. Preferential trade agreements cut tariffs on goods originating only in those nations that have signed the agreement. Therefore, they need ‘rules of origin’ to determine which goods benefit from the tariff cut. Rules of origin have long been ignored for two good reasons: they are dauntingly complex and at first sight appear mind-numbingly dull. The third standard reason for ignoring them – the assertion that they do not matter much – turns out to be wrong. We show that rules of origin are important barriers to trade. Moreover, such rules are emerging as an important trade issue for three additional reasons. First, preferential trade deals are proliferating worldwide. Second, the global fragmentation of production implies complex international supply chains which are particularly constrained and distorted by rules of origin. Third, the extent to which regionalism challenges the WTO-based trading system depends in part on incompatibilities and rigidities built into rules of origin.
Our empirical results exploit a ‘natural experiment’ that was created by technical changes to Europe's lattice of rules of origin (ROOs) in 1997. This change, known as ‘diagonal cumulation’, relaxed the restrictiveness of rules of origin on trade among the EU's free trade agreement (FTA) partners without changing the degree of tariff preference. Our analysis allows us to establish a lower-bound and upper-bound estimate of trade impact of ROOs reduced trade among the EU's trade partners. The lower bound we find is something like 10% while the upper bound is around 70%. The second part of the paper draws the policy lessons that arise from considering the implications of our empirical findings. The most direct lessons are for FTA-writers. We argue that Europe's implementation of ‘cumulation’ is a good way of reducing the welfare-reducing impact of overlapping rules of origin without gutting their fraud-fighting ability. We also suggest a three-part procedure for establishing a more multilateral framework for rules of origin which would be more transparent, flexible, administratively feasible and negotiable.
— Patricia Augier, Michael Gasiorek and Charles Lai-Tong