Trade disputes over national product standards are a growing source of tension in the international trading system. The usual pattern is that a country introduces a new product standard for all sales of a good in its local market, which is justified as necessary for consumer or environmental...

We construct a dynamic bilateral monopoly game to analyze the bargaining between a foreign manufacturer and a domestic retailer regarding the wholesale price and explain the foreign upstream firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative and its economic impacts on the domestic market....

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...

Many countries, especially developing nations, concentrate on protecting domestic producers by encouraging production of import substitutes and import competing goods. Such a development strategy, coupled with high import duty, target to avoid competition from cheap foreign products and the...

This paper shows that voluntary product standards in EU food and agriculture markets can have significant trade effects. In particular for all countries and for goods that are raw or lightly processed, EU standards can often be trade-inhibiting. However, internationally harmonized EU...

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint states the plan of ASEAN countries to unify into a single market and production base. A priority focus for integration is enhancement of trade among ASEAN member countries and long-term competitiveness of food and agriculture products produced within...

In this paper we investigate the interrelationships between trade and national minimum quality standards. We employ a simple partial equilibrium model in which national regulators set a minimum quality standard for a product whose quality is unobservable to consumers prior to purchase. Both...

Thispaper examines the performance of non-cooperative environmentalpolicy in the case of local consumption externalities. In a two-countrymodel with monopolistic competiton, governments simultaneouslyimpose environmental product standards. Stricter regulationsforce the industrial sector to shift...

The paper analyzes the direct and indirect environmental impacts of the completion of the Single European Market, both internally and with respect to the Rest of the World. Moreover, the principles of environmental policy are described. The main conclusion is that if the European Community and...