Merge pull request #3 from Nebhey/master

Modified previous summaries, add the new one, the excel file 1st book and the conclusion

Book conclusion, policy and trade politics.Rmd

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+---
+title: "Conclusion on Politics and Trade Policy"
+author: "Benjamin Heyries"
+date: "Wednesday, January 28, 2015"
+output: word_document
+---
+
+From the more detailed document, several conclusion can be drawn. First the TAA program constitutes a good example of the formation of the US trade policy. Indeed, it is seen as relevant by both the Administration and the Congress as having a real impact on the major issues, like the Depression,the War, the Cold War and the constitution of the "free-world" block, that appears during the studied period (1934-1958). Second, as it is a bipartisan program involving both executive and legislative branch of the political system, it reveals institutional organization that gravitate around the bill. As such, it represents the different tendencies present at that time. Finally, as the Trade Agreement Act (TAA) has to be extended at most every three years, the process of amendment and report of the program displays through time the actors and the arguments of the debate, providing a good picture of the opinions at that age.
+
+##TAA frictions: 1934-1958 through the trade lens
+
+* The domestic issue: it is historically the first that appears, as the bill is presented by the Roosevelt organization in order help recovery from the Great Depression. In opposition to this position, the protectionist movement insists in the danger that represent the TAA for local producer. This is where local private interest are defended: agriculture (multiple amendments), fur, oil (several times), Swiss watches, mining, fishing, wool and textile. The private interest amendment are usually provided by Representatives and Senators who are in direct contact with the concerned parties (South, especially for Democrats).
+
+* The trade issue: the bill faces a specific opposition regarding the changes in the trade organization during the period. First, the TAA suffers from the expression of residual protectionist policies. The Smoot-Hawley agreement haunts the Congress until the late 1940s and the opposition to the status of most favored nation find a new application with the beginning of Cold War. Moreover, the birth of the GATT and the project of global organization challenges the content of the TAA. At multiple time, the TAA is linked to the GATT and the adoption a global organization charter (the ITO or the OTC). 
+
+* Finally, the TAA is also a symbolic measure that deals with the establishment of a new world order. The TAA is first an emergency measure to counter the protectionist order, to preserve peace, then to win the war, to face the American responsibility of leading the economic world and finally to federate the liberal order to fight the Communist bloc. Several time, the argument was raised in order to preserve the bill that the US as the new leader have to send consistent messages to its allies and to the world. 
+
+##The TAA: an institutional ballet
+
+The TAA is also at the center of a complicated political game. Indeed, as it gives to the President more independence, it is fought by Congress by principle. As a consequence, when the Administration, usually in favor of the bill, suggest an extension, the Congress mobilize all its resources, through the House Way and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, to reduce the application of it. On the contrary, the Administration brightly defends its prerogatives through the preservation of the Trade Agreement Committee in its role at the Tariffs Commission. Finally, the TAA enters in contradiction with some precedent legislation like the AAA, in the Section 22 which enables the President to arbitrarily raise the tariffs on agricultural product.
+
+Besides the domestic fight around the TAA, the bill is compared and contrasted with the new international institution. As said before, the GATT and its several draft of prolongation cast a shadow on the adoption of the bill, and it has to be finally formally separated from it in 1951. The GATT is seen by the Republican as tightly linked to the TAA and the ITO charter. For example, in 1949, the senator Miliken (major actor in the Republican trade policy) makes a speech where he tries to demonstrate the link between the two. Therefore, the Adminsitration has to assure Congress that the GATT, the ITO charter and the TAA are three completely different stakes. 
+
+##Trade and ideology: the batlle for the TAA
+
+Through the hearings, the debates, the amendments and the final vote, the TAA and its several extension represents fairly the different tendencies that were present in the Administration and in Congress during the pediod.
+
+* During the first period, the "opportunists" dominate in both the Administration and in Congress. They succeeded to push the bill because of emergency situation, invoking recovery, peace and war. They are supported by the Free-traders from the Democrats like Cordell Hull, F. Sayre, H. Wallace, later on Clayton, Marshall and Acheson, and finally W. Thorpe, W. Brown and Senator Gore. The opportunist are particularly present in the Administration, Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower representing the most striking examples. Opportunist builds free trade for exports and resolution of economic problems (the surplus of agricultural products during the 1930s, the excess of capital after the war, the dollar gap in the 1950s...).
+
+* Against group, there are the harsh protectionist. They would like to get back to the Smoot-Hawley legislation. They are usually in the Republican ranks and are very strong in Congress, as they sometimes occupy important functions: Gearhart, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Tariffs and Foreign Trade leader of the challenge in 1948, Reed chairman of the House of Ways and Means Committee. These key people are completed by tenors like Simpson or Jenkins. They are supported by private interests, like Southern States Congressmen who are very tough on particular issues like oil, textile or agriculture. Finally the leaders of the Republican force in Congress in the persons of Miliken, at the head of the Senate Finance Committee and Vandenberg in the Senate, use these radical tendencies to moderate the ambitions of the first group.
+
+At the end of the period, it seems like the forces at stake just balanced. Neither the free-traders nor the protectionist had a serious advantage and the disappearance of the security question as in support for free trade does not enable furthermore liberalization. The question is how the change in the question of security, as Cold War changes from the harsh period to the Detente, will change the tariff distribution. 

Summary of the 01.14.15 session.md

@@ -9,27 +9,25 @@ This session is the first session of the independant. It was a good time to sum
 ##**Question regarding the previous work**
 
 1. About the book, _Politics and trade policy_ by Joe R. Wilkinson:
-* there is not much about the trade agreements themselves but rather on how they are negotiated. The trade agreement act is about giving more power to the president to negotiate reciprocal agreements. I should look closer to the arguments in favor and against this new power.
-* the technical aspect are not that important: what amount of tariffs is bilaterally removed does not really matter but rather how and why does the agreement can be accepted.
-* the structure of the American politics does not allow to directly observe all the steps of the formation of the trade agreement: only one trade agreement was rejected by Congress because all the agreements that were put to vote were acceptable at the time of the voting. THe formation of the agreement is shaped the expected lobbying by the concerned industries and the expected comportment of the COngress. Therefore, in order to define a pattern, we need to find more than only voting results.In order to do that, it may be important to see the formation of the agenda.
-
+  * there is not much about the trade agreements themselves but rather on how they are negotiated. The trade agreement act is about giving more power to the president to negotiate reciprocal agreements. I should look closer to the arguments in favor and against this new power.
+  * the technical aspect are not that important: what amount of tariffs is bilaterally removed does not really matter but rather how and why does the agreement can be accepted.
+  * the structure of the American politics does not allow to directly observe all the steps of the formation of the trade agreement: only one trade agreement was rejected by Congress because all the agreements that were put to vote were acceptable at the time of the voting. THe formation of the agreement is shaped the expected lobbying by the concerned industries and the expected comportment of the COngress. Therefore, in order to define a pattern, we need to find more than only voting results.In order to do that, it may be important to see the formation of the agenda.
 2. About the acquired skills
-
-* R is useful but I need to get more into Git and Github in order to share. A repository will be in place in order to share documents.
-* Markdown is to be improved as it would be the dominant format of the shared documents.
+  * R is useful but I need to get more into Git and Github in order to share. A repository will be in place in order to share documents.
+  * Markdown is to be improved as it would be the dominant format of the shared documents.
 
 ##**Next objectives**
 
 1. Familiarized myself with new resources and tools
-* Markdown
-* Strengthen Git and GitHub use
-* Get familiar with the WTO scanned documents about the GATT rounds in order toi find a pattern on tariffs negotiation
-* start reading a new book on trade _Traders and diplomats_ by Ernest H. Preeg
+  * Markdown
+  * Strengthen Git and GitHub use
+  * Get familiar with the WTO scanned documents about the GATT rounds in order toi find a pattern on tariffs negotiation
+  * start reading a new book on trade _Traders and diplomats_ by Ernest H. Preeg
 
 2. Start making summary of the accomplished work
-* first session summary
-* type _politics and trade policy_ under on text and markdown
+  * first session summary
+  * type _politics and trade policy_ under on text and markdown
 
 3. Start looking for the long run objectives
-* who determines the agenda during the GATT rounds?
-* Is there any particular exploitable industry that would stand out and be only concerned by changes on tariffs during those rounds?
+  * who determines the agenda during the GATT rounds?
+  * Is there any particular exploitable industry that would stand out and be only concerned by changes on tariffs during those rounds?

Summary of the 01.21.15 session.md

@@ -8,23 +8,17 @@ output: word_document
 ##Content of the session
 
 1. The organization of the work
-
-Three issue has to be settled. 
-
-* First, the interaction process has to be defined.Three possibilities can be evaluated: pull request, use of Wikis and the Issue function.The choice regarding of the different options will depend of the use of GitHub and my state of learning.
-* I should read _The GATT Legal System and World Trade Diplomacy by Robert E. Hudec_ on the history of the WTO.
-* The objective has to be clarified. Once the work of the WTO repertory is done, it is important to find the detail agenda of the tariff modification, the cause of settling this agenda and finally the result of it, which is the nature of gradualism.
-
+Three issues has been settled
+  * First, the interaction process has to be defined.Three possibilities can be evaluated: pull request, use of Wikis and the Issue function.The choice regarding of the different options will depend of the use of GitHub and my state of learning.
+  * I should read _The GATT Legal System and World Trade Diplomacy by Robert E. Hudec_ on the history of the WTO.
+  * The objective has to be clarified. Once the work of the WTO repertory is done, it is important to find the detail agenda of the tariff modification, the cause of settling this agenda and finally the result of it, which is the nature of gradualism.
 2. GitHub issue: it is necessary that I keep learning about using Git and GitHub in order to have a nice and professional work.
 
 ##Plan and summary
 
 1. Summary of the work done
-
-* Work on data: file _Politics and Trade policy_; reading of the first chapters of _Traders and Diplomats_; I still have to look to the raw data.
-* learning skills: followed git tutorials on code school "Try Git" and "Git real 1";
-
+  * Work on data: file _Politics and Trade policy_; reading of the first chapters of _Traders and Diplomats_; I still have to look to the raw data.
+  * learning skills: followed git tutorials on code school "Try Git" and "Git real 1";
 2. Plan for the next week
-
-* work on data: finish filing under the recommendation of Professor Buzard. Get through the second book. Start looking at the raw data. 
-* learning skills: finish "git real 1", start "git real 2" and maybe advance on "master GitHub"
+  * work on data: finish filing under the recommendation of Professor Buzard. Get through the second book. Start looking at the raw data. 
+  * learning skills: finish "git real 1", start "git real 2" and maybe advance on "master GitHub"

Summary of the 01.28.15 session.md

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+---
+title: "Summary of the 01.28.15 session"
+author: "Benjamin Heyries"
+date: "Wednesday, January 28, 2015"
+output: word_document
+---
+
+##Work done this week
+  * Finish Git Real and Git Git Real 2
+  * Finish the summary of _Trade and politics_ with the conclusion file
+  * Modification of the Summaries in order to find a standard format
+  * Research at the WTO database on the following key words: "agenda" and "tariffs"
+
+##content of the meeting
+  * the organization of the repository on Github: it is necessary push the excel document even if it cannot really be modified.
+  * new document to be foreseen: the list of industries that were protected in order to see their history and their potential part in the gradualism history. 
+  * this new document will be crossed with the final commitment of the United States at the different GATT round in order to see the change in tariffs through time. 
+  * some phenomena are to be evaluated in the gradualism story: logrolling, export VS import fight, anti-dumping process.
+  * third book given _The GATT legal system and World Trade Diplomacy_ by Robert Hudec
+
+##work for the weeek
+  * correct the format once again
+  * provide the first issue of the previous documents
+  * go to the logrolling conference on Friday 30 of January
+  * start reading the second book, _Traders and diplomats_ and the third book _The GATT legal system and World Trade Diplomacy_ by Robert Hudec
+  * finish the Git path on Code School with GitHub Master