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Episode 30: The State of International Free Trade with Dan Ikenson
Fredrik Erixon talks to Dan Ikenson, the director of the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. They start their discussion by talking about how free trade is seen in...
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Trade in Time of Corona: what’s next for the EU?
The European Commission updated its trade forecasts for 2020 which followed the WTO’s estimates for this and next year. Both reports agree on a dramatic drop in trade volume due to the economic...
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The Right Kind of Standard to Fight a Pandemic
On the 20th of March 2020, the EU made a big announcement. To help companies ramp up production on medical goods, 11 standards were made available for free. Anyone could download and read the EU...
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After Azevedo, what next for the WTO?
Roberto Azevedo will have served diligently as Director-General of the World Trade Organization for seven years when he leaves office at the end of August 2020. No one can doubt his commitment to the...
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Of debt and disease.
A street pharmacy in Tanzania (from author’s own archives) Debt relief is not a panacea to tackle the pandemic in the developing countries In midst of the corona-crisis, the world's twenty largest...
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A Global Agreement on Medical Equipment and Supplies to fight COVID-19
The trade answer to the coronavirus crisis has been a mix of openness and protectionism. Countries have lowered import duties (examples here, here, and here), imposed export restrictions (here and...
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Coronavirus does not mean the end of globalisation
The world of trade will change for ever. Globalisation is dead. Supply chains will become shorter, and less complex. The nation state is back. Except for China, which is in big trouble. That’s a...
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Trade policy and COVID-19: Openness and cooperation in times of a pandemic
Covid-19 has hit the world very hard in general and some regions so far in particular (e.g. China, Europe, US) over the past three months. The deep level of interconnectedness between countries and...
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Globalisation after COVID-19
It is certain that the world will overcome the COVID-19 crisis, as much as it is certain that in the aftermath the world will look different with regards to global trade. International trade patterns...
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A Global Effort to Win the War Against COVID-19
We are at war. But this war is different. There is no visible enemy, no border, no ideological divide. And yet, as in the past century’s conflicts, our lifestyle changed, our habits are hit by...