The paper aims to critically examine the problems of public debt in Italy under the criteria of the Maastricht Treaty and subsequent decisions by Europe in tax matters. On this issue, the paper shows Italy's efforts in the direction of the Maastricht criteria, but also highlights the problems to...

The objective of this paper is to analyze, with the instruments of Game Theory, the incentives that can lead a Member State of the European Union to disregard the Stability and Growth Pact, and thus, to keep an excessive deficit, although aware of the political and financial risk associated with...

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...

This paper argues that calls for a New Bretton Woods system in the aftermath of the global economic crisis—similar to the remarkable 1944 Bretton Woods conference that led to the establishment of various international economic institutions—are unlikely to be answered. The likely scenario is...

Most projections envision continued rapid growth in the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and India (collectively, ACI) over the next two decades. By 2030, they could quadruple their output, virtually eliminate extreme poverty,...

Adherents to the “natural trading partner” hypothesis argue that forming a PTA is more likely to raise welfare if member countries already trade disproportionately with each other. Opponents of the hypothesis claim that the opposite is true: welfare is likely to be higher if member countries...

China’s forthcoming accession to the WTO involves reforms across a wide range of sectors in China, both in directly trade-related sectors and behind the border. The implications of these reforms are greatly influenced by the starting point—a partially reformed economy with relatively high...

The aim of this paper is to analyse India's anti dumping behaviour. India has become a major user of anti dumping measures, initiating more than 300 cases against many of its trading partners. After looking at the trends and patterns in the use of anti dumping measures by India, the paper tries...

Regulations and enforcement decisions that at first appear to have only a domestic impact can have substantial spillover effects on other nations' economies. Experience has shown time and again that there is no reason to expect that these effects are confined to jurisdictions at the same level...

This paper develops a model of a trade agreement that puts at centre stage the competing interests between ?rms within a sector: Larger ?rms tend to be pro-trade liberalization whereas smaller ?rms favor protection. This set-up contrasts with the prior literature in economics that has tended to...