‘The apostle of free trade:’ Adam Smith and the nineteenth-century American trade debates

This paper examines the diversity of uses of Adam Smith’s ideas in nineteenth-century American debates about the tariff. Legislative debates about American trade policy ran almost uninterrupted from the 1820s to the end of the century; as a result, they provide an abundance of examples of the ways in which legislators marshaled economic ideas to shape political discourse and influence policy. Smith’s causal ideas about free trade and its effects were referenced in policymaking, and Smith’s intellectual authority was often invoked as a legitimating device for partisan ideology. These uses, I argue, contributed to the sloganizing of Smith as the ‘apostle of free trade’ and his enduring popularity as a political icon in American politics.     

Green cities? Urbanization,trade, and the environment

Is urbanization good for the environment? This paper establishes a simple core–periphery model with monocentric cities, which comprises key forces that shape the structure and interrelation of cities to study the impact of the urban evolution on the environment. We focus on global warming and the potential of unfettered market forces to economize on emissions. The model parameters are chosen to match the dichotomy between average “large” and “small” cities in the urban geography of the United States, and the sectoral greenhouse gas emissions recorded for the United States. Based on numerical analyzes we find that a forced switch to a system with equally sized cities reduces total emissions. Second, any city driver which pronounces the asymmetry between the core and the periphery drives up emissions in the total city system, too, and the endogenous adjustment of the urban system accounts for the bulk of the change in emissions. Third, none of the city drivers gives rise to an urban environmental Kuznets curve according to our numerical simulations. Finally, the welfare‐maximizing allocation tends to involve dispersion of cities and the more so the higher is the marginal damage from pollution.     

South Africa’s trade in cultural goods and services with a focus on cultural trade with BRICS partners

ABSTRACT

As the potential for cultural and creative industries to drive growth and job creation is increasingly recognised, developing countries like South Africa are examining their cultural goods and services trade in a new light. This article investigates the pattern of South Africa’s cultural trade, with a focus on the strategically important BRICS trading bloc. Results show that, like many small, open developing countries, South Africa has a significant cultural goods trade imbalance, especially with China and India. While cultural trade policy is still somewhat fragmented, there are indications that where policies have been put in place, such as in the crafts and audio-visual sectors, progress in reducing significant deficits has been made. At the same time, the pattern of CCI trade preferences currently favours SADC, the EU and EFTA over BRICS partners. Finally, South Africa performs well in a number of services sectors for which cultural trade is important.     

Inter-port transshipment between Shanghai and Hankou in foreign trade: 1864–1930

Shanghai and Hankou are located at separate ends of the most prosperous watercourse of Yangtze River. The transshipment in foreign trade between the two ports shows the limitation of Hankou as an inland port. Though the port grew due to independent direct imports and exports, Hankou was never completely independent from Shanghai. In contrast, Shanghai is of great importance to the inland ports of Yangtze River which is different to its effect on the ports of coastal areas of Northern China. Also, the region along Yangtze River is very important to Shanghai as its hinterland. The trading and transshipment between Shanghai and Hankou is critical to the whole region of Yangtze River and the development of Chinese economy. Related topics worth studying are commerce, finance, population mobility and urbanization, etc.     

Australia's flawed approach to trade negotiations: and where do we sign?

Economists have warned for many years that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) will not necessarily increase economic welfare in Australia given the relatively small size of the economy and the country’s lack of negotiating coin. The Productivity Commission cautioned in its major report on PTAs that there seemed to be a mindset of ‘agreements for agreement’s sake’, in part because of fears of missing out on a bandwagon that has attracted Australia’s major trading partners. Political and security considerations have played an important role in shaping Australia’s approach to PTAs. When politics trumps economics in negotiations of PTAs there is a risk of a rush to premature agreement that produces sub-optimal outcomes, that undermines broader plurilateral and global negotiations, and that introduces new and undesirable distortions in trade and public policies. Various theoretical approaches to trade policymaking provide insights into why Australian governments have been willing to conclude these sub-optimal deals.     

Australia and the European Union: conflict,competition or engagement in agricultural and agri-food trade?

Many scholars have mounted convincing cases that the engagement of Australia and the European Union (EU) has been characterised by skirmishes regarding the Common Agricultural Policy and its distortion of world markets, and lack of Australian access to EU markets. This article illustrates that agricultural and agri-food trade constitutes a relatively small portion of Australia–EU trade flows; that Australia exports more goods to the EU than in the past; and that, in some agri-food sectors, it exports more goods to the EU than the EU does to Australia. Further, it argues that conflict and competition regarding the Common Agricultural Policy need to be understood in the broader context of world trade and in the context of a new and deeper engagement between the two interlocutors.     

Evo's jumper: identity and the used clothes trade in ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ Bolivia

Since the election of Latin America's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2005, Bolivia's ruling party, the ‘Movement Towards Socialism’, has nationalised resources and instituted a ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ constitution that emphasises the importance of recognising cultural, linguistic and economic plurality. This article explores gendered economic identities in this context via the case study of an informal trade that is explicitly excluded from this vision of development: the globally controversial used clothes trade (UCT). In Bolivia, political debate on the trade demonstrates gendered tensions inherent in the government's ‘post-neoliberal’ agenda of nationalisation, protection of cultural identity and the well-being of the poor in an increasingly liberalised and globalised market place. Working with women in the city of El Alto, this article examines how women's involvement in the UCT challenges understandings of identity and development in post-neoliberal Latin America and the dynamics involved in women's continued marginalisation from global economic and political processes.     

The Australia-US free trade agreement’s impact on Australia’s copyright trade policy

The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) required extensive changes to Australian copyright law. This paper assesses the impact of these changes one decade on. It considers, first, whether the costs and/or benefits predicted in 2004 have eventuated, finding clear evidence that AUSFTA has undesirably constrained domestic copyright policy, but no clear evidence either of the feared financial costs to society, or, importantly, the touted benefits to copyright owners. The most significant impact of AUSFTA’s copyright provisions, however, appears to have been on Australia’s copyright trade policy. Pre-AUSFTA, Australia promoted multilateral standards and mostly sought to comply with, but not exceed, international IP standards. Post-AUSFTA, Australia has pursued an approach akin to that of the US: endorsing international copyright rules that are significantly stronger, and more detailed. The paper queries whether this shift has been in Australia’s national interest, and raises interesting questions of path-dependence in policymaking and trade negotiations that warrant more, and broader attention in the literature.     

Aid for trade and ecologically sustainable development in Australia’s international aid program

In September 2015, Australia, along with 193 member states of the United Nations, signed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The facilitation of international trade and increasing foreign aid for developing countries were emphasised as crucial means for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. An important role was assigned to the international Aid for Trade initiative, which is about stimulating economic growth in developing countries through removing constraints to trade. Australia has been a strong supporter of the Aid for Trade initiative since it was launched at the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in 2005. Aid for trade has become a central plank of the ‘new development paradigm’ of Australia’s international aid program. This article analyses the conceptualisation and practice of aid for trade in Australia’s aid, with a focus on how it links to ecologically sustainable development. It argues that Australia’s aid for trade is reinforcing the neo-liberal development paradigm in which environmental dimensions are overall neglected and private sector development and free trade are prioritised. In order to achieve international and national development goals of poverty reduction and sustainable development, environmental sustainability needs to be fully integrated into the growing aid for trade portfolio of Australia’s international aid.     

Commerce and trade in Viking Age Norway. Exchange of products or organized transactions?

In this paper the difficulties of distinguishing between commerce in the sense of exchange of products (i.e. more locally organized trade between neighbours/districts) and trade carried out as the main occupation for certain people, are discussed. These are questions very closely connected with the urbanization process of Norway. With the material from Kaupang (Skiringssal) as a point of departure, the author discusses two ways of finding out what type of trade was carried out in Viking Age Norway: A) One may look for the same combination of names found at Kaupang in other places. These seem to reveal ‘town‐making’ features. B) Ask whether any of the still existing medieval towns in Norway have had a pre‐urban stage. At the end of the paper the author discusses the possibilities of tracing different commodities which were traded over the different ports or market‐places.     

Down at the old Ship and Ball — taverns,trade and daily life in the London Borough of Southwark

SUMMARY: Archaeological excavations in Southwark over the past 50 years have proved to be a very prolific source of evidence for the material culture of people living in this part of London from the 16th century onwards. This lecture, the fourth held by SPMA in honour of the late Geoff Egan, focuses on a remarkably rich and varied assemblage of 17th- and 18th-century artefacts excavated on a site in Tanner Street in 2012. Covering a wide spectrum of activities, occupations and levels of society, these include ceramics, glass, clay tobacco pipes, pewter, copper-alloy, wood, leather, bone and ivory, with objects as diverse as cloth seals, spoons, book mounts, wine bottles and glasses, bird feeders and a mallet for playing pall mall, and sources ranging from the English Midlands to the Far East.     

Popular and prevalent: Asian trade goods in northern New Spain, 1590–1850

Much previous scholarship has assumed that Pacific trade goods were generally restricted to the urban centers of colonial Latin America and had little influence on the culture of interior provinces. Documentary and archeological records from remote areas of northern New Spain indicate otherwise and may serve as an example of the range of Asian trade goods elsewhere in colonial Latin America. This essay focuses upon Parral and New Mexico, showing that Asian goods-especially porcelain and textiles-reached some of the most remote areas of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Throughout the colonial era, the desire to establish and maintain a sophisticated lifestyle on the periphery seems to have been operative, with imported Asian goods as signifiers of status and prestige. Although fewer imported Asian goods may have been available in the remote northern regions than in urban areas, archeological and documentary evidence indicates their quality was equal to that of the metropoles, suggesting that daily life on the northern frontier was not as poor and isolated as previously assumed, but rather, actively participated in the international trade of the times.