This paper examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade flows in the U.K. over the period 1990–2000. According to the conventional approach, exchange rate volatility clamps down trade volumes. This paper, however, identifies the existence of a positive relationship between exchange rate volatility and imports in the U.K. in the 1990s by using a bivariate GARCH-in-mean model. It highlights a possible emergence of a polarized version with conventional proposition that ERV works as an impediment factor on trade flows.

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This paper explores what kind of regional trade agreement is most likely to emerge in Northeast Asia by tracing the trajectories of APEC. Taking into account the underlying potential of realizing cumulative causation effects between market expansion and technology cooperation among China, Japan and Korea, it reaches the tentative conclusion that a Northeast Asia Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) might take shape in the near future despite the prevalence of polarized versions in the cultural heritage and the international relations between these three countries.

This paper explores the recent developments for regional trade agreements (RTAs) in North East Asia since China's accession to the WTO in 2001. After having successfully achieved high growth rates since it became a WTO member, China's stance towards RTAs has become more positive. In particular, an RTA in North East Asia will be facilitated if China, Japan and Korea fully acknowledge the positive spillover effect from launching such an RTA. This paper further argues that all three nations have to endeavor to resolve the prolonged confrontation in their collective defense systems if they want to expedite any real progress towards a federal RTA in North East Asia.

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