Host country policies toward inward direct investment can have predictable effects on trade flows. Trade related investment measures' (TRIMs) such as local-content requirements and minimum-export requirements have recently come under official scrutiny in the General Agreement on Tariffs and...

The United States emerged from World War II as the acknowledged global leader in basic science and its industrial application. While U.S. science has been able to maintain that preeminence in most areas, the nation's technological lead has met increasingly formidable challenges from abroad....

The bilateral relationship with Japan now dominates American thinking on the benefits and costs of foreign trade. This paper reevaluates the past and future course of U.S.-Japan economic relations. It identifies six distinct aspects of the relationship that may underlie the continuing friction:...

Production of services now dominates economic activity in the United States and most other nations. It is thus natural to find increasing attention on the part of U.S. policymakers to international competition in service activities. Yielding to strong pressure from the United States, members of...

On their fiftieth anniversary, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were" extensively reviewed, both to mark the occasion and to consider, often critically roles and performance. This paper reviews the functions of the two institutions in light of their" evolution over the past...

This paper takes as a given the proposition that, in many developing countries, governmental policies have been highly distortive and harmful to economic growth. These policies have included omissions, such as neglect of infrastructure, and commission such as highly restrictive trade regimes and...

In this paper, the evolution of thought regarding protectionist trade policies in developed and in developing countries is examined and contrasted. In the developing countries distrust of markets and a belief in the infant industry argument led to highly protectionist trade regimes. The...

In this paper it is argued that there is an important protectionist bias inherent in free trade agreements which is not present in custom unions. In any customs union or free trade agreement, one of the critical issues concerns "rules of origin." In a free trade agreement rules of origin have an...

This paper analyzes a nominal anchor exchange rate policy as a domestic distortion, in the tradition of international trade theory. It is shown that, in addition to the problems of sustainability and exit pinpointed in the exchange rate literature, a nominal anchor exchange rate policy, while in...

This paper assesses the theoretical and empirical basis for American labor union leaders' contention that imports have been a big source of job loss in the United States. It is shown, first, that identification of job losses "due to imports" is exceptionally difficult because economic growth...