Author Archives: pwg

Nothing to see here

Is there any point in con­tin­u­ing to puz­zle over trade pol­icy and agree­ments? Do they really make any dif­fer­ence to any­thing? It seems they’ve become too hard to put together; but does that mat­ter? Since about 2001, I’ve been writ­ing a weblog analysing inter­na­tional trade agree­ments, national trade poli­cies and the post-WWII “sys­tem” of gov­ern­ment …

February 16, 2012 – 1:27 pm | By pwg | Posted in Policy, Trade | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

“Critical Mass” on US business agenda

The US National For­eign Trade Coun­cil has released a short paper (PDF file) endors­ing a “crit­i­cal mass” (CM) approach to new WTO-associated trade agree­ments, with­out, how­ever, pro­duc­ing any new ideas on how to accom­plish this in the cur­rent mul­ti­lat­eral trade frame­work. A top U.S. busi­ness group, frus­trated with years of stale­mate in world trade talks, …

February 10, 2012 – 10:27 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Evidence-free policy on cars

His Tel­stra term has appar­ently left Ziggy Switkowski with a taste for Gaullist illogic. He reck­ons that the absence of a ratio­nale — other than rent-seeking — is not fatal to a pol­icy that sup­ports a “diverse” indus­trial pat­ri­moine. It is very hard to make a con­ven­tional busi­ness case for sub­sidi­s­a­tion of (or, more fash­ion­ably, …

February 9, 2012 – 6:33 am | By pwg | Posted in Public policy | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

No spring for shiite Syria

Robert Fisk’s unsen­ti­men­tal analy­sis of Assad’s strengths As long as Syria can trade with Iraq, it can trade with Iran and, of course, it can trade with Lebanon. The Shia of Iran and the Shia major­ity in Iraq and the Shia lead­er­ship (though not major­ity) in Syria and the Shia (the largest com­mu­nity, but not …

February 7, 2012 – 8:05 pm | By pwg | Posted in Countries, Foreign policy | Tagged | Comments (0)

Davos dribbles

What a world of blather, the Davos meet­ing must be. The cor­po­rate chat­ter­ing classes titi­lat­ing them­selves with scary, fuzzy, big-picture booga­loo. Clever talk and a few good din­ners mus­ing about issues they guess are com­plex, loom­ing, and some­one else’s prob­lem (tomor­row) must con­sole them for the rest of the year when they have to deal …

January 27, 2012 – 7:51 am | By pwg | Posted in Public policy | Tagged , | Comments (0)

A bearish view of global governance

If there were a rat­ings agency for the cred­i­bil­ity of “global gov­er­nance” insti­tu­tions, the WTO’s would have been down­graded to a “B” at best[1] after the col­lapse of the Doha Round nego­ti­a­tions. The triple crown of benign global gov­er­nance — a pros­per­ous, well-regulated global “com­mons,” the sov­er­eignty of nation-states and the assent of the gov­erned …

January 22, 2012 – 9:21 am | By pwg | Posted in Ideas, Trade | Tagged , | Comments (0)

A miracle on Lake Léman?

Geoff Kit­ney in today’s AFR wants you to believe Mark Emer­son has “res­cued the Doha round of trade nego­ti­a­tions from col­lapse” by con­vinc­ing all other Mem­bers to adopt his/Julia’s plan to “keep the talks alive”. Con­trast that breath­less dis­patch with this from Reuters: “WTO Meet­ing Ends with No Move For­ward on Doha”. Or how about this …

December 19, 2011 – 7:55 pm | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Comments (0)