Institutions and Trade Policy

This book reprints 18 essays selected from almost 30 years of work by the author as a high level official at the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the US Treasury Department and the World Bank.

These essays report some of the core analytical thinking behind positions taken by these agencies on major issues in international trade policy: e.g., the shift of view on ‘trade and development’ from the presumption that developing countries should receive ‘special and differential treatment’ to today’s view that they should aggressively exploit opportunities that international trade offers. Other essays report analytical work at the US Treasury Department on proposals in the 1970s for a ‘New International Economic Order’ – findings that supported the more conservative line that the US government eventually took, even though the Kissinger State Department urged a more accommodating line. Some essays are highly critical, e.g., of antidumping and its use by developing countries as well as by the United States, and of the GATT/WTO system itself as a template for economic policy.

Scholars and students interested in how the GATT/WTO works as a policy making system will find this collection revealing as will readers interested in a way to evaluate the impact of antidumping (and other ‘trade remedies’) on the national economic system and on how to construct policy mechanisms that more effectively bring the interests of all US citizens into the making of US trade policy. In addition, many of these essays are useful for courses in international economics, international relations and policy science.