The Digital Economy And International Trade

Data flows are the backbone of today’s diversified value and supply chains. In this timely book, a prominent specialist in transnational commercial and private law explores a developing and evolving area of law related to the role of the digital economy in international trade, making a direct call for the need to internationalise the law regulating transnational data flows. Examining the commonalities and divergences in data flow regulation among ten key jurisdictions – Australia, Indonesia, India, Canada, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union – the book covers such issues and topics as the following: reconciling data free flow with trust; managing the increase in data vulnerability; efforts to prohibit trade in personal data within an interconnected digital economy; obstacles to data flows and digital economic development; cybersecurity; FinTech and TechFins; cross-border insolvency; dispute resolution; and data-digital diplomacy. The author compares several bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements, addressing the data-related shortcomings of these instruments and providing a pathway forward. In addition, two case studies are presented of high-profile judicial and regulatory decisions demonstrating the challenges of data flows and their governance. The author cogently demonstrates how an international legal mechanism such as a convention, treaty, or model law could provide greater certainty for data, as well as help to foster economic growth and create jobs and business opportunities. Practitioners and policymakers concerned with data security and privacy will greatly appreciate this book’s important and valuable contribution to a crucial area of law that bodes well to enhance the economic and social well-being of all.

Published quarterly since 1964 in English, French and Spanish, the International Trade Forum focuses on trade promotion, export development and import methods, as part of its technical cooperation programme with developing countries and economies in transition.

International trade in the digital economy: hearing before the Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session, November 18, 2010.

This book advances the international debate on the development of e-commerce with focus on emerging ASEAN economies. It provides readers insights on Asia’s needs and efforts to improve the regional legal and economic conditions to support e-commerce. This book looks at the rules and regulations on e-commerce, and e-commerce for inclusiveness growth. It provides insights from several ASEAN member states and discovers the requirements for Asian countries to better grasp the new juncture of growth associated with economic digitalization, which also have deep implications on continuous regional integration and community-building.

The first comprehensive analysis of the applicability of international trade law to digital services at multilateral and regional levels.

This volume presents contributions that analyse the extraordinary impact of digital technology on business, services, and the production of value in many sectors of the economy. At the heart of this book is the fact that the entire digital economy is now worth almost 6% of global GDP, and it continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. The volume covers the general debate on taxation and the digital economy with the chapters by Russo, Makiyama and Boccia, before completing the analysis with discussion of three national case studies covering the U.S. (Pagano), U.K. (Leonardi) and Italy (Boccia and Leonardi). Contributors are leading experts in the fields of taxation and the digital economy and contextualise the key issues surrounding the digitalisation of the economy from an international perspective.

Information technologies (IT) shape economic space, but we have no clear map of the cyber economy since the "digital revolution" began in the early 1970s. The Digital Economy offers an up-to-date, critical synthesis that links the various aspects of the digital or cyber economy from the perspective of real firms. A geographic approach emphasizes how IT has made businesses less dependent on locational constraints, and the tangible effects on places and regions are placed at the core of the analysis. Case studies of companies, including Amazon, Dell, Li & Fung, and Volvo, demonstrate that the geography of digitally-driven production is the outcome of both dispersion and agglomeration dynamics. Global corporations are shown to have footprints that ignore – to some degree – distance and time, yet creative and coordinating activities remain anchored in urban innovative ecosystems such as Silicon Valley and Bangalore. These trends have been made possible by the development of a worldwide and integrated telecommunications network, whose unequal presence dictates the capabilities of places and communities to be connected to the global economy. However, the threat of the digital divide must not be overstated. In cities, rural areas, and emerging countries, local development is wrapped up in human capital, rather than technology. This engaging and accessible text describes and explains the patterns and dynamics of today’s digital economic space. The effects on places and regions and the people in them are at the core of the authors’ analysis, illustrated by many real examples. This book will be useful to anyone studying business and management, geography and information and communication studies.