Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 71 - May 2020): Trade

This book examines whether India is successfully integrating and adapting to the global strategic management system. It offers essential insights into the evolution of export controls for goods, which may have implications for the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction - an aspect that is especially relevant given India's robust biotechnological, chemical and nuclear industrial base. In security studies, the phrase "strategic trade management" is now slowly replacing the phrase "export control". However, for the policymaking community, export control remains popular, at least for the sake of reference. The book also describes the mechanisms India is adopting in this regard. It demonstrates the shift in the Indian approach to strategic trade management, from an outspoken critic to a supporter. Politically, the country was initially skeptical of the idea of export controls because it was a target of such systems. The book also explains the tools, forces and incentives that moved India to adapt its policy on export controls or strategic trade management.

This book assesses the changes that the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) could produce by boosting the competitiveness of firms in India and Korea. It evaluates the CEPA in terms of its effects on the environment and natural resources of the importing and exporting countries alike. Further, it employs the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and relative trade advantage (RTA) methods of analysis to gauge the influence of the CEPA on industrial competitiveness in both host and receiving countries. While the CEPA would increase trade between India and Korea in their respective strong domains, the book argues that, given the nature of the exported and imported goods and products, India would be more susceptible to serious environmental impacts than would Korea. The book subsequently presents these impacts in a qualitative framework and stresses the need for a comprehensive valuation of not only environmental impacts, but also the losses due to tariff cuts and the gains due to increased trade between the two countries.