"As a territory of the United States, Puerto Rico enjoys the benefits of key U.S. legal, monetary, security, and tariff systems, and its residents are U.S. citizens. In the decades following World War II, Puerto Rico emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing economies. From 1950 to 1970 per capita income nearly doubled as a percentage of the U.S. average, making the island the richest economy in Latin America. Since the mid-1970s, however, labor force attachment has declined, economic growth has slowed, and the island's living standards have fallen further behind those on the mainland. Today more than half of all Puerto Rican children live below the U.S. poverty level. Why did Puerto Rico's economic progress stall? And more important, what can be done to restore growth? A number of overlapping concerns-labor supply and demand, entrepreneurship, the fiscal situation, financial markets, and trade--are at the heart of its economic difficulties. This is a companion volume to Restoring Growth: The Economy of Puerto Rico (Brookings, 2006), in which economists from Puerto Rico and the United States examine the island's economy and propose strategies for sustainable growth. This monograph summarizes the analyses published in that volume and presents a set of policy recommendations to increase employment, improve education, upgrade infrastructure, and fix government finances. Contributors include James Alm (Georgia State University), Barry P. Bosworth and Gary Burtless (Brookings Institution), Susan M. Collins (Brookings Institution and Georgetown University), Steven J. Davis (University of Chicago), Maria E. Enchautegui, Juan Lara, Luis A. Rivera- Batiz, and Orlando Sotomayor (University of Puerto Rico), Richard B. Freeman and Robert Z. Lawrence (Harvard University), Helen F. Ladd (Duke University), Rita Maldonado-Bear and Ingo Walter (New York University), Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz (Columbia University), and Miguel A. Soto-Class (Center for the New Economy). "

Will technological improvement and growth in the rest of the world cause a decline in American living standards? Can government policy in Japan and Western Europe limit the availability of high- wage jobs in America? Does expanding trade with Mexico and other developing countries with large numbers of inexpensive workers imply a continuing decline in wages for low-skilled American workers? These questions express a widespread concern about potential negative effects of import competition on domestic labor markets, but ignore potential gains to U.S. workers from exports abroad. Through U.S. exports, the rest of the world is an increasingly large indirect employer of U.S. workers, and through imports, foreign labor is an increasingly important potential substitute for U.S. workers. Bringing together the often diverse perspectives of international economists, labor economists, and policymakers, this volume analyzes how international trade affects the level and distribution of wages and employment in the United States, examines the need for government intervention, and evaluates policy options. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University and American Enterprise Institute; J. Bradford De Long, U.S. Department of the Treasury and University of California, Berkeley; I. M. Destler, University of Maryland and Institute for International Economics; Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University and London School of Economics; Louis Jacobson, WESTAT; Lori G. Kletzer, University of California, Santa Cruz; Edward Leamer, University of California, Los Angeles; Michael Piore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ana Revenga and Claudio Montenegro, The World Bank; Jeffrey D. Sachs and Howard Shatz, Harvard University.

The Uruguay Round trade agreement, recently ratified by Congress, was the eighth in a series of negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Like the ratification proceddings, the negotiations were both contentious and extended. In the end, they substantially changed the structure of the GATT. From its traditional emphasis on reducing formal barriers to trade in goods, the GATT has now moved to a broader agenda of issues that will dominate in a more integrated world economy. The new GATT encompasses a set of agreements governing trade in goods, trade in services, the protection of intellectual property rights, and new procedures for resolving trade disputes. All of these measures are to be unified under a new institutional structure, the World Trade Organization. In this book, the major features of the new GATT are reviewed and assessed in terms of their implications for the United States. The contributors are Alan Deardorff, University of Michigan; Bernard Hoekman, the World Bank; John Jackson, University of Michigan School of Law; and Tim Josling, Food Research Institute, Stanford University. Susan M. Collins is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at Brookings and associate professor of economics at Georgetown University. Barry P. Bosworth, a senior fellow at Brookings, is the editor and author of numerous Brookings books, including The Chilean Economy: Policy Lessons and Challenges (Brookings, 1994) and Saving and Investment in a Global Economy (Brookings, 1993).

The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was expected to signal the beginning of a new era of close co-operation between Mexico and the United States. Subsequent events, however, have introduced new tensions into the relationship. The 1995 economic collapse in Mexico sharply curtailed economic growth and lowered the demand for U.S. exports. The result has been a substantial deficit in U.S. trade with Mexico and renewed arguments that trade with Mexico reduces the employment opportunities of low-skilled workers in the United States. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has grown as a subject of contention between the two countries. Mexico has also come under increased focus as a conduit for the flow of drugs into the United States. In this book, scholars from the United States and Mexico examine the major elements of the bilateral relationship. The economic dimension is highlighted in two papers that focus on the effects of NAFTA on trade and financial transactions. The political and social dimensions are taken up in three papers on immigration, drug trafficking, and environmental concerns. The contributors include J. Enrique Espinosa and Pedro Noyola, SAI Consultores, Mexico; John Williamson, Institute for International Economics; Juan Carlos Belausteguigoitia, Ministry of the Environment, Mexico; Peter Smith, University of California, San Diego; and George Borjas, Harvard University.