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- ExplainerTrade & Investment
Why agricultural export values move when the harvest does not
An export figure is a price multiplied by a quantity, reported as a single number. Reading it as a measure of how much food left the country confuses the two, and this explains what it takes to tell them apart.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
What a bilateral tax treaty changes for an investor
A tax treaty is not a tax cut. By the end of this you will know which government gives up what, why the permanent establishment article decides more than the rate articles do, and which taxes a treaty never reaches.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
How the trade deficit is computed
Several different subtractions are all called the trade deficit. By the end of this you will know which is which, what the matching entry on the other side of the ledger is, and why a balance is not a profit and loss statement.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
What counts as foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment is a category of financing, not a category of building. By the end of this you will know what the statistic records, why an announced project is not a flow, and why the money's origin is invisible in the activity it pays for.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
What an export credit agency does for a sale abroad
An export credit agency is a public body that takes on the risk a commercial bank will not, so that a domestic exporter can sell to a foreign buyer on credit. By the end you should be able to follow the transaction and see where the public exposure actually sits.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
What a tariff schedule actually is
A tariff is not a rate applied to an industry. It is a rate attached to a line in a legal taxonomy of goods. By the end of this you will know how a good gets its line, and why a duty on a component often never touches the component.