Narrow Results

Previous papers on the transfer problem pay scant attention to the problems caused by the distortionary taxation that extracts the gift from the donor nation or the cut in distortionary taxation that bestows the gift to the recipient nation. When combined with inflexibility in the real wage these changes in taxation and the transfer itself impose a considerable burden to the donor matched by a considerable blessing to the recipient. We explore these effects, and conclude that “The Great Rebalancing” between the US and China needed to cure the US trade deficit, i.e., to eliminate the transfer that China is making to the US may bestow a big burden on the US matched by a big blessing for China.

This paper uses the bootstrap rolling window approach to analyze the dynamic causal relationship between the fiscal deficit and the trade deficit in the US from 1901 to 2018. We find the origination and termination of each causality period by considering the structural breaks. The results show that the fiscal deficit had a positive impact on the trade deficit from 1946 to 1956, from 1982 to 1998, in 2000 and from 2002 to 2008, which is in accord with the results of the Mundell–Fleming model, while it had a negative impact from 1937 to 1945. The trade deficit had a positive impact on the fiscal deficit from 1940 to 1942, from 1959 to 1975 and from 1981 to 1994, mainly due to the World War II, oil crisis and trade friction with Japan. It means that the fiscal policy of American federal government can affect the external imbalance.

The withdrawal of India from negotiations on the world’s largest trade pact, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), in November 2019 was a major setback for proponents of regional economic unity. This paper tries to evaluate India’s concerns and also the way forward for India. A review of trade between RCEP countries post-implementation is done to analyze India’s stand against joining the block. India decided to opt out of the agreement because of adverse trade balance, impact on the dairy sector, economic slowdown, experience with Free trade agreements (FTAs), China factor, data localization, rules of origin, and the experience of ASEAN countries with Sino-FTA have been some of the factors responsible for this decision. Bilateral trade agreements with Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Korea, Rep.and ASEAN were already in place. So, trade between India and 12 RCEP member countries would not have changed after India’s inclusion in RCEP. There was fear of a massive surge in imported manufactures from China and dairy imports from Australia and New Zealand. This paper also evaluates the long-term repercussions of this decision and whether India missed out on becoming part of the global value chain n having greater market access through this block. India’s experience following protectionist policies did not yield the desired results in the past. So, an in-depth analysis has been done to validate if India has made a mistake by not joining RCEP or if India’s concerns and fears were justified and its regional future.

Trade between India and China has been rising exponentially with a widening trade deficit for India, which has raised alarm by businesses, and some Indian parliamentarians have started accusing China for unfair trade practices. Nevertheless, both countries intend to negotiate for free trade arrangements between them based on complementarity. This study examines how much reduction in trade deficit due to different preferential trading arrangements is feasible under hypothetical full export potential scenarios using a stochastic frontier gravity model. The empirical analysis shows that India’s potential gain is high when the influence of India’s existing “behind the border” constraints are eliminated.