An Overview Of The Modeling Of The Choices And Consequences Of Us Trade Policy

Our paper is designed to provide the context for the theme of the conference, "The Representation of Constituent Interests in the Design and Implementation of U.S. Trade Policies." We begin by reviewing the normative and political economy approaches to the modeling of trade policies. We identify the major limitations of these approaches and then discuss what Dixit (1996) has referred to as the "transaction-cost approach," which may provide a middle ground between the other approaches and enable us to address some hitherto imperfectly understood issues of trade policy. We also include a brief discussion of the empirical literature pertinent to the normative and political economy approaches. We then turn to a sketch of the main features of the U.S. trade-policy process, focusing in particular on the roles played by the agencies of government together with the important constituent interest groups in the U.S. economy. We consider how these can be interpreted in the light of the modeling approaches, and we also ask what can be learned from the past half-century of U.S. trade policy experiences.

Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

This book brings together a collection of papers that Robert M Stern and his co-authors have written in recent years. The collection addresses a variety of issues pertinent to the global trading system. One group of papers deals with globalization in terms of what the public needs to know about this phenomenon and the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO), whether some countries may be hurt by globalization, how global market integration relates to national sovereignty, and how and whether considerations of fairness are and should be dealt with in the global trading system and WTO negotiations. A second group of papers consists of analytical and computational modeling studies of multilateral, regional, and bilateral trading arrangements and negotiations from a global and national perspective for the United States and other major trading countries. The remaining papers include an empirical analysis of barriers to international services transactions and the consequences of liberalization, and issues of international trade and labor standards. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview (97 KB). Contents: Globalization: What the Public Should Know about Globalization and the World Trade Organization (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Globalization''s Bystanders: Does Trade Liberalization Hurt Countries That Do Not Participate? (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Global Market Integration and National Sovereignty (A G Brown & R M Stern); Concepts of Fairness in the Global Trading System (A G Brown & R M Stern); Analysis of Multilateral, Regional, and Bilateral Trading Arrangements: Multilateral Trade Negotiations and Preferential Trading Arrangements (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); An Overview of the Modeling of the Choices and Consequences of US Trade Policies (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Issues of Manufactures Liberalization and Administered Protection in the Doha Round (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); An Assessment of the Economic Effects of the Menu of US Trade Policies (K Kiyota & R M Stern); Trade Diversion Under NAFTA (K Fukao et al.); Some Economic Effects of the Free Trade Agreement between Tunisia and the European Union (D K Brown et al.); A North American Free Trade Agreement: Analytical Issues and a Computational Assessment (D K Brown et al.); Computable General Equilibrium Estimates of the Gains from US-Canadian Trade Liberalization (D K Brown & R M Stern); The Effects of the Tokyo Round on the Structure of Protection (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); Services Trade: Empirical Analysis of Barriers to International Services Transactions and the Consequences of Liberalization (A V Deardorff & R M Stern); International Trade and Labor Standards: Pros and Cons of Linking Trade and Labor Standards (D K Brown et al.); The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries (D K Brown et al.); US Trade and Other Policy Options and Programs to Deter Foreign Exploitation of Child Labor (D K Brown et al.); Labor Standards and International Trade (R M Stern). Readership: Upper-level undergraduates, post graduates, academics, researchers and policy-makers in international trade and finance.

In trade policy, as in many other areas of public policy, decision makers often confront present and future problems with little understanding of how similar disputes were resolved in the past. Too often, busy public officials had no time to write or record negotiating histories. Revisiting U.S. Trade Policy, which is certain to become a classic in the literature of trade negotiations, is just such a record. Built on the oral histories of thirty-five former U.S. trade policymakers -- including Michael Blumenthal, Alonzo McDonald, William Roth, and Robert S. Strauss -- this unique record, prepared for publication by Alfred E. Eckes, revisits some of the most important moments of America's trade liberalization program in the years after World War II. From GATT to the World Trade Organization, these major players look back in candid hindsight at their decisions concerning trade policy and the effects that those decisions had on shaping the new international economic order.

Interest in U.S. trade policy has been stimulated in recent years by the massive American trade deficit, by the belief that intervention by foreign governments in international markets has given other countries a competitive edge over the United States, and by concern about the increase in protectionism among industrial countries. In turn, major analytical developments in international economics have revolutionized trade theory, broadening its scope both by introducing in a more formal manner such concepts as imperfect competition, increasing returns, product differentiation, and learning effects and by including the study of political and economic factors that shape trade policy decisions. This collection of papers—the result of a conference held by the NBER—applies these "new" trade theories to existing world cases and also presents complementary empirical studies that are grounded in more traditional trade theories. The volume is divided into four parts. The papers in part 1 consider the problem of imperfect competition, empirically assessing the economic effect of various trade policies introduced in industries in which the "new" trade theory seems to apply. Those in part 2 isolate the effects of protection from the influences of the many economic changes that accompany actual periods of protection and also examine how the effects from exogenous changes in economic conditions vary with the form of protection. Part 3 provides new empirical evidence on the effect of foreign production by a country's firms on the home country's exports. Finally, in part 4, two key bilateral issues are analyzed: recent U.S.-Japanese trade tensions and the incident involving the threat of the imposition of countervailing duties by the United States on Canadian softwood lumber.

From American master Ward Just, returning to his trademark territory of "Forgetfulness "and "The Weather in Berlin," an evocative portrait of diplomacy and desire set against the backdrop of America's first lost war

The contributors to this volume, economists and political scientists from academic institutions, the private sector, and the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, came together to discuss an important topic in the formation of U.S. international trade policy: the representation of constituent interests. In the resulting volume they address the objectives of groups who participate in the policy process and examine how each group's interests are identified and promoted. They look at what means are used for these purposes, and the extent to which the groups' objectives and behavior conform to how the political economy of trade policy is treated in the economic and political science literature. Further, they discuss how effective each group has been. Each of the book's five parts offers a coherent view of important components of the topic. Part I provides an overview of the normative and political economy approaches to the modeling of trade policies. Part 2 discusses the context of U.S. trade policies. Part 3 deals with the role of sectoral producing interests, including the relationship of trade policy to auto, steel, textile, semiconductor, aircraft, and financial services. Part 4 examines other constituent interests, including the environment, human rights, and the media. Part 5 provides commentary on such issues as the challenges that trade policy poses for the new administration and the 105th Congress. The volume ultimately offers important and more finely articulated questions on how trade policy is formed and implemented. Contributors are Robert E. Baldwin, Jagdish Bhagwati, Douglas A. Brook, Richard O. Cunningham, Jay Culbert, Alan V. Deardorff, I. M. Destler, Daniel Esty, Geza Feketekuty, Harry Freeman, John D. Greenwald, Gene Grossman, Richard L. Hall, Jutta Hennig, John H. Jackson, James A. Levinsohn, Mustafa Mohatarem, Robert Pahre, Richard C. Porter, Gary R. Saxonhouse, Robert E. Scott, T. N. Srinivasan, Robert M. Stern, Joe Stroud, John Sweetland, Raymond Waldmann, Marina v.N. Whitman, and Bruce Wilson. Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern are Professors of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan.