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"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.
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