By increasing the costs of imports, minimum unit import reference prices not only generate the usual distortions one expects from tariff protection but add new ones that a pure tariff system would not generate. Reference prices substantially reduce the price gap between imports with prices above...

Data for recent years indicate an acceleration of Chinese industrial growth, from the annual rates of about 10 percent recorded in the quarter century before economic reform to figures approaching 15 percent in the mid- and late 1980s. Evaluating the statistics underlying these reports requires...

Countries sometimes use export controls on raw materials to encourage domestic processing. The motivation is usually to assure raw materials at low prices for domestic industries, although exports are sometimes controlled in an attempt to increase export earnings (by promoting exports of higher...

In 1987 the European Community began the ambitious task of forging a single market for goods and services across the national borders of its member states by 1992. Substantive reform of the Community's Common Agricultural Policy - necessary for the full integration of existing markets - has not...

The author argues that Poland must choose an agricultural policy that promotes efficiency, structural change, and adjustment to the new market environment and eventual membership in the European Union. That policy must take into account both the needs of, and the financial constraints on, Polish...

A shock that lowers profits depresses employment less when wages are flexible in terms of the value-added output price. This kind of flexibility allows a country to remain competitive in world markets when a shock to profits lowers its value-added output price. In many countries, wages are...

In the chaotic financial environment of East Asia in 1997-98, daily changes in stock prices of as much as 10 percent became commonplace. The authors analyze what type of news moved the market in those days of extreme market jitters. They find that movements are triggered by both local and...

The European Community (EC) grain exports increased significantly over the last three decades. The EC's Project 1992 will abolish internal trade barriers to facilitate the movement of goods, persons, services, and capital between member countries. One aspect of the program is elimination of...

The Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) restricts the access of developing country exporters to developed country markets. It is usually assumed that the exporting countries receive all of the economic rents that result from these import restrictions - making it unclear whether the developing...

One side of the debate about anti-dumping argues that dumping is not a problem in international trade - that it is a normal business practice which benefits the importing country's consumers and user industries - and that anti-dumping is inherently protectionist. The other side argues that an...