Trade monitoring

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) present an issue of significant political and economic interest as they create jobs and drive development in developing and advanced countries. However, there is a perception that SMEs face a conundrum in the new realities brought about by globalisation. While supply chains present a portal for SMEs into international markets, they also open up SME market niches to encroaching large-sized enterprises (LEs). The competitive capabilities imparted by supply chain management (SCM) literature is suggested here for SMEs to compete against LEs; a slingshot in the battle between David and Goliath. The literature, however, reveals a controversy over whether SCM, in reality, helps or hurts SMEs. Some of the reasoning points to the presence of an LE perspective bias, and SMEs sometimes consider SCM as a threat, not a solution. The recent literature is addressing this issue by taking up the SME perspective, but the question of an SCM for SMEs is still in a very early stage of development. More effort will be required to gather data and build theory for SMEs in both developed and developing markets.

The WTO Essay Award for Young Economists was shared in 2014 by Jonathan Dingel from the United States and Claudia Steinwender from Austria. Dingel’s paper dealt with why higher-income countries export higher-quality goods while Steinwender focused on the impact of the better transmission of market and price information on market efficiency and trade.

There are a number of ways of looking at the World Trade Organization. It is an organization for trade opening. It is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements. It is a place for them to settle trade disputes. It operates a system of trade rules. It helps developing countries build their trade capacity. Essentially, the WTO is a place where member governments try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other.

The rise and decline of free trade in the 19th century and the attendant economic and political consequences of these trends have always intrigued historians and economists. In the difficult times following World War I, when international trade relations had to be rebuilt, the free trade episode among European countries in the second half of the 19th century was perceived as a golden age. During that latter period, widespread economic development, driven by industrialization and technological change, went together with trade expansion supported by a network of bilateral trade treaties. This network started with the Anglo-French (Cobden-Chevalier) treaty of 1860 and triggered a series of other treaties among European countries. Bilaterally agreed reciprocal tariff reductions, together with the application of the unconditional mostfavoured-nation (MFN) clause contained in the treaties, led to historically low tariff levels, in particular for agricultural products. This period of largely unfettered trade across Europe lasted for nearly two decades up to 1879, faltering gradually thereafter and collapsing with World War I.