(June 11, 2016) I recently visited Algeria and Morocco. Like so many other developing countries, they are dealing with the sharp decline in global commodity prices that has taken place over the last few years. In meetings in Algiers and Casablanca, I offered four concrete ideas for policies to help commodity-exporting countries deal with global price volatility.
(May 20, 2016) The ITC Wednesday released its mandated report on the economic effects estimated to result from the TransPacific Partnership. As is usual in standard trade models, the estimated welfare gains may sound small: on the order of ¼ % of income. But that would still be way worth doing. Furthermore the ITC study, by design, leaves out a lot. For example, the Petri-Plummer study from the Peterson Institute estimates income gains from TPP that are twice as large, in part because it takes into account Melitz-style opportunities for more productive firms to expand.