For the past six months the Clinton Administration has been engaged in a steadily increasing war of words with the Japanese to pressure them to take concrete actions to reduce their "chronic" trade surplus with the U.S. by committing to quantitative targets for U.S. goods sold in Japanese...

In the past 3 1/2 years the U.S. has experienced strong economic growth, low inflation and productivity growth noticeably above the average of the previous two decades. In some corners there is a strong belief that this increase in productivity growth is the beginning of a resurgence in...

One of the consequences of slow economic growth in the troubled countries of Asia combined with a relatively robust economy at home is that the U.S. trade deficit has widened significantly. In the second quarter of 1998 the National Income and Product Accounts measure of real net exports was...

Over the past nine months there has been a growing number of articles written about the possibility of a serious deflation in the U.S. Articles have appeared in a wide range of respected business publications... What is extraordinary about virtually all the popular discussions of this topic is...