This paper takes a careful look at a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) Working Paper that claims to find significant gains for liberalization of trade through the World Trade Organization. It is not clear that the reported gains are at all large. The IMF paper shows that multilateral...

This week the Greek government reached agreement with the European authorities and the IMF for 130 billion euros in lending, as part of a new adjustment package to replace the current IMF program that began in May of 2010. Although the agreement should allow the government to avoid default in...

Debates over economic policy tend to be enormously confused. It is often the case that even high-level officials and well-known economists seem ignorant of basic accounting identities. This leads them to make claims that literally do not add up. This seems to be especially common in the case of...

The Argentine economy has grown 94 percent for the years 2002-2011, using International Monetary Fund projections for the end of this year. This is the fastest growth in the Western Hemisphere for this period, and among the highest growth rates in the world. It also compares favorably to...

This paper examines some of the economic issues that could be relevant to Mexico’s July 1st presidential election. These include the short-term impact of the 2008-2009 recession and recovery; the longer-term record of Mexico’s economy since the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) party took power...

Outside observers could be forgiven for expecting Ecuador to suffer terribly during and after the recent global crisis. Two of the country’s largest sources of foreign earnings, petroleum exports and remittances from abroad, crashed during the global recession. Furthermore, lacking its own...

This paper looks at Ecuador’s financial and regulatory reforms during the past five years, perhaps the most comprehensive of any country in the 21st century: taking control over the central bank, regulating capital outflows, taxing the financial sector, encouraging domestic investment and...

There is widespread concern that the United States and the rest of the world are descending into a round of protectionism and a trade war reminiscent of what the world experienced in the Great Depression. Such concerns are both overblown and misplaced. In the short term, the main concern in the...

The huge gap between the cost of health care in the United States and the cost in other countries with comparable health care outcomes suggests the potential for substantial gains from trade. This paper describes one mechanism for taking advantage of these gains – through a globalization of...

This paper proposes that international donors seeking to support Haiti’s agricultural sector and provide food to those in need could help Haiti become more self-sufficient by purchasing the entire Haitian rice crop over the next two years. The paper finds that buying up all of Haiti’s rice...