DAY 2 - The 18th Annual Conference of the Arab Society for Economic Research

History offers ample instances in which the veneer of fairness in international relations has worn away, revealing with unsentimental clarity the crude mechanics of power. The contemporary global trade architecture, promoted for decades by the United States as a virtuous system of open markets, a rules-based order, and reciprocal gains, is merely the latest in a long lineage of such illusions. ...

The multilateral, rule-based trading system underpinned by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been undermined by the unilateral imposition of U.S. tariffs. Crucially, the foundational principle of non-discrimination among WTO members has been abandoned. While many countries have attempted to negotiate with the U.S. to resolve tariff disputes, they have simultaneously sought to deepen trade ties with each other through plurilateral and regi ...

The international monetary system has been dominated by the U.S. dollar since the Second World War. The hegemony of the greenback cut across the end of the dollar exchange standard established by the Bretton Woods Agreement, and came out from the global financial crisis—and the euro crisis—even stronger than before. The euro area and China are taking steps to strengthen the international role of their currencies, but surmounting the inner strength of the dollar-based monetary system ...

China's ascent to the position of the world's most prominent energy consumer has altered global energy markets and fundamentally reshaped the geopolitics of energy security. As China navigates the complexities of sustaining its economic momentum, ensuring access to reliable, affordable, and diversified energy sources has become an existential imperative, intricately woven into its foreign policy strategy. In parallel, Africa's immense wealth of both conventional and renewable resour ...

This Paper was originally published on springer.comBrazil went from a quite impressive economic performance during much of the twentieth century to a period of mediocre growth from 1980 onwards. This shift has positioned the country as a textbook case of the “middle-income trap”. This paper aims to demonstrate how certain transformations in the international economy since the 1980s—notably the globalization of firms and industries—combined with a set of domestic challenges, disrupte ...

An Executive Order issued on July 30 by President Donald Trump hiked United States tariffs on imports from Brazil by 40%, in addition to the 10% established on April 2—the so-called ‘Liberation Day’ when Trump set out ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on countries around the world.The decree came with a long list of exemptions for Brazilian exports. For a number of product lines, the 10% April 2 tariff will continue to apply. These include air transport equipment, orange juice, furniture, fuel, ...