Latin America’s recent economic performance has been disappointing. After a very strong recovery from the Great Recession, growth has slowed considerably, and prospects for 2015 are dim. Among the seven largest economies in the region, output is expected to contract in Argentina, Brazil, and...

Faced with slowing economic growth, Chinese policymakers now recognize that the service sector of the economy-transportation, communications, finance, and health care-could spur economic activity and employment. The catch is that China must reform these and other areas to accomplish this goal....

Japan is reemerging as the most important source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States. In 2013 Japanese firms were the largest source of new inflows of FDI into the United States for the first time since 1992, injecting almost $45 billion of fresh investment into the US...

After the Obama administration’s four failed attempts to win congressional approval of the 2010 quota and governance reform for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it is time to recognize that implementation of the agreement may be indefinitely delayed. The international community must...

The United States and China are among the world's largest trading nations. They serve as the destination and source of the world's largest flows of foreign direct investment, and they participate in regional economic arrangements on trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts...

Much of the conventional wisdom concerning social spending is faulty, especially in the United States. Analyses typically focus on readily available information about direct government social expenditures and overlook how tax systems and private spending affect the level of social spending in...

Emerging-market growth from 2000 to 2012 was extraordinarily high. Aslund cites several factors to explain why emerging-economy growth is likely to be lower in the future. Having caught up with advanced economies in many respects, these countries face limitations on their future catch-up...

This paper describes seven salient features of trade integration in the 21st century: Trade integration has been more rapid than ever (hyperglobalization); it is dematerialized, with the growing importance of services trade; it is democratic, because openness has been embraced widely; it is...

While exports of clothing from Africa to the United States responded impressively to the preferences they were granted under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), this performance was not accompanied by some of the more dynamic benefi ts that might have been hoped for. Benefi ciary...

The current debate on the European crisis has highlighted the role of fiscal imbalances in explaining the turmoil that has dominated Europe in the past few years. This paper adopts a different point of view by suggesting that intra-European payments imbalances are crucial for the survival of the...