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Below you will find a chronological list of current Center research projects. You can search by issue or region by selecting the appropriate category. In addition to this sorting control, you can search for specific subjects within the alphabetical, regional, and issue categories by choosing from the selections in the drop-down menu below.
Each project page contains the name of the project director, a description of the project, a list of meetings it has held, and any related publications, transcripts, or videos.
January 2006—January 2007
| Director: | Douglas Holtz-Eakin |
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This roundtable series brings together policymakers, scholars, and journalists to explore current policy challenges that have both economic and national security dimensions.
January 2006—April 2007
| Staff: | Sebastian Mallaby, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics |
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| Author: | Gordon H. Hanson, Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego |
Immigration is a toxic political issue in the United States. This report by University of California, San Diego Professor Gordon Hanson indicates that the economic costs of illegal immigration roughly match the economic benefits. That is, the net economic impact of illegal immigration is close to zero. Thus, the political debate must revolve around other sources of costs, or efforts to curb illegal immigration, such as increased border enforcement, would result in a net loss to the U.S.economy. He also finds that illegal immigration provides a labor supply that more closely tracks shifts in the need for labor across time and geography, while legal immigration—even when temporary—cannot keep up with these cyclical shifts. Any policy aimed at addressing the demand for low-skilled labor must also address the need for flexibility.
June 2006—May 2007
| Author: | Peter B. Kenen, Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics |
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In April 2006, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund made a set of proposals aimed at enhancing the legitimacy and efficiency of the Fund and involving it more directly in the resolution of large imbalances involving the major economies. Some of his proposals were endorsed at the 2006 Annual Meetings of the Fund, and others are being implemented by the Fund's Executive Board. The most important reforms involve a redistribution of IMF quotas, which determine, among other things, voting power in the Fund. This Council Special Report provides a brief history of the Fund, stressing the changes that have occurred as a great many developing countries, large and small, have joined the Fund. It strongly endorses most of the Managing Director's proposals, although it criticizes others, including the way that the Managing Director would have the Fund involve itself in resolving major international financial imbalances. It argues that the United States should strongly support measures to enhance the legitimacy of the IMF, because the United States cannot readily accomplish unilaterally what the Fund can accomplish multilaterally.
May 2006—September 2007
| Staff: | Sebastian Mallaby, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics |
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| Author: | Robert J. LaLonde, Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago |
Professor Robert J. Lalonde, professor of economics at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, is writing a Council Special Report on job displacement and the experienced worker. In this report, Professor LaLonde examines evidence on the causes of job loss, both through trade, technological change, and other factors, and suggests policies for aiding workers most harmed by job displacement—long-tenured, displaced workers. The report outlines the merits of a wage insurance program that would supplement the earnings of long-tenured workers displaced by international trade and other factors. The report contends that without policies to aid the workers most adversely affected by job loss, public support for further economic liberalization will likely diminish.
March 2006—November 2006
| Director: | Douglas Holtz-Eakin |
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| Author: | Keith E. Maskus, Stanford Calderwood Professor of Economics, University of Colorado |
This report evaluates the effectiveness of the U.S. intellectual property regime in encouraging innovation and discusses the U.S. push to harmonize intellectual property standards with its trading partners. Professor Maskus argues that the intellectual property system is so skewed toward patent holders that it actually discourages innovation, and that the aggressive drive toward harmonization with other countries should be replaced by an emphasis on the enforcement of existing standards.
May 2006—March 2007
| Staff: | Sebastian Mallaby, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics |
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| Author: | Robert Z. Lawrence, Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University |
The Doha negotiations have stalled since last summer, and, as the November elections in the United States highlighted, American advocates of economic nationalism are growing in strength. Nevertheless, Robert Lawrence makes a case for the effectiveness of the World Trade Organization (WTO), particularly its dispute settlement system, and the benefits that would accrue to the United States and others from improving its effectiveness. These benefits include expanding world trade and increasing support for an often beleaguered organization that is central to the conduct of world trade.
In this Council Special Report, Professor Lawrence addresses the critics of the dispute settlement mechanism—both those who think it should be tougher on countries that violate trade rules and those who think it is already so tough as to violate sovereignty. He points out the successes of the WTO since its creation in 1995 and argues that radical changes to the system are ill-advised. Lawrence nonetheless suggests several areas for reform, from steps that require multilateral negotiations, such as improving opportunities for nonstate actor participation in and enhancing transparency of the process, to changes the United States could make in its own behavior.
Part of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Series on American Competitiveness.
September 7, 2006—September 7, 2006
Cosponsored with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Macroeconomic Advisers
Georgetown University Conference Center
April 1, 2006—Present
| Director: | Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow |
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Made possible by the generosity of Bernard L. Schwartz, this roundtable series explores issues that affect the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. Meetings have addressed issues such as the sustainability of the U.S. current account deficit, the effectiveness of the WTO dispute settlement process, and intellectual property rights.
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In Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, the authors present a fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present and explore why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
In Regional Monetary Integration, Peter B. Kenen poses an important question: Should various country groups follow the lead of the European Monetary Union and form similar full-fledged monetary unions?
In contrast to conventional wisdom, the growth in government spending and heightened regulation during the Great Depression may have done much to slow economic recovery.
In this report, Benn Steil shows that the financial crisis is the inevitable bust of a classic credit boom, and explains how monetary, taxation, and home ownership promotion policy combined with other feaures of the financial system to fuel an unsustainable buildup in debt. He recommends significant reforms to reverse the debt financing bias and make the system more resilient to falls in asset prices.
In order for policymakers to tackle today’s global economic crisis, this report argues, they must go beyond bailouts and stimulus packages and focus on one of the crisis's root causes: imbalances between savings and investment in major countries.
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