On September 16, Global Trade Alert published a report on discrimination against commercial interests worldwide.
A September 15 report from Public Citizen is highly critical of bilateral free trade agreements. It says that exports have grown more with countries that we do not have such agreements with.
In a September 14 commentary, Morgan Stanley economist Richard Berner explained why he thinks net exports will become a significant driver of U.S. growth in the near future. He thinks imports will moderate while exports pick up.
On September 13, the International Monetary Fund released a study of the impact of lobbying on U.S. trade policy.
In a September 5 commentary, Brookings Institution economists Bruce Katz and Jonathan Rothwell dispelled five myths about exports.
In a September 2 commentary, economist Richard Baldwin addressed the growth of regional free trade agreements. While viewing them more as challenges than threats to the world trading system, they are clearly inferior to multilateral trade agreements, he says.
Also on September 2, the U.S. International Trade Commission published a report on shifts in merchandise trade in 2009.
On August 30, the ITC issued a report on trade within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
On August 27, some World Bank economists posted an analysis of the decline international trade during the recent economic downturn. They find that it was largely due to a fall in the prices of traded goods rather than a fall in the volume of trade.
In an August 23 post, Harvard economist Jeff Frankel criticized the use of export controls on grain in order to reduce food prices for domestic consumers.
In an August 17 commentary, Peterson Institute economists Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Robert Z. Lawrence discussed ways of bring the Doha Round of trade talks to a successful close. They believe that small compromises would be sufficient to achieve a worthwhile deal.
I last posted items on this topic on July 19.
Bruce Bartlett is an American historian and columnist who focuses on the intersection between politics and economics. He blogs daily and writes a weekly column at The Fiscal Times. Read his most recent column here. Bartlett has written for Forbes Magazine and Creators Syndicate, and his work is informed by many years in government, including as a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House. He is the author of seven books including the New York Times best-seller, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006).
