Category Archives: Trade

March 21, 2011

Dead Parrot Trade Talks

The Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) is the first negotiation to take place under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), founded in 1995. The eight previous rounds of global trade talks were conducted under the General … Continue reading

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February 23, 2011

Why Trade has Survived the Crisis

The current crisis is twofold: it affects Wall Street and Main Street — that is, both finance and the real economy. It has also been accompanied by a sharp decline in trade. The reasons for this decline — manifested not … Continue reading

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October 2, 2010

America Embraces Trade Discrimination

NEW YORK – Economists generally agree on the advantages of openness in trade. But the case for non-discrimination in trade is also a compelling one. So good trade policy should push for multilateral trade liberalization such as at the Doha … Continue reading

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August 24, 2010

Expanding India’s Expertise

Recently, Sanjaya Baru, the Prime Minister’s former Press Secretary, sounded the alarm over how many of the Indian think-tanks were now dependent on foreign public and private institutions — the World Bank, DFID (UK), Oxfam and many others — for … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Politics, Trade | 2 Comments
August 10, 2010

‘Made in America’ is not the way out of this crisis

President Barack Obama, addressing car workers recently at a GM plant in Michigan, defended his administration’s motor industry bail-out, saying that it had rescued “the heart and soul” of American manufacturing, that “has been a symbol of our economic power”. … Continue reading

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July 26, 2010

Running in Place on Trade

Meetings of G-20 leaders regularly affirm the importance of maintaining and strengthening openness in trade. June’s G-20 summit in Toronto, although not very effusive on trade, did not back away from it. Yet talk is cheap, and the open-mouth policy … Continue reading

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July 7, 2010

Protectionist Myths

At a debate in New York last year entitled “Buy American/Hire American Policies Will Backfire,” with hundreds of people in attendance, my team of three free-trade proponents took on a trio of protectionists who are often in the public eye. … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Trade | 1 Comment
June 18, 2010

Fair Trade versus Free Trade

Below are excerpts from an online debate hosted by The Economist. The original debate is found here. Driven in part by a progressive lowering of barriers to trade in both rich and developing countries, global trade expanded faster in the … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Trade | 3 Comments
May 5, 2010

India’s mistaken call for renminbi appreciation

India’s central bank governor issued in late April a critique of the alleged Chinese undervaluation of the yuan/renminbi, siding therefore with the U.S. politicians and some think-tanks (chiefly Fred Bergsten and Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics) … Continue reading

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