A Trading Nation

Canada has always been a trading nation. From the early days of fur and fish to the present, when a remarkable 90 percent of the gross national product is attributable to exports and imports, Canadians have relied on international trade to bolster their economy. A Trading Nation, a brilliantly crafted overview and analysis of the historical foundations of modern Canadian trade policy, is the first survey to address the history of Canadian commercial policy in over 50 years. Michael Hart skillfully guides readers through more than three centuries of Canadian trade history. His engaging narrative explains how Canadians have largely come to accept that a country that derives much of its wealth from international commerce has much to gain from an open, well-ordered international economy. Close attention to trade and related economic policy choices, he argues, is crucial if Canada intends to adapt to the challenges of the new globalized economy.

The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan—and the United States—in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout. Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade. In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction—economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

From wool and gold to minerals and manufacturing, Trading Nation reviews the history of Australia’s trade and trade policy since Federation. The book tackles a number of key questions which are central to the nation’s future. What is the future of our trade in minerals, agriculture, manufacturing and services? How can trade policy help address our faltering productivity? Is the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations dead and, if not, what can be done to conclude it? What can we expect from new free trade agreements? Is there more we could be doing in trade policy with Europe, India and Latin America? This comprehensive book also looks ahead at the options for Australia’s future trade and trade policy.

Ralph Gomory and William Baumol adapt classical trade models to the modern world economy. In this book Ralph Gomory and William Baumol adapt classical trade models to the modern world economy. Trade today is dominated by manufactured goods, rapidly moving technology, and huge firms that benefit from economies of scale. This is very different from the largely agricultural world in which the classical theories originated. Gomory and Baumol show that the new and significant conflicts resulting from international trade are inherent in modern economies.Today improvement in one country's productive capabilities is often attainable only at the expense of another country's general welfare. The authors describe why and when this is so and why, in a modern free-trade environment, a country might have a vital stake in the competitive strength of its industries.

"The author focuses on Adam Smith and his contemporaries, who pondered these issues, particularly the nature and development of commercial society. They attempted to come to terms with the claim that, on the one hand, the market was a decisive element in economic progress, and, on the other, that its workings depended upon the release of the immoral desires of fallen men and that its consequences were socially and politically destabilizing. Hont reconstructs the salient features of this controversy between the proponents of market sociability and its most trenchant critics. In doing so, he has helped to locate historically the most important arguments at the heart of the emergence of modernity."--Jacket.