International Macroeconomics has long sought an explanation for current account fluctuations that matches the data. The approaches have typically focused on better models and new macroeconomic variables. We demonstrate the limitations of this approach by showing that idiosyncratic shocks are an...

The U.S. sacrifices about ten full time jobs for each million dollars of net imports of goods and services. Its billions of dollars in trade deficit is the primary reason behind its millions of job losses. Loss of jobs, in turn, decreases income, demand, investment, and tax revenues. Budget...

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...