Estimating equilibrium exchange rates

The problems of exchange rate misalignments and the resulting payments imbalances have plagued the world economy for decades. At the Louvre Accord of 1987, the Group of Five industrial countries adopted a system of reference ranges for exchange rate management, influenced by proposals of C. Fred ...

Reforming korea's industrial conglomerates

When what was to become the Asian financial crisis of 1997 broke out in Thailand, few analysts predicted that this crisis would spread to South Korea. Korea, after all, had risen from poverty to become one of the "Asian miracle economies". However, the crisis did not spare Korea, and the Korean g...

Nafta and climate change

NAFTA remains a centerpiece of US trade-policy debate, but its provisions have sacrificed environmental concerns for the sake of trade liberalization. This timely volume analyzes the national policies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The authors explain how the competing priorities of pr...

Debating china's exchange rate policy

More than two and a half years have passed since China announced a number of changes to its foreign exchange regime in July 2005. During this period, the debate on the pros and cons of China's exchange rate policy, which had begun in earnest several years earlier, intensified. This important new ...

The international financial architecture

Shortly after the Mexican crisis of 1994-95, the major industrial countries undertook to strengthen the international financial architecture. They sought to reduce the risk of future crises by increasing the availability of information about economic conditions in emerging-market countries and st...

Unfinished business

In February 1997, 69 countries accounting for 95 percent of world telecommunications traffic agreed to open their basic telecommunications service markets. In April 1997, 28 countries accounting for 80 percent of world trade in information technology (IT) goods agreed to eliminate tariffs on IT g...

Asia-pacific fusion

Japanese journalist Yoichi Funabashi has written the first in-depth study of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum based on extensive interviews with heads of state and government officials in the region. A key force behind APEC, he argues, is a potential "fusion" of Asia-Pacific civ...

Restoring japan's economic growth

Will the Japanese government take the decisive but manageable policy actions needed to bring about economic recovery? Despite claims to the contrary, macroeconomic expansion has yet to be seriously tried in Japan. Criticism of current Japanese macroeconomic and financial policies is so widespread...

Capitalizing on the morocco-us free trade agreement

This study assesses the US-Morocco free trade agreement (FTA) and identifies shortcomings in the implementation of the US-Morocco FTA, provide policy recommendations for better leveraging the FTA, and suggest ways for Morocco to take better advantage of its cooperation agreements with the Europea...

The global outlook for government debt over the next 25 years

This study addresses a fundamentally new feature of the contemporary world economy: the simultaneous buildup of very large public deficits and debt positions in virtually all of the advanced high-income countries. The recent global financial crisis sharply accelerated this fiscal deterioration, b...

Measuring the costs of protection in china

The world trading system

Global economic effects of the asian currency devaluations

The Asian financial crisis has precipitated significant changes in real exchange rates in the region that will substantially alter the volume and pattern of international trade. The crisis countries will increase their exports and, especially, reduce their imports. Japan, China, and the other non...

Real exchange rates for the year 2000

Countries that entered the European Monetary Union had to do so at exchange rates that are close to equilibrium levels. So when are exchange rates at equilibrium levels? Real Exchange Rates for the Year 2000 discusses the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate (FEER) method and estimates FEERS for...

Managing the world economy

The Group of Seven major industrial democracies, at their Naples summit in July 1994, decided to consider "What framework of institutions will be required to meet the challenges of the 21st century?" and "How can we adapt existing institutions and build new institutions to ensure the future prosp...

Food regulation and trade

Guarding the safety of a nation's food supply, ensuring quality, and providing information to consumers so that they can make informed food purchase choices are widely accepted as universal obligations of governments. But differences in the way that governments fulfill these obligations can lead ...

Is the u.s. trade deficit sustainable?

The global financial crisis of 1997-98 and the widening US trade deficit have precipitated fresh inquiry into a set of perennial questions about global integration and the US economy. How has global integration affected US producers and workers, and overall growth and inflation? Is a chronic and ...

Dollar adjustment

Building on the scholarship of Dollar Overvaluation and the World Economy (2003), this book assesses the progress that has been made to date in correcting the sizable misalignments of key national currencies that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book examines whether a dollar decl...

Reforming opic for the 21st century

What is the role of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in relation to private sector political risk insurers and financial institutions supporting the flow of foreign direct investment to emerging markets? This study provides an assessment of OPIC's various missions as a promoter of deve...

Witness to transformation

Despite its nuclear capability, in certain respects North Korea resembles a failed state sitting uneasily atop a shifting internal foundation. This instability is due in part to the devastating famine of the 1990s and the state's inability to fulfill the economic obligations that it had assumed, ...

The new politics of american trade

Imports pour into the United States, up by 79 percent in six years. The trade deficit more than doubles. The House of Representatives solidly rejects a bill that would liberalize global and regional trade and endorses import quotas for a major manufactured product by a two-to-one margin. Although...

Sustaining the asia pacific miracle

Asia Pacific countries have experienced extraordinary economic growth in recent years. But the region also suffers from choking air pollution, fouled water, ravaged forests, depleted fisheries, and other environmental problems.Eager to promote further growth, governments in the region have embark...