Trade Deficit

This volume brings together in one place insightful analyses of three major issues affecting world financial markets. Written by a distinguished group of academics, policymakers, and financial executives, the papers collected here cover international imbalances and international policy coordination, the international debt crisis, and global financial markets. Although the contributors express a variety of approaches and viewpoints, they are united in emphasizing the growing importance of financial markets in the international economy.

This collection of essays offers critical perspectives on current issues in the international economy. Divided into four parts, U.S. Trade Policy and Global Growth discusses managed trade and international interdependence, the effect of trade on domestic wages and employment, the costs and benefits of trade protection, and likely effects of NAFTA. The collection also addresses the U.S. trade deficit and presents a Keynesian proposal for international monetary reform. Part IV focuses on issues facing developing countries in the areas of trade, industrial, and financial policy. Rejecting the dogma that pure free-market policies should be accepted as articles of religious faith, in either international trade or domestic policy, the contributors search for trade and macro policies that can achieve balanced growth with high employment and an equitable distribution of income in both the United States and the rest of the world.

A blend of descriptive and prescriptive economics, this survey provides a thorough examination of our current fiscal and monetary policies and problems. With an eye to special interest politics, Eastaugh shows the difficulties in--and the necessity of--surmounting our fiscal, educational, trade, productivity, and health care accessibility deficits.

Three central dilemmas are explained in this book - the unequal distribution of income and wealth created by international trade, the tradeoff among competing values that trade requires, and the relationship between economic and foreign policy goals.