Durham & Thunmann
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Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law
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Cover of Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law, volume 2, issue 1
Archive issue

Volume 2 · Issue 1 · 2024

A published issue in the JGTEL archive. Article-level records are being consolidated into the new platform.

Published
02 September 2024
Articles
2
Access
Open access
Table of contents

Research articles

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  1. 01

    Research Article · Pages 1–28

    Technological Conditions and the Rise and Fall of the Rules-Based System

    Dan Ciuriak

    This paper considers the role played by the evolution of technological conditions in the rise and fall of the rules-based system. I argue that the rules-based system was in fact endogenous to the economic and technological conditions under which it came to be: when industries are competitive, companies are covering their cost of capital, workers are being paid their marginal product, everyone is making a living, no-one is getting obscenely rich, and participation in trade is a win-win proposition. This is approximately the pre-1980s world of limited economic rents, a constant labour share of national incomes and constant returns to scale, as described by the Kaldor facts. The subsequent rise of economic rents induced strategic behaviour which is incompatible with a rules-based allocation of production. Accordingly, the economic doctrines and governance systems developed for the lowrent and low-uncertainty world of the mature industrial economy are not appropriate for today’s rent-rich and highly uncertain world of strategic behaviour and need to be fundamentally reviewed on a first principles basis.

  2. 02

    Research Article · Pages 29–46

    Bitcoin Trading in Australian and Canadian Dollars, the Pound and Euro: Pre- and Post-COVID-19

    Jackie Johnson

    Much of the research relating to the impact on Bitcoin, of the COVID-19 pandemic focuses on the United States (US) market using Bitcoin prices in US dollars, but this is a market not open to a large proportion of the world’s population who must trade Bitcoin in their local currency. The aim here is to compare Bitcoin trading behaviour pre- and post-COVID-19 in four currencies, the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the UK pound and the European euro, to see if there is any consistency across currencies. The Bitcoin price may be universal but Bitcoin trading in local currencies can reflect local conditions. What becomes obvious is that when comparing across currencies, there is no consistent pattern. No two currencies are the same. The pre-COVID-19 period dominates in the Australian dollar market. The UK pound is similar except for transactions per day which is higher postCOVID-19. In the Canadian dollar and euro markets neither period dominates with each currency finding ‘not significantly different’ for a number of metrics. Surprisingly, there is not even any consensus with regard to the Bitcoin price which decreases in the Australian dollar and the UK pound markets in the post-COVID-19 period while this period sees an increase in the Bitcoin price in the Canadian dollar and euro markets. Consequently, observing Bitcoin trading behaviour in one currency does not indicate patterns of trade in another currency. This is particularly evident when comparing Bitcoin trading across countries with very different economic conditions, during a period of worldwide economic uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a toll on local economies.