Canada‐United States interregional trade: quasi‐points and spatial change

Interregional trade between Canada and the United States has undergone significant change since the inception of free trade. However, the magnitude of that change for the different regions in Canada and the United States has not been properly identified because of a lack of an appropriate measure. This paper introduces the concept of a quasi‐point and employs a spatial point pattern test to measure the degree of change in the interregional trade of Canadian provinces and US states, with an emphasis of that change on Ontario. It is found that the degree of change in the interregional trade flows is related to the degree of change in the provincial tariff rates.     

Free Trade Empire to Commonwealth of Nations: India,Britain and Imperial Preference, 1903–1932

This article examines the dialogue between British tariff reformers and Indian nationalists over the application of imperial trade preference in India from Joseph Chamberlain's 1903 Birmingham address to the 1932 Imperial Economic Conference. For both groups, this issue was a focal point to assess India's constitutional status and national participation within an emerging British Commonwealth and international system after the First World War. Specifically, it marked a comprehensive challenge to the orthodoxy of free trade and liberal empire seen increasingly as a determent to reconciling national prosperity and imperial unity. It is argued that prominent tariff reformers’ well-studied criticism of an ‘unpatriotic’ cosmopolitan free trade made them also sympathetic to longstanding Indian grievances that this fiscal policy exacerbated economic exploitation and racial discrimination. After 1919, Indian nationalists, including ‘historical economists’, utilized metropolitan advocacy for imperial preference to demand fiscal and political autonomy from Britain and national, as well as racial, equality in collective imperial decision. At the 1932 conference in Ottawa, India's voluntary and negotiated acceptance of preferential trade with Britain, beside the white self-governing Dominions, helped transform the British Commonwealth into an egalitarian organization recognizable after 1947.     

Canada’s Trade Policy: In Search of a Roadmap

This article examines Canada’s trade policy in light of efforts by the Harper government to respond to increasing global competition through the Global Markets Action Plan (2013). Through an analysis of three initiatives, the Canada–Korea Free Trade Agreement (CKFTA), the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Trans–Pacific Partnership (TPP), it becomes clear that Canada’s current strategy has only gone part of the way to enact policies that will be most beneficial to its economy. This article shows that Canada’s Global Markets Action Plan, though ambitious, does not correctly prioritize Canada’s interests: it gives too little attention to improving Canada’s strongest trading relationship with its immediate neighbors in North America; it does not comprehensively address the changing nature of trade (which is now focused on trade in value-added products); and finally, its almost singular focus on market access and increasing exports directs attention away from the type of liberalization that would be most beneficial to Canadians, which is opening up the market for imports and dismantling Canada’s supply management system.     

Canada’s Supply Management System and the Dairy Industry in the Era of Trade Liberalization: A Cultural Commodity?

ABSTRACT

Canada’s dairy farmers have spent the last 40 years fighting to preserve their supply management system despite increases in the desire to liberalize trade through the expansion of regional free trade agreements and the targeting of agriculture in recent rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). How has Canada’s supply management system resisted trade liberalization thus far? Moreover, what strategies have Canadian dairy farmers used to lobby the government to preserve this system? The answer to these questions lay within the intersection of culture and economics. Canadian dairy farmers have been successful in framing Canadian dairy as a distinctly Canadian cultural commodity, and therefore framing supply management as the economic tool needed to defend this cultural commodity. In exploring this topic, this article will touch on Canada’s history of preserving cultural institutions, as well as the historical importance of Canada’s supply management system.     

Vulnerabilities of Highly Skilled Immigrants in Canada and the United States

Despite similar permanent status immigration categories (Economic, Family, and Refugee), the experiences of skilled immigrants in Canada and the United States are quite different. The point system used to select applicants for the Economic Class in Canada makes skilled immigrants vulnerable to a number of perils after the migrant lands. Foreign credentials and work experience are discounted by Canadian employers, who also impose a discriminatory income penalty on minorities. While previous cohorts of Economic Class migrants may have been warned of these perils via reliable migrant networks, new Canadian research suggests that recent cohorts have no such safety net. This article examines the economic integration experiences of Economic Class migrants in the United States in light of the Canadian experiences. The vulnerabilities reported in Canada do not appear to be transferable to the United States, because immigration policy in the US stresses pre-landing employment commitments via employer sponsorship. Accordingly, prospective Economic Class migrants to the United States do not migrate without first knowing how their credentials and “minority status” will affect employment opportunities. However, for the 85,000 skilled workers admitted to the United States on H-1B temporary visas each year, the perils noted in the Canadian experience are relevant, as are a number of additional concerns.     

China and East Asia: An Appraisal of Regional Economic Integration

Three Taiwan-based economists evaluate regional economic integration in East Asia, using trade indicators to analyze the degree of trade concentration among East Asian nations, and employing the gravity model to identify key factors influencing bilateral trade flows among them. China is expected to play a key role in East Asia's economic development, and empirical analysis for the period 1990-2005 indicates that East Asia has already evolved into a trading block, expected to become one of three dominant blocks in the global economy. The study, which highlights the key role played by geographical distance and market size, suggests that the impact of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for East Asian trade will remain limited in the future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F15, F31, O53, P33. 7 tables, 41 references.     

Defining the relationship between Australia and the European Union: is the framework treaty enough?

Australia is currently negotiating a framework treaty with the European Union (EU) that aims at closer cooperation on a wide range of shared policy goals. The treaty is not expected to include trade-liberalisation commitments. This article queries why this is, given the importance of trade and business relations with the EU for Australia, and the fact that the EU exerts international influence primarily as a trade power, rather than a foreign and security policy power. Since 2006, the EU has also been negotiating ‘new-generation’ bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), focusing on tariffs and regulatory non-tariff trade barriers. It has now committed itself to FTA negotiations with many of Australia's trade partners in Asia and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. An FTA and a complementary framework treaty were concluded with South Korea in 2010, and the EU is currently negotiating a similar package with Canada. As Australia and Canada are comparable trade partners for the EU, the article argues that an FTA on the EU–Canada model could be a more effective avenue for Australia to achieve deeper engagement with the EU.     

Monarchism,an Emerging Canadian Identity,and the 1866 British North American Trade Mission to the West Indies and Brazil

In 1865, the colonies of eastern British North America created a joint commission to investigate the possibility of reciprocal trade agreements with other parts of the Western hemisphere. In early 1866, the commissioners visited the West Indies and the Empire of Brazil, where they met officials and business leaders. No actual tariff agreements resulted from the commissioners’ travels, the main concrete result of the 1866 trade mission being the establishment of a direct steamship service between Canada and the West Indies. The study of contemporary discussions of the trade mission deepens our understanding of the history of relations between the British West Indies and British North America in the aftermath of emancipation and the end of the ‘Old Colonial System’. Moreover, these discussions reveal different elements of an emerging Canadian identity. Discourse of Britishness influenced the 1866 trade mission, but so did a sense of affinity linking Canada to the other monarchical territories in the Western hemisphere, such as the Empire of Brazil. For their part, some contemporaries in the West Indies welcomed the Canadian trade initiative because they wished for a counterweight to the growing influence of the United States in the region. The article also presents new information about British policy towards Latin America, particularly Mexico and Brazil, as well as British commercial diplomacy more generally. The article is based on materials in archives in the United Kingdom and Canada as well as a range of printed primary sources.     

Providing Intergenerational Goods: Implementation of National Park System Plans in Canada and the United States

The provision of inter generational goods is a challenging task for democratic governments in that benefits arrive in the future but costs are borne in the present. Public agencies usually are assigned responsibility for providing such goods, but implementation of their long-term plans often is constrained by the short-term focus of other political actors. This argument is illustrated through a comparison of Canadian and American efforts to expand national park systems according to scientific criteria. Efforts in both nations have been constrained, albeit by different sets of institutional actors. The strong federal structure in Canada has enabled subnational actors to slow and compromise agency expansion plans. American agency efforts have been constrained by the acts of individual politicians at the federal level, particularly members of Congress     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea: 1945-1975 , by Edward S. Mason, Mahn Je Kim, Dwight H. Perkins, Kwang Suk Kim, and David Cole.
Government, Business, and Entrepreneurship in Economic Development: The Korean Case. Studies in the Modernization of the Republic of Korea: 1945-1975 , by Leroy P. Jones and II Sakong.
The Interregional Diffusion of Innovations in Canada , a Study Prepared for the Economic Council of Canada, by F. Martin, N. Swan, I. Banks, G. Barker, and R. Beaudry.
Housing and Residential Structure: Alternative Approaches , by Keith Bassett and John R. Short.
The Human Experience of Space and Place , by Anne Buttimer and David Seamon (eds).
Energy Development in the Southwest. Problems of Water, Fish, and Wildlife in the Upper Colorado River Basin , Volumes I and II, Resources for the Future Research Paper R-18, by Walter O. Spofford, Jr., Alfred L. Parker, and Allen V. Kneese (eds.).     

Canada’s cultural exemption

ABSTRACT

Certain countries stand out as having distinctive approaches to trade and culture. Canada occupies a key position in this pantheon of distinctive approaches. Since the 1980s, Canada has pursued a 'cultural exemption’ in its various trade agreements. The perception is that it has largely maintained this exemption, however I will show in this article that each iteration of the exemption differs from the others in subtle but noteworthy ways. These differences stem in large part from the nature of the particular trade agreement negotiations and the identity of the specific trading partner(s). Ultimately, the aim of this contribution is to show that Canada’s cultural exemption strategy has had to evolve alongside key trends in trade, notably the proliferation of free trade agreements.     

Foreign Trade in China's Electronics Industry

Three Taiwan-based economists examine the effects of GDP, per capita GDP, geographic distance, FDI outflows and inflows, openness to trade, bilateral investment treaties, and other factors on the volume of bilateral trade between China and 40 of its trading partners in the up-, mid- and downstream segments of the country's electronics industry. Pooled cross-section and time-series data are employed in an empirical estimation for the period 1995-2005, which indicate that the Chinese electronics sector's import/export volumes have grown substantially alongside China's economy. The authors address a specific set of issues questioning whether FDI inflows have created a trade effect in the electronics industry, whether they have lead to a measure of import substitution in China's electronics industry, and whether the net impact of opening the market has been positive or negative on the sector's foreign trade. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, F21, L63, O53, P33. 6 tables, 23 references.     

Tacit knowledge transfer via interlocking directorates: A comparison of Canada and the United States

This paper explores geography as a contributing factor to knowledge transfer among Canadian and American firms. We argue that the knowledge networks of the two countries are moving in opposite directions. Canada's network is converging into fewer cities while the American network encompasses a greater number of cities. When the knowledge networks of Canada and the United States are explored, national and local boundaries are found to impede the movement of corporate knowledge. Prior to our discussion on its spatiality, the concept of knowledge is introduced and its relation to individuals and firms of the Canadian and American corporate network is examined.     

Commentary Frederick J. Simoons,Cultural Geographer

Canadian identity is threatened. Canada is first and foremost a state, an institution before being a socio-cultural reality. The country needs the state to survive. Its viability is based both on a healthy economy which ensures prosperity and on the critical role that such prosperity allows the state to assume by redistributing wealth. In the future, the ability of the state to pursue these ends may be seriously reduced and the unique character of Canadian society thus diminished. The dilemma associated with the Canadian-American, free-trade agreement issue is revealing in this light. While free trade seems to be the only solution to maintain a strong Canadian economy, it could at the same time, threaten the very existence of Canada.     

How China Navigated the Dilemma of Trade Liberalization and Government Revenues

Many economists believe that in the long run, the aggregate performance of open economies is better than that of closed ones, and that open policies contribute significantly to economic development. At the same time, many political scientists and policy makers fear that, in the short run, one of the steps towards openness — trade liberalization — may harm government revenues. However, in the 1990s, China successfully navigated the dilemma of trade liberalization and government revenues. In this period, China decreased tariff and non‐tariff barriers for WTO accession, but has achieved dramatically increased tariff revenues since 1999. This study explores how China implemented trade liberalization and simultaneously increased tariff revenues in the 1990s. It demonstrates that a series of institutional arrangements, including a reform of Criminal Law, rigorous anti‐smuggling activities and a de facto tax imposed on the export sector, successfully curbed smuggling activities through the processing trade, and made foreign‐invested manufacturing enterprises the major contributors to the stability of customs revenue. China's case shows that a prosperous, export‐oriented and foreign‐invested manufacturing sector could potentially provide a developing country with a source of customs revenue.     

The urban in fragile,uncertain, neoliberal times: towards new geographies of social justice?

Canadian cities are at a crossroads. The neoliberalization of governance at multiple scales, inadequate re-investment in urban infrastructure, increasing reliance on continental and international trade, and the restructuring of the space economy have combined to weaken Canada's cities just as the global economic system is undergoing transformation. Canadian urban geographic scholarship has much to offer under current conditions, and is already making significant contributions in key areas. In particular, research on what might be called the contours and impacts of urban restructuring and the neoliberal city, immigration and cities of difference, and urban environmental justice show much promise and are likely to define the core of Canadian urban geography into the future.     

抗战期间中加军事关系评析

当中国开始抗击日本侵略之际,加拿大推行绥靖政策,同时采取一定的战备措施。直到抗战初期,中加两国关系处于低层次水平上。加拿大参战之后,随着中加公使级外交关系的建立,两国的军事合作关系亦得到确立。加方对国民党军队的评价不高,但坚持军事合作,向中国提供对日作战的情报和作战物资援助。中加军事关系与政治关系密切相关,其发展相互对应;军事合作关系的建立和发展,有助于世界反法西斯战争的进行;合作的主要形式和内容是加拿大向中国提供军援;欧德澜的个人作用相当突出;但中加军事合作的影响较为有限。     

A regionalisation or long-distance trade? Transformations and shifts in the role of Tana in the Black Sea trade in the first half of the fifteenth century

Abstract

The Italian trading stations in Tana were important in the long-distance trade system of the Italian maritime republics Venice and Genoa. The deeds of two Venetian notaries who worked there during the 1430s, Nicolo de Varsis and Benedetto de Smeritis, are an important source for tracing the transformation of the issues and directions of Italian trade in the Black Sea region, a trade which was recovering from the crisis of the fourteenth century. Notwithstanding the Venetian-Genoese struggle and previous crisis events, this recovery made the economic conditions favourable. Although some scholars see a regionalisation of trade in fifteenth century, the source evidence challenges this interpretation. Westerners began to import Italian, Flemish and English textiles to the Eastern markets, and the local goods (fish, caviar) were widely exported to Europe – even to the markets of Flanders. Finally, the slave trade was intensive. My main argument here is that though there were considerable transformations in the Italian trade, there was no real regionalisation of trade, which retained its long-distance character.     

Transnational geographies: Indian immigration to Canada

Immigration from the Asia and Pacific area now accounts for over 50 percent of all Canadian immigration. Therefore, any consideration of Canada's linkages with Asia must address this issue. While much work has debated the impact of immigration in Canada's urban centres, less has been directed to understanding the transnational nature of such population movements, or their specific transnational geographies. In this paper, I consider the geography of immigration from India to Canada. Immigration from India has traditionally been tightly regionalised, with the majority of immigrants originating from the Doaba area of Punjab. Settlement in Canada is also highly concentrated at the provincial, metropolitan and suburban scales. Drawing upon a range of qualitative and quantitative data collected in both India and Canada, I illustrate the geography of immigration from India and highlight some of the processes that contribute to creating transnational networks between these sites .     

Research and Development in the Canadian Forest Product Sector - Another Weak Link?

For over a decade the Science Council of Canada has argued with increasing conviction that Canada's industrial dilemmas stem from technological weaknesses that result primarily from high levels of foreign ownership (e.g. Cordell, 1971; Bourgault, 1972; Britton and Gilmour, 1978; Shepherd, 1980). Indeed, the council urges that only by adopting an industrial strategy explicitly based on the concept of technological sovereignty can Canada hope to ensure the international competitiveness of its economy and offer the employment opportunities appropriate to its stage of development. If such pleas are to be translated into comprehensive and coherent action, however, there is an admitted need for more sectoral studies to detail the effects of foreign ownership and provide an evaluation of existing capacilities necessary to the formulation of effective policies. In this paper, therefore, I will briefly compare research and development (r & d) in the forest product sectors of Canada and the United States. Since Canada's forest industries have long attracted foreign, and especially American, direct investments, such a comparison is considered to be particularly appropriate (Marshall et al., 1936: 35–55; Hayter, 1981a).