Digital trade has been driven by the technological revolution and the universalisation of the Internet, redefining both consumption and the structure of international trade. Despite its potential benefits, the digital transformation has brought with it increasing regulatory complexity, which is implemented heterogeneously by states. A crucial aspect in this context is copyright protection, which is fundamental to stimulating creativity and innovation. This study analyses the provisions on the protection of copyright in the digital environment that the members of the Pacific Alliance (PA) have implemented in their preferential trade agreements with other states and examines the similarity between them. The study places special emphasis on how this similarity could influence the trade flow of digital services and the potential regulatory harmonisation among PA members. It is expected that the results will contribute to a better understanding of copyright regulation in the digital world and will serve as a basis for the formulation of more cohesive and effective policies for the benefit of the PA.

Recuento de la actividad global en lo que se refiere a la conducción de investigaciones sobre medidas de salvaguardia y la imposición o prórroga de éstas durante el año 2022, a la luz de las notificaciones hechas por los miembros de la OMC en dicho año.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las dinámicas de funcionamiento de la Organización Mundial del Comercio en la segunda década del siglo XXI, como mecanismo de cooperación institucionalizada de carácter multilateral. Si bien la literatura académica ha enfatizado la ‘crisis’ y los déficits de esta Organización, en este trabajo argumentamos a favor de una perspectiva que reconozca una evaluación completa de los procesos que tienen lugar en esta área de las Relaciones Internacionales. Así proponemos conceptualizar el funcionamiento de la OMC desde la óptica del multilateralismo, identificando un triple proceso en el que hay elementos de debilitamiento, pero también disputas de poder y pragmatismo. El trabajo presenta evidencia para sustentar cómo estas tres características del multilateralismo del régimen de comercio internacional, en un movimiento de deconstrucción y reconstrucción, afectan las funciones principales de la OMC: la legislativa, la administrativa y la de resolución de disputas. Los hallazgos reafirman la relevancia de un enfoque no binario del multilateralismo que vaya más allá de la noción de crisis/no crisis; y avance en el reconocimiento de una conceptualización más compleja del multilateralismo como expresión del orden internacional. Además, los resultados alientan la agenda de investigaciones específicas sobre las dinámicas de participación e influencia de los actores con menor poder relativo, que se hacen visibles en esta narrativa ampliada del funcionamiento de la OMC.

Following a definition of development that brings back the role of productive capabilities and endorses structural change, this paper examines two key elements and their trends: industrialization and trade patterns. Through the analysis of economic factors covering the period 1980-2019, this paper aims to offer insights into the elements that have led to divergent development outcomes in China and Latin America, paying particular attention to the cases of Chile and Mexico. Indicators including yearly GDP growth, the share of the world GDP, and per-capita GDP will be used to show that China has outpaced Latin America in terms of growth. Moreover, it will also be demonstrated that while Latin America is experiencing a deindustrialization trend, evidenced by a decline in the manufacturing sector and low levels of high-technology exports, China has experienced rapid industrialization. Moreover, China's exports serve as an illustration of a country that transitioned from producing and exporting low-value manufactured items to more complex goods with higher added value, while Chile has not been able to leave behind its reliance on natural resources. In the case of Mexico, although its exports are not concentrated in primary commodities, they are built on a maquiladora model that relegates it to the bottom of industrial value chains.

This study aims to assess Belt and Road Initiative impact on bilateral trade between China and the partner countries. Thus, a Panel EGLS gravity model on data of 123 countries from 2012 to 2019 has been elaborated including standard gravity model variables as geographical and socio-cultural distance, local income. This model has been enhanced by introducing a dummy variable representing the membership of the partner country in the BRI and/or in WTO. Results show that standard gravity variables have their usual effects, a negative impact of distance while local incomes and sharing a common language have a positive effect. WTO membership has a positive impact too on bilateral trade between the considered countries. BRI also has a positive impact on bilateral trade between China and partner countries, hence its benefits for both. This positive impact is higher in BRI main road’s regions, Middle East, Europe, South and East Asia, while it lower in other regions as Latin America and North Africa.

El objetivo general de este estudio es responder a la siguiente interrogante: ¿Qué relación existe entre la cantidad de acuerdos comerciales suscritos por Chile y la diversificación/concentración exportadora resultante? Y, ¿es esta relación significativa? Para ello se analiza la relación entre cuatro indicadores de diversificación de exportaciones (índices de Gini, Hirschman-Herfindahl, Theil y cantidad de productos exportados) y los acuerdos comerciales, controlando por el precio internacional del cobre, el tipo de cambio real de Chile y los años de escolaridad -este último como proxy de capital humano-, mediante un análisis de regresión multivariado por el método de Mínimos Cuadrados Ordinarios (OLS por su sigla en inglés). La hipótesis que guía este trabajo es que los acuerdos comerciales, en sentido general, tendieron en forma significativa a diversificar exportaciones, incluso al controlar por el efecto concentrador del precio internacional del cobre. Sin embargo, y como se ha observado a lo largo de los últimos treinta años, dicho efecto no ha sido suficiente para producir un cambio estructural sobre la canasta exportadora de Chile.

In the recent years, there has been an upsurge in the number of FTAs that are mainstreaming gender equality concerns in their trade agreements. But is gender mainstreaming enough, and does it mean that countries that “mainstream” gender equality concerns in their trade agreements also “adopt” actions to address these concerns? What is gender mainstreaming in trade policy context? How can trade agreements help in fostering women empowerment? What kinds of relevant provisions have already been included in existing trade agreements, and what remains undone? This article seeks to respond to these questions

The main goal of this paper is to situate current trade policy debates in a proper historical context by analyzing the main trade policy milestones of the 21st-century. It does not attempt to offer an extensive historical overview of trade policy, which has been done masterfully by other scholars, but to analyze the events that have led to a stagnation of the multilateral trade system and rising protectionism. This paper begins with the winding road of trade liberalization since World War II, briefly tracing how we arrived from the early stages of the Bretton Wood System to the current moment of stagnation of the multilateral system and rising protectionism. It then turns to four key events to understand the current new reality: China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 to 2009, the trade war between the United States and China, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in trade policy dynamics. It concludes with some final comments on the relevance of understanding current trade debates from a historical perspective.

This paper studies the determinants of the real exchange rate using macroeconomic variables, and whether they can predict it. A panel data is used, which estimator is system GMM that allows controlling the endogeneity of the variables. In turn, we transformed the variables with forward orthogonal deviations (FOD) and first difference (FD), which allows us to eliminate unobserved effects that are invariant in time. To check the robustness of the estimates, different periods were used, from 1980-2019, 2000-2019 and 2010-2019. For the period 1980-2019, it is found that the past values of the real exchange rate, the current values of inflation, economic growth, fiscal and monetary policy have positive effects on the current values of the real exchange rate, while the money supply and the terms of trade have negative impacts on the real exchange rate. For the period 2000-2019, we had similar results and for the period 2010-2019, we found that economic growth has negative impacts on the real exchange rate. It is also presented the Arellano-Bond test and the Sargan test to estimate model over-identification. Using the Pedroni test, we estimated the cointegration of the variables with respect to the real exchange rate, finding cointegration with inflation in the long run. The originality of this paper is that we focused on Latin American countries, analyzing short-term relationships with the System GMM estimator and long-term relationships with the Pedroni Test.