9.15 – 9.45 Registration & Coffee (30 minutes)
9.45 – 10.00 Welcome and introduction (10 minutes) – Emily Lydgate (UK Trade Policy Observatory/University of Sussex)
10.00-11.00 – Session 1: Post-Brexit trade
11.00 – 11.30 – Coffee Break
11.30-12.30 – Session 2: Climate and trade
12.30 – 13.30 – Lunch
13.30-15.00 – Session 3: Digital Trade
15.00 – 15.30 – Coffee Break
15.30-16.30 – Session 4: Sustainable Trade
16.30-17.15 ROUNDTABLE: What role for FTAs in trade policy? – Chair: Michael Gasiorek (UK Trade Policy Observatory/University of Sussex). Panel: Emily Lydgate (UK Trade Policy Observatory), David Henig (European Centre for International Political Economy), Ian Shepherd (Department for International Trade, UK Government)
Camilla Jensen is a Senior Research Fellow in international trade with the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex and an Associate Professor in Economics at Roskilde University, Denmark. She has a background in cultural studies, and a PhD in Economics from SDU, Denmark. She has taught international business and comparative economic systems at Copenhagen Business School and Copenhagen University. Now she teaches a mix of public economics and international economics at Roskilde University. Camilla’s research in international trade focuses on topics related to multinational firms, host country economic systems, sustainable development and how political and climate risks are affecting and being affected by international trade. She has done commissioned work for LEGO, DANIDA, CASE (Warsaw), the FCDO (Beijing), the European Commission, the European Parliament and Center for Regional and Tourism Research (Bornholm, DK).
UK Trade in the Wake of BrexitThomas Sampson is an Associate Professor of economics at the London School of Economics. His research studies the impact of globalisation on workers, firms and productivity. Thomas is also an academic adviser to the Bank of England and an associate at the Centre for Economic Performance where he has worked extensively on the economic consequences of Brexit. Prior to joining the London School of Economics, Thomas worked as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the Bank of Papua New Guinea and obtained a PhD in economics from Harvard University.
This paper studies the impact of Brexit on the UK’s trade with the EU relative to its trade with the rest of the world. We find no evidence that uncertainty and anticipation effects led to a significant decline in relative UK trade with the EU during the period after the UK voted for Brexit in 2016 and before the change in policy was implemented under the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in 2021. However, the UK’s departure from the EU’s single market and customs union at the start of 2021 caused a major shock to UK-EU trade. We estimate that the new TCA trade relationship led to a sudden and persistent 25% fall in relative UK imports from the EU. In contrast, we find a smaller and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU, but nevertheless a large and sustained drop in the extensive margin of exports, driven by the exit of low-value relationships. The timing and asymmetry of Brexit effects on UK imports and exports is puzzling and provides evidence of important differences in adjustment to integration and disintegration shocks.
The Welfare Effects of Leaving the EUNicolò Tamberi is a Research Officer in Economics at the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex, as well as a PhD student in Economics at the University of Sussex. His interests are international trade and political economy and he holds a BSc in Economics from Universita’ Politecnica delle Marche and an MSc in International Economics from the University of Sussex. He has worked as a consultant on trade policy issues for different government departments.
This paper evaluates the welfare effects of leaving the EU. This is done in three steps. First, I estimate trade barriers imposed by the TCA looking at changes in UK-EU trade in goods and services. Second, I use the 2021 change in UK’s MFN tariff to estimate the trade elasticity accounting for the endogeneity of tariff changes. Finally, I use the estimated trade barriers and elasticities in a modern general equilibrium trade model with input-output linkages. Results point to welfare changes of -1% for the UK and -0.1% for the EU in the first year of the TCA. The cut in UK’s MFN tariff softened the loss by 0.1pp for the UK.
Chair: Alasdair Smith (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Alasdair Smith is an international trade economist, with special interests in the economics of European trade and integration. He has written widely cited papers on the economics of the single market and on the Eastern enlargement of the EU; as well as more widely on trade and income distribution, competition policy, intertemporal economics, the economics of pensions, and the principles of microeconomics policy. With Tony Venables and Michael Gasiorek, he developed a set of computable modelling techniques which they applied in the 1980s to the economics of the single market and more recently to the modelling of Brexit issues. He has had direct practical experience in higher education policy, public sector pay, pension, competition policy, fiscal devolution, and payment systems. As well as academic books and papers, he has extensive experience in writing on economic policy issues for wider audiences and of undertaking economic consultancy work for public bodies. He is a researcher within the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP).
Giulia Claudia Leonelli (Birkbeck, University of London)Dr Giulia Claudia Leonelli is Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, and Research Fellow at the Transnational Law Institute, King’s College London. She was awarded a PhD in Law by King’s College London, where she was also Postdoctoral Fellow. Her current research projects lie at the intersection of trade and environmental law, with a particular focus on climate change law aspects. Her research has been published in leading academic journals. Dr Leonelli has contributed written evidence to inquiries of the House of Commons International Trade Committee and the House of Lords International Agreements Committee and is a Member of the TaPP Network.
Unilateral carbon border measures have been in the spotlight since the 2021 publication of the European Commission’s proposal for a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). In the meantime, discussions on the establishment of plurilateral climate clubs have developed in the background. This presentation critically assesses different regulatory models for plurilateral climate club arrangements, focusing on their respective advantages and shortcomings. It advocates adherence to top-down or bottom-up models involving recourse to product standards and bans.
Wusheng Yu (University of Copenhagen)Wusheng Yu is a Professor with the Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he coordinates a research group on markets and policy and teaches graduate courses in international trade and computational models. His main areas of research are agricultural policy, international agricultural trade, trade policy, computable general equilibrium modeling, and the intersection of food security, international trade, and climate change mitigation. For his contributions to CGE modeling, he has been named a GTAP Research Fellow. His research has been funded by a series of EU FP and H2020 programs and a number of other public and private funding bodies. He is currently leading a research program on the future of animal sourced food products. He has consulted for a number of international organizations and national governmental ministries/agencies.
Professor Yu received his economics training from China (MSc, Renmin University of China) and the USA (PhD, Purdue University).
Francesco Clora (University of Copenhagen)Francesco Clora is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research explores the interactions between climate change mitigation, international trade, and trade policy, focusing on (but not limited to) the European Union and the agri-food sector. He is currently involved in the FutureAnimalFood project, and has previously been involved in the European Calculator Horizon 2020 project. He teaches international economics, international trade, and computable general equilibrium modeling.
Francesco Clora has received his economics education in Denmark (PhD and MSc, University of Copenhagen) and in Italy (BSc, Padua University).
The European Union (EU) recently declared its intention to implement a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to address carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns associated with elevated climate ambitions in its Green Deal. Current literature points to uncertainties regarding the CBAM’s effectiveness and compatibility with international trade rules. This study numerically evaluates how alternative EU CBAM designs under various international reactions affect global and regional GHG emissions, outputs and trade flows.
Our modeling results confirm substantial carbon leakages and reductions in outputs in the EU’s emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) sectors when implementing the Green Deal. We show that the design of the CBAM matters: while a “non-discriminatory” CBAM based on the EU’s own scope 1 emission intensities fails to effectively reduce leakages, an ‘aggressive’ CBAM based on exporters’ scope 1 & 2 emission intensities can achieve such goal (albeit with potentially high implementation cost). International retaliations by non-EU countries can only partially offset the EU’s gains from the ‘aggressive’ CBAM, while their cooperation can result in smaller losses to the EU EITE sectors and lower leakages. Finally, the CBAM cannot change within-EU imbalances in the EITE sectors, as several EU members lose EITE outputs consistently in all scenarios with and without retaliations.
Chair: Ingo Borchert (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Ingo Borchert is a Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School, Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO), and part of the leadership group of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP). He is a recognised expert in international trade in services and has published in leading academic journals on the international integration of services markets. His expertise also encompasses digital services, cross-border data flows and structural gravity modelling of trade and trade costs. He has served as an Economist at the World Bank from 2008-11, where he co-created the global “Services Trade Policy Database” under the auspices of the World Bank and the WTO. He has been an invited speaker on services policies at the OECD, WTO and APEC, has advised the UK House of Lords on services trade, and has given evidence before UK House of Commons committees. He holds a PhD in Economics and Finance from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Javier López-González (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)Dr. Javier López-González is a Senior Economist at the Trade and Agriculture Directorate of the OECD where he leads the work on digital trade. His recent work includes: developing frameworks for the analysis and measurement of digital trade, exploring what market openness means in the 21st century; investigating regulatory approaches to cross-border data flows; and identifying potential economic costs and benefits of digital trade. He has previously worked on the drivers and implications of participation in global value chains. Javier holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Sussex.
Although it is widely acknowledged that digital connectivity and digital trade policies matter for trade, their quantitative importance has been difficult to capture. This paper provides new evidence on the nature and evolution of digital trade and highlights how digital connectivity and digital trade policies affect trade and trade costs. Using proxy measures, the paper shows that digital trade has been growing and could represent as much as 22% of global trade in 2018. It also suggests that the geography of digital trade is shifting away from OECD countries and towards emerging economies, and that digital trade is becoming more services oriented. The econometric analysis shows that a 10% change in bilateral digital connectivity leads to an increase in trade of 3%, impact which has been rising in time. The paper also shows that digital trade policy measures affecting infrastructure and connectivity, which include conditions on the flow of data and data localisation measures, are those that most negatively impact trade flows. Overall, the paper underscores the importance of engaging in digital trade policy discussions, whether domestically, in RTAs or at the WTO.
Minako Morita-Jaeger (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Dr. Minako Morita-Jaeger has been working intensively on international trade policy across the globe for decades. Prior to her research work in academia from 2010, she gained practical experience as an economic affairs officer at the UNCTAD; as a WTO services trade negotiator at the Japanese Delegation in Geneva; and as a principal trade policy analyst at the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation). Her areas of expertise include: Free Trade Agreements; WTO; Asia-Europe trade relations; UK trade policy; services and digital trade; and regulatory cooperation. She holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the LSE; an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe; an MA in International Law and Economics from the World Trade Institute; and a BA in economics from Keio University.
The UK is facing regulatory constraints on digital trade to join the CPTPP since the UK is a country with different regulatory standards based on European societal norms and values. It is true that the UK has already departed from the EU style digital trade governance by concluding the innovation and market efficiency focused digital trade provisions with some CPTPP members including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. And the CPTPP digital trade provisions are narrower and shallower thanthese ambitious agreements. However, the CPTPP is different. There are huge data governance gaps between the UK and the CPTPP members and the ethical, trust, and human rightsconsiderations are much weaker than those in the UK. Accommodation to some CPTPP digital provisions, such as data privacy and strict public policy exceptions in relation with free cross-border data flow, may intensify societal concerns in the UK and may even endanger the EU’s adequacy decision to the UK.
Susan Ariel Aaronson (George Washington University)Susan Ariel Aaronson is Research Professor and Director of the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington D.C. The Hub maps the governance of personal, public and proprietary data around the world and examines how it affects data driven tech, human autonomy and human rights. The Hub also trains policymakers in data-governance, digital trade and emerging tech such as spatial computing (metaverses) and AI. Aaronson is also a Senior Fellow at CIGI. She is the author of 6 books and over 80 articles on digital trade, data governance, human rights, corruption, and good governance. Aaronson is currently finishing or revising articles on:
She loves to do triathlons and study ballet and admits she Is mediocre at these activities.
Global data sharing can help address what scholars call wicked problems—problems so complex that they require innovative, cost effective and global mitigating strategies. Many factors impede global data sharing for public good purposes; this analysis focuses on two. First, policymakers generally don’t think about data as a global public good; they view data as a commercial asset that they should nurture and control. While they may understand that data can serve the public interest, they are more concerned with using data to serve their country’s economic interest. Secondly, many leaders of civil society and business see the data they have collected as proprietary data. So far many leaders of private entities with troves of data are not convinced that their organization will benefit from such sharing. At the same time, companies voluntarily share some data for social good purposes. However, data cannot meet its public good purpose if data is not shared among societal entities. Moreover, if data as a sovereign asset, policymakers are unlikely to encourage data sharing across borders oriented towards addressing shared problems. Consequently, society will be less able to use data as both a commercial asset and as a resource to enhance human welfare. This paper discusses why the world has made so little progress encouraging a vision of data as a global public good. As UNCTAD noted, data generated in one country can also provide social value in other countries, which would call for sharing of data at the international level through a set of shared and accountable rules (UNCTAD: 2021). Moreover, the world is drowning in data, yet much of that data remains hidden and underutilized. But guilt is a great motivator. The author suggests a new agency, the Wicked Problems Agency, to act as a counterweight to that opacity and to create a demand and a market for data sharing in the public good.
Chair: Amrita Saha (Institute of Development Studies)Amrita Saha is research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at University of Sussex. She is an economist with a focus on political economy of international trade and development. Her ongoing research focuses on inclusive trade, agriculture, and innovation, and is funded by the ESRC, FCDO and Gates Foundation. At IDS, she also convenes the MA in Globalisation, Business and Development, and the professional short course ‘Making Trade Policy Inclusive’. Amrita holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Sussex. Her past roles have included working with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London; the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in India; and teaching roles at the LSE, SOAS, and University of Sussex.
Camille Vallier (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex and University of Geneva)Camille Vallier is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. She works on the Horizon2020 research project “Trade4SD”, which studies the impacts of EU’s FTAs’ sustainability provisions on agri-food production. She is also a lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). She holds a PhD in law from the University of Geneva, an LL.M from the University of London (SOAS), and a Bachelor and Master of law from the University of Geneva. Her PhD thesis, entitled “Seeds and Public Law: Food, Health and the Environment” was defended with summa cum laude in January 2021.
This presentation will compare the influence of EU FTA environment chapters, EU regulation and voluntary standards in influencing sustainability of agri-food production in exporting countries. Based on research undertaken in the coffee sector of Vietnam, we will argue that FTA environment chapters have had little influence when they are not combined with other legal tools or instruments.
Ruby Acquah (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Ruby Acquah is a Research Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) at the University of Sussex Business School. Ruby is involved in research on the impact of Brexit on firms and workers in the UK, as well as research on deep trade agreements and sustainable development. She holds a PhD in Economics and Business Economics from Aarhus University in Denmark.
Mattia Di Ubaldo (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Mattia Di Ubaldo is a Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School, and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. His current research spans several areas: effects of trade policy on trade, FDI, and non-trade policy objectives; deep trade agreements; Brexit and its impact on firms and workers; sourcing strategies of multinationals. He has published his research in academic journals such as Economics Letters, the European Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Income and Wealth, and the World Trade Review. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Sussex.
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) have increasingly been used to promote environmental protection and climate issues, as denoted by the increasing number and variety of specific environmental provisions included in the agreements. The effectiveness of these commitments in helping countries to make progress towards environmental targets is still unclear, however. In this paper we empirically estimate the effect of specific environmental provisions in PTAs on selected environmental targets as defined in the Sustainable Development Goals. We combine a detailed dataset on environmental norms in PTAs with data on a broad range of environmental outcomes, and find heterogenous effects across the various outcomes. Provisions on the use of renewable energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions appear to be particularly effective.
Chair: Michael Gasiorek (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP), Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, and Managing Director of a University spin-out company, InterAnalysis. Michael Gasiorek is a specialist in international trade policy and regional integration with a keen interest in the policy relevance of his work. He has extensive experience in modelling the impacts of changes in trade policy and recent research has focussed on how firms engage in international trade, the impact of Brexit on UK manufacturing, the impact of Brexit on firms in Northern Ireland, and the impact of Generalised Scheme of Preferences preferences on developing country trade. He has published widely in both books and journals, such as the European Economic Review, World Economy, Economic Policy, European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Common Market Studies, Applied Economics and the European Economy. He has been responsible for the delivery of numerous reports and training programs on trade-related issues inter-alia for the UK governments, the European Commission and the World Bank. InterAnalysis is a company which has developed a software tool, TradeSift, to enable more efficient analysis of trade data. The company offers support on trade policy and trade negotiations in particular for developing countries and delivered training programmes and advice to officials from over 70 countries around the world, much of which has been in-country based.
Emily Lydgate (UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex)Emily Lydgate is a Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, a partnership between Sussex and Chatham House. Her research focuses on the relationship between environmental regulation and economic integration through trade. She is a Specialist Advisor to the EFRA Committee (UK House of Commons) and has provided expert testimony for a number of Parliamentary Committees. She is also an instructor for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Advanced Diplomatic Academy. She holds a PhD from King’s College London and an MSc (with distinction) from Oxford University. She was a Marie Curie Researcher at Bocconi University and has consulted at the United Nations Environment Programme’s Economics and Trade Branch, where she acted as a WTO liaison. She is currently working on an EU Horizon 2020 grant project on how EU Free Trade Agreements and wider trade policy reflects the goal of securing sustainable agricultural practices, and leading on a report for the UK Committee on Climate Change on trade policy and emissions reduction. She is also on the management team of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. Her research and commentary have been featured in the Associated Press, Marketplace, BBC, CNN, China Daily, Financial Times, Independent, Guardian, New Scientist, Times, Telegraph, Vice, Wired, Xinhua News, and others.
David Henig (European Centre for International Political Economy)David Henig is Director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the think-tank European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) examining the trade implications of Brexit and UK trade policy. For ECIPE he has also written a series of short papers on globalisation, and writes about broader trade issues in a regular column for specialist trade news service Borderlex. David serves as Expert Adviser to the UK Trade and Business Commission and House of Lords International Agreements Committee. Until March 2018 he worked for the UK Government including on Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks between US and EU, establishing the Department for International Trade, and issues around inward investments from China.
Ian Shepherd (Department for International Trade, UK Government)Ian Shepherd works in a job share as the Policy Director of Trade in Goods, Regulatory Environment and GCC (GREG) at the Department for International Trade with Jen Ashby. Joining the Civil Service around 20 years ago, prior to taking the role as Directorfor GREG, Ian was the head for Canada and Latin America. Prior to this Ian was at the Home Office as the head of Police Integrity and Powers unit and before this he was a policy advisor at the HM Treasury in various roles from Home Office spending to EU budget to education spending as well as International Economics and public spending. Ian’s current role involves leading a large team of around 120 people, who are all specialists in different areas of trade policy.
