The late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have many things in common. Both periods recorded fast growth, convergence, and labor-market integration between OECD members. Both periods witnessed intense debate about who gained and who lost from globalization. Furthermore, the earlier period saw a...

A few months ago, Congress overruled the peer review process of the National Science Foundation. A congressional aide looked over the list of NSF grants, decided that 31 of them had titles unworthy of funding, and a conference committee voted on May 21 to cut off those grants. The cuts were made...

The goal of the '"1992" program is to complete by January 1, 1993, what the European Community set out to do in 1957: create a common market with a free flow of goods, services, labor, and capital. If the program is completed, the twelve member countries of the Community will form a common...

This article speculates about the future of the world economy 100 years from now. It argues that the spread of markets is restricted by the reach of jurisdictional boundaries, and that national sovereignty imposes serious constraints on international economic integration. The political trilemma...

This paper reviews the theoretical functions, history, and policy problems raised by the international capital market. The goal is to offer a perspective on both the considerable advantages the market offers and on the genuine hazards it poses, as well as on avenues through which it constrains...

The European Council's Maastricht Agreement maps out a precise route to monetary union and the eventual introduction of a common currency. My discussion begins with a look at the general arguments for and against monetary union. I shall then discuss the proposed constitution of the European...

The United States has long enjoyed a unique position of economic supremacy. By the early 1990s, however, almost everyone believed that the age of U.S. supremacy was nearing its end. Circa 1992 few people would have dared to suggest that a second "American Century" might be in prospect. At the...

EMU would be an economic liability. A single currency would cause, at most, small trade and investment gains but would raise average cyclical unemployment and possibly raise inflation, perpetuate structural unemployment, and increase the risk of protectionism. EMU is nevertheless being pursued...

The benefits of international economic integration come with strings attached: international markets get greater say about the way national economies are managed and their wealth is distributed. The papers in the symposium that follow address these questions: how much globalization is there; how...

The current account deficit of the United States has been large in recent years, both in absolute size and relative to GDP. In 2006, it reached $811 billion, 6.1 percent of GDP. It has become a dominant feature of the world economy; if you sum up the current account deficits of all nations that...