Category Archives: trade

When Shipping Costs Plunge

The Baltic Dry Index, which measures international shipping costs, was fixed today at 2,503, down 9% on the day and down 79% from its May high of 11,793. It’s a volatile index, and these levels are hardly unprecedented: the index … Continue reading

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Anti-Protectionist One-Liner of the Day

Joe Wiesethal, on the news that the NYSE is taking a 25% stake in the Doha stock exchange: With any luck, the Qatar government won’t bring up national security issues at the prospect of a foreign purchaser making such a … Continue reading

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The Economics and Politics of Trade

Thanks to Dani Rodrik, we know the NYT fact-checked Roger Lowenstein’s article on free trade. Which is weird, because he’s 3,000 miles off when he says that "negotiators in Doha, Qatar, have been trying for years to draft a new … Continue reading

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US Sugar: No Victim of Nafta

Mary Williams Walsh, in the NYT, has a good investigation of US Sugar, and the way that its managers seem to be enriching themselves at the expense of their employee-shareholders. It is unfortunate, however, that one sentence, buried in her … Continue reading

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Import-Export Datapoint of the Day

Justin Fox: Starting early this year, though, things changed. Loaded outbound containers outnumbered empties in February, March, and April, the first such three-month run, Wong says, since the spring of 2000. The totals so far in 2008 are 1,033,655 loaded … Continue reading

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