Taiwan has a special status for the United States, as both a leading high-technology economic partner and a place of political and security concern. The authors look at both the quantitative and qualitative evidence on the potential effects of a US-Taiwan free trade agreement (FTA), both for maximizing US economic benefits and for securing a prosperous and secure future for Taiwan. Their analysis indicates that the direct economic benefits of a prospective FTA would be modest and that the FTA could be most valuable to the United States if it leads Taiwan toward greater regional integration.

Today's North Korean regime embodies elements of both communism and Confucian dynasty, is sovereign with respect to only part of the divided Korean nation, is vulnerable to pressure from external powers, and confronts incipient internal demands for change, yielding an unusually broad set of possible transition paths and successor regimes. Such paths range from maintenance of the status quo to evolution, probably toward a more conventional form of military authoritarianism, to revolutionary upheaval, the latter in all likelihood implying the North's collapse and its absorption into the rival...

The mainstay of federal business taxation, the US corporate income tax, is riddled with distortions and inequities. As a means of taxing the richest Americans--a popular goal--the corporate income tax is a hopeless failure. Many companies pay no corporate tax, and among those that do, the burden is highly uneven. Meanwhile, the richest Americans command income from numerous sources besides corporate dividends. The distortions and inequities are amazing. Under pressure from business lobbies, Congress legislates deductions and exemptions that twist the corporate tax base far from any plausible...

At first sight, a free trade agreement (FTA) between Switzerland and the United States seems implausible, but this important new study concludes that an FTA between the two countries would be highly worthwhile to both. As leading advocates of market capitalism, Switzerland and the United States are well situated to conclude an FTA that breaks new ground in dismantling barriers. The study finds that the annual GDP gains to each partner from expanded trade could be on the order of $1.1 billion.

Since its accession to the WTO, China has become the United States' third-largest trading partner and the sixth-largest market for US exports. Between 2000 and 2005, US imports from China rose from $100 billion to $243 billion, while US exports to China climbed from $16 billion to $42 billion. As China continues its rise as a great power, The United States Congress and the administration wrestle with one another over the proper tactics and strategies to shape US-China economic relations. What major disputes now, and looming on the horizon, will shape future US-China relations; and what can be...

Would a free trade agreement (FTA) between the nations of the Middle East and the United States be beneficial to both sides? Robert Lawrence provides an analysis that incorporates both economic and political considerations. He documents the scope for enhancing the trade linkages, domestic governance and regional trade of Arab countries. He evaluates the US strategy in negotiating bilateral agreements and reviews in considerable detail the specific agreements that have been negotiated so far and the challenges still to meet if a single overarching arrangement is to be implemented. Lawrence...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in eclipse as the preeminent institution promoting international economic and financial stability. Successful reform of the IMF must engage the full spectrum of its members. The IMF should not focus primarily on its low-income members and the challenges of global poverty nor should it focus exclusively on international financial crises affecting a small group of vulnerable emerging-market economies. Instead, it must be engaged with each of its members potentially on the full range of their economic and financial policies and play a central role in...

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. Would a free trade agreement (FTA) with the country be beneficial both economically and politically to the United States? What kind of benefit could Indonesia expect? This book presents a case for improved trade relations between Indonesia and the United States and recommends advancing exploratory talks toward a US-Indonesia FTA. The authors present a detailed study of the stakes involved in the various areas of the proposed negotiation and estimate the FTA's potential for trade creation, trade diversion, and welfare under different...

International trade accounts for only a small share of growing income inequality and labor-market displacement in the United States. Lawrence deconstructs the gap in real blue-collar wages and labor productivity growth between 1981 and 2006 and estimates how much higher these wages might have been had income growth been distributed proportionately and how much of the gap is due to measurement and technical factors about which little can be done.

While increased trade with developing countries may have played some part in causing greater inequality in the 1980s, surprisingly, over the past...

The dispute over Chinese exchange rate policy within the United States has generated a series of legislative proposals to restrict the discretion of the US Treasury Department in determining currency manipulation and to reform the department's accountability to the Congress. This study reviews the Treasury's reports to the Congress on exchange rate policy--introduced by the 1988 trade act--and Congress's treatment of them. It finds that the accountability process has often not worked well in practice: The coverage of the reports has sometimes been incomplete and not provided a sufficient...