Unit 14 - Problems & Exercises

This unit includes four discussion cases.   We shall ask student groups to prepare and present the Sikancil and SC Economic Development problems (which all students should read and think about anyway), and individually you should to be prepared to talk about in class the Indian Shrimp Industry and Kodak Pharmaceuticals problems (which are more about process and subsidies in the name of self reliance), namely:

a. Sikancil Imports

b. Indian Shrimp Industry (remember that bumper sticker about don’t do drugs, don’t eat imported, farmed shrimp?)

c. SC Economic Development Problem

d. Kodak Pharmaceuticals Loan Problem

Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are complex areas that may seem abstract, but lie at the current heart of the differences between the US and China (because countervailing duties touch on subsidies, while anti-dumping raises problems in dealing with non-market economies).  So the best way to deal with this in class may be to start discussions looking at the Sikancil and SC Economic Development problems, so you see how the issues arise in concrete terms beyond China.  Safeguards are fairly easy to understand in theory, although in practice more often than not they are employed simply to establish import quotas for as long as possible to protect any domestic industry under longer-term threat.  Chamber of Commerce-types often regard what they would term “trade remedies” generically as something like a magic elixir, rightly or wrongly.