Suchergebnisse

Mechanisms on regulatory coherence or good regulatory practices have emerged as one of the unique features of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the age of mega-regionalism. Led by the United States, for instance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership ('TPP'), now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership ('CPTPP') introduces a standalone chapter that focuses on the domestic rule-making process. Such design is unique for it goes beyond traditional output-oriented proxies by including a set of input-oriented elements that apply to the rulemaking process of each party, before a regulatory action is taken. These elements, like transparency, public consultation, regulatory impact assessment, inter-agency coordination and review, are in large part modelled on the American Administrative Procedure Act ('APA') and several executive orders with a view to 'rationalising' the administrative lawmaking process and to responding to the concerns about a regulatory state. For years, the US has been exporting this APA-style regulatory philosophy elsewhere: from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development ('OECD') and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ('APEC') to trade negotiations to which it is a party, including the above-mentioned TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ('TTIP'). Notwithstanding these efforts, however, there are hurdles for regulatory coherence to be further diffused as a new global norm since it goes beyond trade to involve complicated economic, social and political endowments of different trading partners. The role of another two major players, namely China and the European Union, is hence of particular significance in this context. This article seeks to sketch out the contour of the emerging regulatory coherence by mapping the trajectory of its historical development and offering a comprehensive survey of how China, European Union, and the United States have managed it across different contexts.

The last two decades have witnessed various governance initiatives across institutions, domestic and international, in response to mushrooming regulatory trade barriers. Among the efforts to balance regulatory autonomy and international cooperation, "regulatory coherence" or "good regulatory practices" seems a promising solution that centers upon bottom-up domestic regulatory rationalization. While existing literature has documented how recent mega-regional trade blocs seek to harness regulatory barriers through mechanisms of international cooperation, it has arguably overlooked certain crucial issues. In particular, how has regulatory coherence emerged as a new global norm vis-à-vis the default international economic and legal order? What are the limits to the global normative diffusion of regulatory coherence when considering the diverse contexts and agendas of emerging economies, most notably China? This article aims to contribute the existing scholarship by making two major claims. First, built upon a historical approach, this paper traces the trajectory of the development of regulatory coherence. With the United States being the primary driving force, the concept of regulatory coherence mirrors the key elements of Administrative Procedure Act and has diffused across various jurisdictions through multiple venues, like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Yet, despite its penetration, the entrenchment of regulatory coherence as a new global norm is conditioned upon complex political economy issues, particularly the role of China. By exploring the evolution of legal and political underpinnings for the past decades, this article contends that China has taken what we describe an "experimental approach" by prudently addressing regulatory coherence at both domestic and international levels, largely due to the democratic implications of regulatory reforms. Such an approach may in the end define the boundary of regulatory coherence as an emerging global ...

Green and low-carbon development has become a compelling trend of our time. To formulate policies for development and also reduction of carbon emissions, quantifying the trend of tourism in green sustainable development is an essential issue for China, which is undergoing an economic transformation. This study first measured China's domestic tourism carbon emissions through a bottom-up approach and then used the robust Granger causality test on annual data from 1993 to 2019 to investigate the relationships among China's domestic tourism revenue, carbon emissions, and economic growth. The empirical results show that: (1) Carbon emissions of the domestic tourism industry are growing steadily, and the carbon emissions of the transportation industry determine the trend of the total carbon emissions of the domestic tourism industry, (2) long-term equilibrium relationships exist among China's domestic tourism, carbon emissions, and economic growth, and (3) bidirectional causal relationships among economic growth, carbon emissions, and domestic tourism revenue have been detected with the robust Granger causality test, and the time-varying causal relationships may change markedly in these times of significant events and policy changes. Therefore, policymakers should coordinate the relationships among domestic tourism revenue, carbon emissions, and economic growth, in an effort to promote the development of sustainable tourism in China.

PurposeThis study aims to examine whether and when real-time updated online search engine data such as the daily Baidu Index can be useful for improving the accuracy of tourism demand nowcasting once monthly official statistical data, including historical visitor arrival data and macroeconomic variables, become available.Design/methodology/approachThis study is the first attempt to use the LASSO-MIDAS model proposed by Marsilli (2014) to field of the tourism demand forecasting to deal with the inconsistency in the frequency of data and the curse problem caused by the high dimensionality of search engine data.FindingsThe empirical results in the context of visitor arrivals in Hong Kong show that the application of a combination of daily Baidu Index data and monthly official statistical data produces more accurate nowcasting results when MIDAS-type models are used. The effectiveness of the LASSO-MIDAS model for tourism demand nowcasting indicates that such penalty-based MIDAS model is a useful option when using high-dimensional mixed-frequency data.Originality/valueThis study represents the first attempt to progressively compare whether there are any differences between using daily search engine data, monthly official statistical data and a combination of the aforementioned two types of data with different frequencies to nowcast tourism demand. This study also contributes to the tourism forecasting literature by presenting the first attempt to evaluate the applicability and effectiveness of the LASSO-MIDAS model in tourism demand nowcasting.

Emerging as a comprehensive and aggressive governance scheme in China, the "Social Credit System" (SCS) seeks to promote the norms of "trust" in the Chinese society by rewarding behavior that is considered "trust-keeping" and punishing those considered "trust-breaking." This Article closely examines the evolving SCS regime and corrects myths and misunderstandings popularized in the international media. We identify four key mechanisms of the SCS, i.e., information gathering, information sharing, labeling, and joint sanctions, and highlight their unique characteristics as well as normative implications. In our view, the new governance mode underlying the SCS—what we call the "rule of trust"—relies on the fuzzy notion of "trust" and wide-ranging arbitrary and disproportionate punishments. It derogates from the notion of "governing the country in accordance with the law" enshrined in China's Constitution. This Article contributes to legal scholarship by offering a distinctive critique of the perils of China's SCS in terms of the party-state's tightening social control and human rights violations. Further, we critically assess how the Chinese government uses information and communication technologies to facilitate data-gathering and data-sharing in the SCS with few meaningful legal constraints. The unbounded and uncertain notion of "trust" and the unrestrained employment of technology are a dangerous combination in the context of governance. We conclude with a caution that with considerable sophistication, the Chinese government is preparing a much more sweeping version of SCS reinforced by artificial intelligence tools such as facial-recognition and predictive policing. Those developments will further empower the government to enhance surveillance and perpetuate authoritarianism.