Against the backdrop of a 20-year revolt against free trade orthodoxy by economists inside the UN and their impact on policy discussions since the 1960s, the authors show how the UN both nurtured and inhibited creative and novel intellectual contributions to the trade and development debate. Presenting a stirring account of the main UN actors in this debate, The UN and Global Political Economy focuses on the accomplishments and struggles of UN economists and the role played by such UN agencies as the Department of Economic (and Social) Affairs, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development, and the Economic Commission for Latin America (and the Caribbean). It also looks closely at the effects of the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the growing strength of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the 1990s, and the lessons to be drawn from these and other recent developments.
This accessible, comprehensive and pertinent Handbook will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in the fields of international politics, in particular political economy and foreign policy, and the economics of trade.¾ Practitio
The Oxford Handbook of the Political Economy of International Trade surveys the literature on the politics of international trade and highlights the most exciting recent scholarly developments. The Handbook is focused on work by political scientists that draws extensively on work in economics, but is distinctive in its applications and attention to political features; that is, it takes politics seriously. The Handbook's framework is organized in part along the traditional lines of domestic society-domestic institutions - international interaction, but elaborates this basic framework to showcase the most important new developments in our understanding of the political economy of trade. Within the field of international political economy, international trade has long been and continues to be one of the most vibrant areas of study. Drawing on models of economic interests and integrating them with political models of institutions and society, political scientists have made great strides in understanding the sources of trade policy preferences and outcomes. The 27 chapters in the Handbook include contributions from prominent scholars around the globe, and from multiple theoretical and methodological traditions. The Handbook considers the development of concepts and policies about international trade; the influence of individuals, firms, and societies; the role of domestic and international institutions; and the interaction of trade and other issues, such as monetary policy, environmental challenges, and human rights. Showcasing both established theories and findings and cutting-edge new research, the Handbook is a valuable reference for scholars of political economy.
This collection of papers by former students and colleagues celebrates the profound impact that Jagdish Bhagwati has had on the field of international economics over the past three decades. Bhagwati, who is the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics at Columbia University, has made pathbreaking contributions to the theory of international trade and commercial policy, including immiserizing growth, domestic distortions, economic development, and political economy. His success and influence as a teacher and mentor is widely recognized among students at both MIT and Columbia, and as founder of the Journal of International Economics, he has encouraged research on many questions of theoretical and policy relevance. The political economy of trade policy, Bhagwati's most recent area of interest, is the theme of this collection which addresses salient topics including market distortions, income distribution, and the political process of policy-making. Sections and Contributors Market Distortions, T. N. Srinivasan. Paul A. Samuelson. Paul R. Krugman * Trade and Income Distribution, Douglas A. Irwin. Richard A. Brecher and Ehsan U. Choudri. Robert C. Feenstra and Gordon H. Hanson. Earl L. Grinols * Perspectives on Political Economy, Robert E. Baldwin. Peter Diamond * Models of Political Economy and Trade, Gene M. Grossman and Elhana Helpman. John Douglas Wilson. B. Peter Rosendorff. Arvind Panagariya and Ronald Findlay
Deftly navigating the tensions among globalization, national sovereignty, and democracy, Straight Talk on Trade presents an indispensable commentary on today's world economy and its dilemmas, and offers a visionary framework at a critical time when it is most needed.
Industrial policy has long been regarded as a strategy to encourage sector-, industry-, or economy-wide development by the state. It has been central to competitiveness, catching up, and structural change in both advanced and developing countries. It has also been one of the most contested perspectives, reflecting ideologically inflected debates and shifts in prevailing ideas. There has lately been a renewed interest in industrial policy in academic circles and international policy dialogues, prompted by the weak outcomes of policies pursued by many developing countries under the direction of the Washington Consensus (and its descendants), the slow economic recovery of many advanced economies after the 2008 global financial crisis, and mounting anxieties about the national consequences of globalization. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy presents a comprehensive review of and a novel approach to the conceptual and theoretical foundations of industrial policy. The Handbook also presents analytical perspectives on how industrial policy connects to broader issues of development strategy, macro-economic policies, infrastructure development, human capital, and political economy. By combining historical and theoretical perspectives, and integrating conceptual issues with empirical evidence drawn from advanced, emerging, and developing countries, The Handbook offers valuable lessons and policy insights to policymakers, practitioners and researchers on developing productive transformation, technological capabilities, and international competitiveness. It addresses pressing issues including climate change, the gendered dimensions of industrial policy, global governance, and technical change. Written by leading international thinkers on the subject, the volume pulls together different perspectives and schools of thought from neo-classical to structuralist development economists to discuss and highlight the adaptation of industrial policy in an ever-changing socio-economic and political landscape.
Given the widely-accepted premise that free trade is the best means of maximising overall societal welfare, why has it proven so difficult to achieve in certain industries? This book tackles arguably the most perennial and deep-rooted of all questions in political economy, and questions the incumbent orthodox liberal theories of collective action. Using a historical institutionalist framework to explore and explain the political economy of trade protectionism and liberalization, this book is based on detailed case studies of the textiles and clothing sector in the EU, United States, China, Caribbean Basin and sub-Saharan Africa. From this, the book expands to discuss the origins of trade protectionism and examine the wider political effects of liberalization, offering an explanation of why a successful conclusion to the WTO ‘Doha’ round has proven to be so elusive. The book argues that the regulation of global trade - and the economic consequences that this has for both developed and developing countries - has been the result of the particular way in which trade preferences are mediated through political institutions. The Global Political Economy of Trade Protectionism and Liberalization will be of interest to those studying and researching international and comparative political economy, developing area studies, economics, law and geography.
Ten original essays examine the political and institutional factors that influence the initiation and efficiency of preferential credit policies in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil.
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.
