From the Editor

The International Trade Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2 (March–April 2020)

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the second issue of The International Trade Journal (ITJ)’s thirty-fourth volume. The articles in this issue focus on trade in agricultural goods and food.¹ The issue includes articles on the effect of United States (U.S.) anti-dumping investigations on exports from a non-market economy, on how changes in the exchange rate affect US imports of salmon, on the welfare effects of frozen orange juice tariff quotas in South Africa, and on how the comparative advantage of African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) sugar exporters has evolved over the past fifty years.

The first article in this issue, by Dang Luu Hai, looks at how the US’s antidumping investigation into Vietnam’s shrimp exports affected how Vietnamese firms set their prices.² The author argues that because anti-dumping duties are calculated differently for market and non-market economies, the price effects might be different for Vietnamese firms than they would be for firms from market economies. When the preliminary anti-dumping duty was imposed, the Vietnamese exporters decreased their prices. However, after the final determination of the duties, the author estimates that Vietnamese exporters increased their prices by more than 1% for each 1% increase in anti-dumping duties.

The second article, by Dengjun Zhang, uses a structural model to look at how changes in the exchange rate affect US imports of salmon from the most important countries that export salmon into the US: Norway, Chile, and Canada. The author finds a partial exchange rate pass-through in both the long and short run. They do not find any evidence, however, of asymmetric effects.

The third article, by Chiedza L. Muchopa, Yonas T. Bahta, and Abiodun A. Ogundeji, looks at exports of frozen orange juice from South Africa to the European Union in the face of tariff rate quotas. The authors analyze the welfare effects of these quotas using a computable general equilibrium model based on a modified version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model. The authors compare the welfare gains under several scenarios including full tariff liberalization.

The final article in the issue, by Tebogo B. Seleka and Thula S. Dlamini, looks at how the comparative advantage of ACP sugar exporters evolved between 1961 and 2013. To allow for comparisons over time, the authors use normalized revealed comparative advantage. They find that most ACP exporters’ relative rankings fell over this period, as non-ACP exporters such as Australia, Thailand, and Brazil became more competitive. The main exceptions in the ACP were a group of African countries whose relative rankings rose (Tanzania, Eswatini, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). The countries that improved, however, mostly started from positions of comparative disadvantage. The authors also explain how European Union policies changed over this period and describe how this affected the ACP exporters.

As usual, we would like to thank the people without whom the ITJ would not succeed. We would like to thank the authors who contribute their articles, the anonymous referees who give detailed and timely comments, the team at the International Trade Institute at Texas A&M International University who process submissions quickly and efficiently, our Editorial Board who guide the journal, and our publisher, Taylor and Francis, who ensures the ITJ keeps its high standards.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Several recent articles in the ITJ, including Esposti and Listorti (2018), Lee and Valera (2016), Rondinella et al. (2019), and Seleka and Kebakile (2017), have also looked at trade in agricultural goods.

² Nizovtsev and Skiba (2016) also looks at pass-through rates for anti-dumping duties, Choi and Kim (2014), and Bienen, Ciuriak, and Picarello (2014) discuss other aspects of anti-dumping laws.