Based on the recent trade models of the Heterogeneous Firms Trade (HFT) model and the Quality Heterogeneous Firms Trade (QHFT) model, we classify export goods (at the HS 6-digit level of disaggregation) by quality and price competition. We find a high proportions of quality-competition goods for the major EU countries and lower proportions for Canada, Australia and China. However, the overlap of these quality-competition goods is not large, which suggests that characteristics of export goods are substantially different across countries at the same HS 6-digit code.
We conduct a field experiment involving real purchasing decisions in a large supermarket chain to test the effect of different regulatory interventions aiming to induce a more climate-friendly diet on intrinsic motivation. Focusing on shoppers who prefer the dirty variety, we compare labeling, a subsidy, a product ban and neutrally framed versions of the latter two in their ability to induce shoppers to switch to cleaner varieties. Carbon footprint labels and bans activate intrinsic motivation of shoppers (crowding-in). Remarkably, a subsidy framed as an explicit intervention is less effective than both a label and an equivalent but neutrally framed price change. The effects of information and changes in relative prices are not only not additive (crowding-out) but combined perform worse than each individually (over-crowding). We therefore find markedly different effects of price and quantity based instruments on intrinsic motivation.
This paper focuses on the nature of the Appellate Body's interpretative method in arriving at its decision to read-in that Article 2.1 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) will not prohibit a detrimental impact on competitive opportunities for imports in cases where such detrimental impact stems exclusively from a legitimate regulatory distinction. This reading-in of the new phrase has been described as having been a contextual and teleological approach to interpretation by the Appellate Body. In this paper I consider what is meant by a teleological approach to interpretation and whether such an interpretation could in fact be another name for judicial law-making in some instances. In doing so, I suggest that a test to determine whether or not law-making has taken place could be to ask whether the Appellate Body's expression of the rights and obligations contained in the provision at issue was predictable. This is then applied to the Appellate Body's reasoning in US - Clove Cigarettes (2012) after an analysis of this reasoning, and from this I conclude that law-making could indeed have taken place in this case under the guise of a teleological approach to interpretation.
This paper considers the intersection of income tax and WTO rules. It defends an interpretation of the non-discrimination obligations in line with customary rules of interpretation as stipulated by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. It, thus, departs from the historic assumption that income taxes are not or only to a very limited extent covered by the GATT. Subsequently, the reach of the GATS in terms of its non-discrimination obligations and the substantive defenses thereto is assessed. It is analyzed how states may justify their discriminatory income tax measures under the subparagraphs of Article XIV of the GATS. Additionally, the stringency with which measures are assessed under the chapeau of Article XIV is illustrated. The last section of the first part reviews the applicability of the SCM Agreement with respect to income tax measures. It further analyses the scope of the SCM Agreement with respect to transfer price adjustments. Lastly, an interpretation of arm’s length in footnote 59 of the SCM Agreement in accordance with the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines is defended. Having established the far-reaching scope of the WTO covered Agreements with respect to income tax measures, the second part analyses the rivalry between the respective dispute settlement mechanisms of tax and trade. It dismisses a narrow understanding of jurisdictional overlap that appears to exclusively focus on conflicting judicial decisions and proposes and approach under which the judicial settlement of disputes may rival with the institutionalized diplomatic dispute resolution procedure under tax agreements. Provisions and legal principles that may allow Panels to find income tax disputes inadmissible under the GATT, GATS and SCM Agreement are assessed. The third part reviews, albeit briefly, the appropriateness of the WTO DSB venturing in the field of international income taxation. Considerations are introduced that go beyond the black letter of the law and may ultimately influence the decision to favor an inclusionary or exclusionary approach to income tax measures.
This paper uses cross-country, firm-level, panel data to study how exporters from Low Income Countries (LICs) adjust their prices according to their trade partners’ characteristics. The results show that the free on board (fob) price of exports is differentiated across markets in all countries in the sample. This differentiated pricing is not commonly associated with small economies, which are normally considered price takers. This finding confirms that the law of one price does not necessarily apply to exporters in small economies. Most importantly, in contrast to existing evidence, pricing-to-market is not confined to differentiated goods, and rather also applies to homogeneous goods. In addition, this paper shows how the disparate tastes across importing countries lead pricing-to-market in homogeneous goods exported by LICs - under the assumption of variable demand elasticity of substitution (for each product across destinations).
