In this paper, we examine the proposition that Canada’s economic relationship with Asia has languished, or at least has not lived up to its potential. To do so, we draw on the conventional gravity model of international trade and investment and take advantage of the similarity between Canada...

As the global community moves to forge a new climate change agreement, complex questions arise concerning the implications for the international trading system. This was the topic of a meeting in Toronto on October 26 and 27, 2009 that brought together experts from the two communities – trade...

The Doha climate change conference failed to deliver a credible agreement on climate change mitigation. Meanwhile, the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations has stalled, to all appearances indefinitely, leaving unresolved the multilateral talks on how to reconcile and integrate...

The Trump Administration is proceeding with unilateral measures to address what it has characterized as “unfair” trade, risking retaliation, but banking on a threat of massive escalation to extract a favorable outcome for itself. Notwithstanding widespread speculation that the threats to...

From primary industries, to cities to agriculture, who owns data and what they are allowed to do with it has implications for the ability of entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and compete on a world stage. In the context of the emerging data-driven economy, which features “winner take...

Intellectual property (IP) is essential for commercialization in the knowledge-based economy. However, the creation of intellectual property rights (IPRs), which were originally developed for a world of sparse and sporadic invention, has led to potential stumbling blocks for industrialized...

Building on, and indeed ratcheting up, the rhetoric of the US election campaign, the new Trump Administration has signalled disruptive change to US trade relations. The not-yet-in-force Trans-Pacific Partnership was torn up on day one of the new presidential term, the future of NAFTA was thrown...

The European Union is mired in a bad economic equilibrium of stagnation and deflation – stag-deflation. While the problem is excess supply and inadequate demand, current policy, premised on private-sector-investment-led growth, aims to expand supply further through ultra-low interest rates....

The digital transformation has deep implications for trade policy. The shift of economic, social and political interaction into online modes has meant a steep increase in the share of international trade conducted through e-commerce or facilitated by digital technologies, made the associated...

In 2022, the world is at war. There are political/military and economic dimensions and multiple fronts. The conditions for war were established by the relative decline of US power and by changed technological conditions that have unleashed geoeconomic competition to dominate the new...