Like other sciences, economics shows long periods of gradual refinement of theory and the steady accretion of empirical evidence, punctuated by the occasional sea change in world views. Thus the history of economic thought and practice reveals distinctive eras characterized by differences in...

This paper explores the implications of recent developments in firm-based trade theory and empirics for trade policy and negotiations. While traditional trade theory focused on the country, and the new trade theory of the 1980’s adopted the industry as the unit for analysis, the newest theory...

The Asian Crisis of 1997-1998 represented the biggest shock to the global economy of the post-WWII period up to that point. Paradoxically, the crisis economies happened to be the Asian members of the group of so-called "emerging markets" – the best and the brightest of the industrializing...

This paper analyzes the determinants of participation rate movements in Canada from the early 1950s through the 1970s, with a particular focus on the socio-economic determinants of the changing labour force attachment of successive cohorts of adult men and women and young persons, and develops...

China’s WTO accession was a landmark event bringing one of the world’s major trading economies fully into the international rules-based system. The major features and implications of China’s accession agreement are reviewed and, given China’s success in trade and investment outside the...

The accelerated pace of change in human affairs today has meant a steep increase in the (quantitative) flow of information that an individual agent must process in some fashion and a quantum leap in the (qualitative) sophistication of the processing that is required. It has been argued that the...

The accelerated expansion of China’s trade and current account surpluses since 2004, and the associated expansion of China’s foreign exchange reserves in the context of very rapid investment-driven domestic economic growth and adverse movements in China’s terms of trade have led China’s...

The computable general equilibrium model has become the workhorse tool for assessing the impacts of bilateral trade liberalization. This paper draws on recent experience within Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada in modeling the impacts of potential free trade agreements with various...

On March 2-3, 2006, a group of leading observers of the international trade and investment scene gathered in Ottawa for an informal discussion of the prospects for the Doha Development Agenda in view of the progress in negotiations made at the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade...

Are exports systematically associated with diplomatic representation abroad? Given the expenses of maintaining posts abroad, this question is obviously of deep interest to governments seeking to promote their country's export performance while coping with budgetary pressures. In a recent...