The homeownership rate in the United States was essentially stagnant during the 1980's. This stagnation should be a source of concern if the rate reflects stagnant economic conditions and ownership opportunities, not if it simply reflects changing demographic conditions or preferences. Using a...

Real house prices are directly determined by the willingness of households to pay for (and willingness of builders to supply) a constant-quality house. Changes in the quantity of housing demanded will affect real prices only to the extent that the long-run housing supply schedule is positively...

This paper presents a comprehensive but relatively brief historical survey of U.S. trade-policy over the last 75 years. It is aimed at individuals who are not already familiar with the concepts and terminology used in discussions of trade policy and the domestic and international institutional...

This paper focuses on economists' understanding of the basic determinants of trade patterns and, in particular, on the manner in which these underlying factors change over time and are affected by various policies. A brief survey contrasts the determinants of the structure of trade emphasized by...

The purpose of this paper is to describe United States trade policy since World War II, and to assess the possibility for ongoing U.S.trade-policy leadership. U.S. trade policy has shown remarkable consistency since World War II. It has never been as purely free-trade-focussed as some...

Disappointing recent growth rates, the emergence of structurally unfavorable income and employment conditions, and important institutional changes in the international trading environment have caused policy officials in the advanced industrial nations to reconsider the proper mix of reactive...

This paper investigates three hypotheses to account for the observed shifts in U.S. relative wages of less educated compared to more educated workers between 1967 and 1992: increased import competition, changes in the relative supplies of labor of different education levels and changes in...

This paper examines various strategies that have been proposed for halting the recent drift toward protectionism and restoring a more liberal trading regime. A number of groups and individuals propose a multilateral approach aimed at immediately reducing all forms of import barriers and export...

This paper applies the nationality-adjusted net sales and value added framework proposed in Baldwin and Kimura (1996) to Japan. Despite possibly large estimation errors due to statistical deficiencies, the framework is very useful for analyzing the relationship of the Japanese economy to the...

The new protectionism threatening the international trading regime is related to significant structural changes in world production that have brought about a decline in the dominant economic position of the United States, a concomitant rise of the European Community and Japan to international...