Trade

Chinese automotive manufacturers gain a competitive edge through laxer rules governing personal data protection and intellectual property. Oscar Borgogno and Giovanni Veronese argue that ensuring effective compliance with European law could help European manufacturers re-establish a level playing field while upholding EU constitutional values.

In new research, Janka Deli analyzes the relationship between the decline in the rule of law and trade. Contrary to democratic and developmental theory, she finds that declines in the rule of law, as seen in Hungary, Poland, and Czechia, do not lead to systematic reductions in trade with other EU partners.  

In new research, Daniel Lobo and Ryan Brutger theorize that American concepts of fairness are shaped by race and lived experiences. In a national survey experiment, they confirm that white and Black Americans view differently what constitutes “fair” trade policy.

The European Union can pursue financial sovereignty through the digital euro, but sovereignty over money doesn't mean sovereignty over the markets that form around it, writes Jeff Alvares.

In the second of two articles, Jeff Alvares analyzes the competing arguments around Pix under World Trade Organization rules—a debate involving broader questions about how international trade rules need to reflect the complexity of public services in the digital economy.

In the first of two articles, Jeff Alvares explores how Brazil’s public digital payments system achieved transformative financial inclusion through vertically integrated infrastructure, creating a model now facing scrutiny under international trade law and raising questions about the boundaries of legitimate public infrastructure provision.

In new research, Yusheng Feng, Haishi Li, Siwei Wang, and Min Zhu show that higher industrial subsidies raise the likelihood and severity of foreign antidumping and countervailing duties. These retaliatory duties wipe out roughly a quarter of the revenue growth the subsidies would otherwise create for firms. Failing to address the potential consequences of subsidies may lead governments to overstate the net benefits of industrial policy and fuel deeper trade frictions.

Many studies have assumed that United States tariff costs are passed onto consumers. In new research, Vanessa Alviarez, Michele Fioretti, Ken Kikkawa, and Monica Morlacco argue that buyer-seller relationship dynamics allow dominant U.S. importers to instead force higher costs onto exporters.

President Donald Trump has, across two administrations, sought to lower drug prices for Americans, most recently with executive order “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.” Margherita Colangelo explains why his order is unlikely to accomplish its goal.

David Chan Smith argues that tariff regimes during the eighteenth century encouraged modern history’s first offshore markets to reroute goods through jurisdictions that faced lower tariff rates. This historical “entrepôt trade” could outstrip the legal trade of some goods and carries lessons for contemporary revisions to international trade.