The Political Economy of American Trade Policy

The Political Economy of American Trade Policy PDF Author: Anne O. Krueger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226455017
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Exploring the political and economic determinants of trade protection, this study provides a wealth of information on key American industries and documents the process of seeking and conferring protection. Eight analytical histories of the automobile, steel, semiconductor, lumber, wheat, and textile and apparel industries demonstrate that trade barriers rarely have unequivocal benefits and may be counterproductive. They show that criteria for awarding protection do not take into account the interests of consumers or other industries and that political influence and an organized lobby are major sources of protection. Based on these findings, a final essay suggests that current policy fails to consider adequately economic efficiency, the public good, and indirect negative effects. This volume will interest scholars in economics, business, and public policy who deal with trade issues.

The Political Economy of American Trade Policy

The Political Economy of American Trade Policy PDF Author: Anne O. Krueger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226455017
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book

Book Description
Exploring the political and economic determinants of trade protection, this study provides a wealth of information on key American industries and documents the process of seeking and conferring protection. Eight analytical histories of the automobile, steel, semiconductor, lumber, wheat, and textile and apparel industries demonstrate that trade barriers rarely have unequivocal benefits and may be counterproductive. They show that criteria for awarding protection do not take into account the interests of consumers or other industries and that political influence and an organized lobby are major sources of protection. Based on these findings, a final essay suggests that current policy fails to consider adequately economic efficiency, the public good, and indirect negative effects. This volume will interest scholars in economics, business, and public policy who deal with trade issues.

Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy

Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy PDF Author: Judith Goldstein
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501744488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
To citizens and political analysts alike, United States trade law is an incoherent conglomeration of policies, both liberal and protectionist. Seeking to understand the contradictions in American policy, Judith Goldstein offers the first book to demonstrate the impact of the political past on today's trade decisions. As she traces the history of trade agreements from the antebellum era through the 1980s, she addresses a fundamental question: What effects do shared ideas about economics—as opposed to national power or individual self-interest—have on the institutions that make and enforce trade law? Goldstein argues that successful ideas become embedded in institutions and typically outlive the time during which they served social interests. She sets the stage with a discussion of the shifting commercial policy of the first half of the nineteenth century. After examining the consequences of the Republican party's decision to promote high tariffs between 1870 and 1930, she then considers in detail the political aftermath of the Great Depression, when the Democratic party settled on a reciprocal trade platform. Because the Democrats did not completely dismantle the existing system, however, the combined legacies of protection and openness help explain the intricacies in the forms of protectionism that political leaders have advocated since World War II. Readers in such fields as political science, political economy, policy studies and law, international relations, and American history will welcome Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy.

The Political Economy of Trade Protection

The Political Economy of Trade Protection PDF Author: Anne O. Krueger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226455025
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
This clear, concise summary of the in-depth analyses presented in The Political Economy of American Trade Policy examines the level, form, and evolution of American trade protection. In case studies of trade barriers imposed during the 1980s to help the steel, semiconductor, automobile, lumber, wheat, and textile and apparel industries, the contributors trace the evolution of efforts to obtain protection, protectionist measures, and their results. A chapter assessing the common themes that emerge from the studies concludes that the focus of current trade law is exclusively on the individual protection-seeking industries, with little regard for indirect effects on using industries or for consumers. Reform could usefully take these effects into account. This volume will interest policymakers, business executives, and anyone interested in trade policy formulation and practice.

Clashing Over Commerce

Clashing Over Commerce PDF Author: Douglas A. Irwin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022639901X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 873

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Book Description
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs

The Wealth of a Nation

The Wealth of a Nation PDF Author: C. Donald Johnson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190865911
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 665

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Book Description
The United States is entering a period of profound uncertainty in the world political economy--an uncertainty which is threatening the liberal economic order that its own statesmen created at the end of the Second World War. The storm surrounding this threat has been ignited by an issue that has divided Americans since the nation's founding: international trade. Is America better off under a liberal trade regime, or would protectionism be more beneficial? The issue divided Alexander Hamilton from Thomas Jefferson, the agrarian south from the industrializing north, and progressives from robber barons in the Gilded Age. In our own times, it has pitted anti-globalization activists and manufacturing workers against both multinational firms and the bulk of the economics profession. Ambassador C. Donald Johnson's The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era. Johnson begins by charting the rise and fall of the U.S. protectionist system from the time of Alexander Hamilton to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. Challenges to protectionist dominance were frequent and often serious, but the protectionist regime only faded in the wake of the Great Depression. After World War II, America was the primary architect of the liberal rules-based economic order that has dominated the globe for over half a century. Recent years, however, have seen a swelling anti-free trade movement that casts the postwar liberal regime as anti-worker, pro-capital, and--in Donald Trump's view--even anti-American. In this riveting history, Johnson emphasizes the benefits of the postwar free trade regime, but focuses in particular on how it has attempted to advance workers' rights. This analysis of the evolution of American trade policy stresses the critical importance of the multilateral trading system's survival and defines the central political struggle between business and labor in measuring the wealth of a nation.

Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific

Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific PDF Author: Vinod K. Aggarwal
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441968334
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
East Asian countries are now pursuing greater formal economic institutionalization, weaving a web of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade agreements. Scholarly analysis of “formal” East Asian regionalism focuses on international political and economic factors such as the end of the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, or the rising Sino-Japanese rivalry. Yet this work pays inadequate attention to the strategies of individual government agencies, business groups, labor unions, and NGOs across the region. Moreover, most studies also fail to adequately characterize different types of trade arrangements, often lumping together bilateral accords with minilateral ones, and transregional agreements with those within the region. To fully understand this cross-national variance, this book argues that researchers must give greater attention to the domestic politics within East Asian countries and the U.S., involving the interplay of these subnational players. With contributions from leading country and regional trade specialists, this book examines East Asian and American trade strategies through the lens of a domestic bargaining game approach with a focus on the interplay of interests, ideas, and domestic institutions within the context of broader international shifts. With respect to domestic politics, the chapters show how subnational actors engage in lobbying, both of their own governments and through their links to others in the region. They also trace the evolution of interests and ideas over time, helping us to generate a better understanding of historical trends in the region. In addition to scholars of East Asian and comparative regionalism, this book will be of interest to policy-makers concerned with international trade and U.S.-Asia relations, and those interested in understanding the rich trade institutional landscape that we see emerging in the Asia-Pacific.

The Political Economy of Trade Policy

The Political Economy of Trade Policy PDF Author: Devashish Mitra
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
ISBN: 9814569151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Theory, Evidence and Applications is a collection of sole-authored and co-authored papers by Devashish Mitra that have been published in various scholarly journals over the last two decades. It covers diverse topics in the political economy of trade policy, ranging from the role of modeling lobby formation in the context of trade policy determination to its applications to the question of unilateralism versus reciprocity and trade agreements. It also includes the theory and the empirics of the choice of policy instruments. Finally, the book presents the empirical investigation of the Grossman-Helpman “Protection for Sale” model as well as the Mayer “Median-Voter” model of trade policy determination.

U.S. Trade Policy

U.S. Trade Policy PDF Author: John M. Rothgeb Jr.
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1483371131
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
What was the “battle in Seattle” over trade all about? You may know...but do your students? With John Rothgeb's concise text U.S. Trade Policy: Balancing Economic Dreams and Political Realities, your students will learn about international trade, the political tensions it rouses, and its historical roots. Rothgeb carefully traces the forces that affect U.S. trade policy's development and implementation, including: * the strategic and competitive international arena * policymakers' views on the value of trade * the influence of special interest groups * the impact of institutional rivalries Supplement your foreign and economic policy course with a balanced discussion of the enormous changes spurred by the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the Bretton Woods system, and the GATT, to the controversy surrounding current trade relations withteh European Union and China.

The Political Economy of U.S. Trade Policy

The Political Economy of U.S. Trade Policy PDF Author: Keith Norman Alger
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 658

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Book Description


The Political Economy of International Trade

The Political Economy of International Trade PDF Author: Jae Wan Chung
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739159070
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
American trade policy is a crucial subject to not only the United States but also foreign countries. Free trade has been a long-standing U.S. policy position, playing the lead role in the international free trade framework and contributing to this framework through multilateral trade negotiations. As both trade deficits and fiscal deficits steadily increased during the 1980s in the U.S., free trade has not stood without its share of suffering. Chung investigates American trade policy from the perspectives of U.S. trade laws and international trade agreements by outlining the primary trade laws of the past; considering the trade laws of the present; and delving into various trade agreements, disputes, and reforms. Looking to the future, Chung offers a unique argument for the enforcement of trade remedy laws and the reform of the international trade framework. The Political Economy of International Trade is certain to be of interest to academics, policymakers, trade industry practitioners, and politicians in the United States as well as around the world.