The global and dynamic e-commerce marketplace will increasingly impact the nature of national and international economic and government relations. This paper highlights three areas where the United States and European Union (EU) governments differ in their approaches as to how best to serve...

The negotiation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) greatly expands the purview of the World Trade Organization (WTO) into domestic regulatory standards. The minimum standards required in TRIPS are essentially about production processes, thereby...

Who should determine banks' capital standards: authorities or markets? What is the right definition of core capital: equity only or equity plus subordinated debt? Can the assessment of banks' individual credit risks by external rating agencies be of equal or better quality than the assessments...

Exporting through international supply chains was a successful way for East Asian countries to develop their textile and apparel industries in the 1970s and 1980s, but it is a less clear route for countries like Egypt trying to compete today. The challenge is particularly acute given the...

This working paper evaluates the validity of available data on and the extent of the impact of offshoring on service-sector labor markets in the United States, EU-15, and Japan. A three-tier data validity hierarchy is identified. The impact of offshoring on employment in the three regions is...

The controversy within the United States over Chinese exchange rate policy has generated a series of legislative proposals to restrict the discretion of the Treasury Department in determining currency manipulation and to reform the department’s accountability to Congress. This paper reviews...

Observers have relied increasingly on simple reaction functions, such as the Taylor rule, to assess the conduct of monetary policy. Applying this approach to deflationary or near-zero inflation environments is problematic, however, and this paper examines two shortcomings of particular relevance...

Did monetary easing in the 1980s cause Japan's bubble, as is often suggested? Drawing on both a new cross-national consideration of the monetary policy-asset price linkage and a reexamination of what actually occurred in Japan during 1985-90, I conclude that the bubble was just as likely to...

A fundamental shift is taking place in the world economy to which the multilateral trading system has failed to adapt. The Doha process focused on issues of limited significance while the burning issues of the day were not even on the negotiating agenda. This paper advances five propositions:...

Together with many policymakers and economists, I see in the 1990s expansion signs that new technologies that had been emerging for some time were finally paying off in stronger economic performance. I will use the expression 'new economy' to describe this period, although I recognize the...