Global Economy Journal

The Doha Round of GATS negotiations is on-going. In this context, this paper argues that developing countries such as India have created niche for themselves in particular services exports and, therefore, should actively participate in the negotiations to remove barriers in sectors/modes of their trade interest. It identified various strategies for negotiations for developing countries, such as formation of coalition on particular issues/sectors/modes with like-minded trading partners and offering binding commitments in Mode 3 in return for greater market access in Modes 1 and 4. The commitments of developing countries should take into account the inter-sectoral and intermodal linkages. Lastly, the paper stresses on the need for complementary domestic reforms which would enable developing countries to gain from multilateral liberalization.

A country's regulatory regime is a major determinant of the ability to realize the benefits of various macroeconomic efforts and initiatives, including trade agreements. Intrinsic and historical differences between goods and services sectors indicate that a country’s regulatory infrastructure and environment may be potentially more significant for services. The regulatory regimes for service sectors in many countries today, however, are underdeveloped or otherwise ineffective, and may actually deter investment and hinder opportunities in trade involving services. These shortcomings may have particular implications for countries in negotiating service sectors in trade agreements, as they may be, or may perceive themselves to be, at a disadvantage as they negotiate subject matters largely defined by and dependent on the efficacy of regulatory structures and systems. As services increase their importance in national economies and international trade, governments and citizens of those countries are less likely to fully realize the benefits of trade liberalizing efforts or economic growth policies. This article explores the differences between goods and service sectors and the practical implications of the differences - thus, why regulatory regimes matter.

Services sector has emerged as the largest and fastest-growing sector in the world economy in the last two decades, providing more than 60 per cent of global output and, in many countries, an even larger share of employment. Not only has the services sector grown in terms of its share in global output and employment, its share in total trade has also grown rapidly in this period. The growing importance of services sector and the corresponding rise in its role in integrating the world economy has led to a stream of literature that examines different aspects of trade in services.

This paper undertakes a selective review of both theoretical as well as empirical studies on trade in services. It identifies some of the conceptual issues in this area, e.g., whether theories of trade are relevant for services; what are the important barriers to trade in services; and how are these barriers measured. The main objective of the paper is to provide policy insights and future areas of research in trade in services.

This paper examines the impact of the various types of foreign capital flows (or FCF) on the efficiency with which countries transform their respective resources into the achievements associated with the three dimensions (Life expectancy or LI, Educational attainment or EI and wealth or WI) of the Human Development Index. An important result is the identification of returns to scale as the main factor preventing some countries from achieving the total efficiency level assumed by standard economic analysis, if decision-making units (DMUs) or countries in this case, working along their respective production possibility frontiers, wish achieve the goal of optimizing the utilization of their resources.

This paper argues that investing in developing countries can be both economically and morally very rewarding. It firstly shows that historically capital invested in developing countries has obtained higher returns than invested in developed countries. It secondly argues that there is also a moral case for investing in developing countries. It would accelerate economic development in the poorer areas of the world, thereby promoting global development. It finally suggests that the socially responsible investment (SRI)initiative could be broadened to incorporate development objectives more explicitly, thereby serving as a conduit to more investment to the developing world.

This article takes a critical view at the process of economic change and transformation in Poland since 1989. Its describes the creation and implementation of these changes, initially referred to as the Balcerowicz Plan, in the decidedly negative context of the system of central planning. The article takes a detailed look at growth, international trade, privatization, and foreign direct investment, as well as outlining some "persistent negatives" such as transition costs, technology and infrastructure lapses, and inflation. It concludes with possible suggestions for Poland's future as a full member of the EU, participating in the euro-- perhaps as early as 2008 or 2009.

We analyse transboundary pollution externalities caused by consumption of goods. The model is of a reciprocal dumping type in which there are two countries and two firms. Each firm produces a homogeneous good to be consumed in both markets. There are two policies available to the governments of the two countries: consumption taxes and import tariffs. We characterise the Nash optimal levels of the instruments in the two countries. Our results suggest that the conditions satisfying higher consumption taxes in one country satisfy lower tariffs in that country. It is found that starting from non-cooperative solutions, an infinitesimal uniform reduction is unambiguously Pareto improving for each country and for the global welfare. This is because the gain from an increase in consumer surplus due to reform is larger than the loss in the tax revenues of the governments. Moreover, a revenue neutral reform which increases consumption taxes and reduce tariffs, is strictly Pareto improving.

Empirical convergence analyses have helped provide insight as to whether economies are converging. Previous works on convergence have tended to focus on a particular economic indicator exclusively, even though the convergence process has multiple components. Improved estimates of convergence are likely to result from an integrated approach wherein several indicators are considered simultaneously. The proposed model integrates convergence analyses for three convergence variables to estimate the overall rate of economic convergence in the EU during 1960 to 1990. The research indicates that convergence is occurring overall, but that employment convergence is happening at a considerably slower pace than are the other types of convergence.