Over fishing

      Overfishing has been talked about and a concern to countries to an extent in the past but hasn't been a serious priority that countries have worried about. One of the biggest issues is that the regulation enforcement for fishing has been extremely lax which has to lead to overfishing, overcapacity and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Countries have been subsiding there fishermen in order to secure the market. Which has to lead them to overfish because they know economic loss from the fish they loss will be reimbursed in some sort of way. 

     WWF has now urged countries in the WTO to so stop subsidizing them to prevent further harm to the wildlife and the environment. Which in the past few years the fish population has diminished as well as the size of them. To further the issue the ecosystem life has diminished and has contributed to the negative effects of climate change. This problem isn't one to be easily solved because taking away the subsidies of the fishermen could harm the market. For some countries fish is their main food source as well as protein, so placing an international quota would harm smaller countries that depend on fish. There is no real solution that would fully benefit both sides of this issue.               

                                         

References and further information: 

http://www.military-technologies.net/2017/12/14/wwf-calls-on-wto-to-end-subsidized-overfishing-and-illegal-fishing/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing

https://euobserver.com/environment/140270

WTO dilemma, future without U.S

     

        The World Trade Organization was designed to incentivize countries trade to move smoothly and freely with one another. With the new presidency, one of the biggest supporting countries of WTO has now become one of the biggest critics. This could be a problem for many reasons the U.S. has been trying to strengthen the WTO for years now in order to increase trade. However one of the biggest complaints about WTO is lack of enforcement of countries regulations. Which is what the current presidency is complaining about and is now retracting themselves from these regulations.

       

        The U.S being one of the biggest economies in the world makes them have a lot of influence in what other countries will be doing. So when the U.S wants to impose tariffs on other countries which is what the WTO opposes other countries would soon follow to do the same. What does that mean for the WTO? Well, one could hypothesize that once the U.S. leaves other nations will follow leaving WTO useless. Certain trade with countries would diminish. This may incentivize consumers to buy domestically which could be good, however, welfare could diminish as the market becomes less competitive and one could see prices inflate.   

References: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/business/wto-united-states-trade.html

https://www.wto.org/

 

Money Supply Guidelines and Exchange Rate Aspects

Throughout this paper the author went through the consequences of monetary policy on the exchange rate. The author did this by using a standard two country model that was based on the Obstfeld-Rogoff model. One of the main assumptions that were made was that central banks would change monetary policy if inflation strays from the target levels. Which basically means central banks are expected to react to changes in the inflation rate. When setting up the country size and market structure of the home and foreign countries, a utility function was used to illustrate the preferences. Another was used to represent the budget constraints for both countries. He then constructed a production function for the domestic firm and created a price setting equation. The paper then goes into the money supply shock versus a shock to the monetary rule. He found that there was an undershooting of the nominal exchange rate which would mean that there is a weaker disbursement in the short run. The author also took a look at sensitivity analysis and found that the changes in the parameter values or the estimated values does not have any qualitative changes on the model. Overall when using the Obstfeld-Rogoff model he found that monetary policy rules could possibly be a reason why exchange rates tend to be fairly low at times.

  For more information Click Here  

Trump's Taxes: A Macroeconomic Look at the New Tax Policy

          The highly discussed and viciously touted tax plan set forth by the Republicans has finally come to fruition in recent days. In order to understand the effects of this new tax policy, the Tax Policy Center, an independent think tank group, did the numbers to see what the effects of the new tax plan will likely be.

          Within their study, the researchers looked at the effects on aggregate demand as well as savings and investments, output, and the labor market. The decrease in the corporate tax rate was viewed as a positive, yet there were concerns it would have its own repercussions. The loss of revenue from the corporate tax rate reduction was seen as a likely cause to worry, as the deficit would grow at a faster rate. However, according to the projections made by the Tax Policy Center, it would actually slow the growth of the deficit by nearly 213 billion dollars over the next 20 years. This combats with previous arguments made about the increase in the size of the deficit due to the tax rate loss.

           Another point worth discussing is the increase in output seen within the GDP, with an expected growth of 0.7% the first year, and a decreasing rate every year until it reaches about 0.0% in 2027. This is much less than what the Republicans have stated it will do for the economy.

           Even without the benefits from the growth in the GDP, the study points out there are massive benefits from the new tax policy. The inversion of many U.S. companies has been a hot topic within the political atmosphere lately. This new policy will help to eliminate this continued inversion and avoidance of the United States taxes. Corporations may return to the United States, but it is not guaranteed, and current corporations will be less likely to leave as a result.

          This study expands the thoughts of the benefits of new tax policies in order to make the United States more competitive in attracting foreign direct investment as well as the potential for retaining corporations within the United States. While the study is quick in response to the new policy, and further studies will be published to show the effects further, this is a good first glimpse. It seems that this tax policy will be able to provide some positives for both the United States government as well as the maintaining of businesses within the United States.

Take a look at the study HERE

Donald Trump’s current approach

Donald Trump's actions is what is known is a Madman theory of diplomacy. Many people fear about Donald Trump's decision on the nuclear button. However, Ted Lieu assured the citizen that Trump will not be the one who first strike without the approval and discussion with the congress. However the madman theory is not a logical way to response to situation especially, form the world leader.

History has shown such behavior were never a success for example Muammar al-Qaddafi. The late Col. Qaddafi was one wacky guy, whose outrageous behavior, bizarre uniforms, incomprehensible ideology, and inexplicable conduct left almost everyone who dealt with him mystified and concerned. He was able to use Libya’s oil wealth to cause a certain amount of trouble — including a number of acts of state terrorism — but what was the end result of Qaddafi’s unpredictable behavior? He was isolated and friendless by the end of his rule, Libya was a basket case despite its oil riches, strict international sanctions had forced him to abandon his failed attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he eventually got murdered by a rebel mob. Mad, perhaps; a total failure, most definitely.

This is just one example. There are many more such as Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and even Pol Pot. History justifies that all these leaders came to an end without any positive outcome. Trump policy either political or economical could create financially instability and constrain economic progress.

Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It would have been the world's largest free trade agreements. He threatened to withdraw from NAFTA, the world's largest existing agreement. He said he would negotiate better bilateral agreements.

Trump advocated trade protectionism. In his campaign, he promised to inflict a 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico. He said he would label China as a currency manipulator. Trump claims that China artificially undervalues its currency, the yuan, by 15-40 percent. If it didn't reduce its trade surplus with the United States, he would impose duties on its exports. As president, he has reversed some of those claims.

Therefore due to various reason Donald Trump’s current approach to handle matters is not the right one. Serious consequences may occur.

For more information: 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/16/things-dont-end-well-for-madmen-trump-north-korea/

Cashews and Globlization

When the topic of globalization and offshoring is discussed, Americans have a hard time realizing that this is not only an American issue. India gets bad rep because a large amount of companies are utilizing India's cheaper labor. However, India has been the long reining cashew capital of the world; they are losing those jobs to their successor, Vietnam. This is just another example that trade economics are an ever-changing, fluid environment.
India's city of Kollam has been booming due to the 800 factories that process (shelling, roasting, packaging)  cashews which are then shipped to other countries for consumption since the 1930s. In 1935, India controlled almost all of the cashew exports in the world. Today, Kollam only has 100 factories still in use. Many believe that the downfall is due to India's reliance on their cheap labor. Almost all the process is still done by hand and has not been changed in decades.
This opened the window of opportunity for Vietnam. They started using technology to do all the process of cashews which made their systems cost less then in India. Over the years, India has lost more and more business to Vietnam. Vietnams use of technology was motivated by two reasons: it increased the productivity of their workers and they felt pressure to meet food safety measures of the developed countries (which meant less contact time between the cashews and the workers). Today, Vietnams factories process 50 tons of cashews per day with only 30 workers. Now Vietnam accounts for 70% of all the world cashew exports.

To read the entire article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-cashews-explain-globalization-1512142823