This study will test the hypothesis that an incentive-based policy is more effective in promoting market economies and democratic politics than an approach in which Washington relies on the ostensibly transformative effects of civil society, regime change in Iraq, regional peace, or the willingness of Arab leaders to pursue reform.

This roundtable series brings together policymakers, scholars, and journalists to explore current policy challenges that have both economic and national security dimensions.

This roundtable series examines the prospects for regional monetary integration and other developments likely to affect the organization and functioning of the international monetary system.

This monthly speaker series brings the world's foremost economic policymakers and scholars to address a high-level audience from the business and financial community on current topics in international economics, such as outsourcing, monetary policy, and competition policy.

This meeting series is sponsored by the Corporate Program and the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies.

Connections between climate change and national security are receiving unprecedented attention from policymakers and analysts. In March 2007, Senators Richard Durbin and Chuck Hagel introduced a bill requesting that the National Intelligence Council draft a National Intelligence Estimate to assess the security implications of climate change. In April 2007, the CNA Corporation released a report overseen by retired generals that documents the links between climate and national security. The British government initiated a similar discussion in the United Nations Security Council in the same month.

This Council Special Report (CSR) will move the discussion from broad assessments of the links between climate and security to a plan for action. It will examine whether climate change poses a direct security threat to the United States, and will identify the security assets that will be affected by climate change. Finally, it will outline the policies that the United States should adopt to protect critical infrastructure, and military bases from these effects.

In the past three years, many countries have adopted or expanded regimes to review inward foreign direct investment (FDI) for either “national” or “economic” security purposes. The U.S. Congress recently passed legislation reforming the Committee on Foreign Direct Investment with the United States, which is charged with reviewing the security risk posed by inbound investments. France has adopted a new regulation requiring reviews of foreign investments (excluding EU investments) in nineteen sectors of their economy. Russia is close to adopting a law, modeled largely on the CFIUS process, requiring reviews in thirty-nine sectors.  China has adopted a regulation allowing the government to block investments that harm “economic security,” and Korea and Canada are debating new restrictions.

State-owned multinationals are increasingly prominent, especially in developing countries. In 2005, twenty-four of the top 100 multinationals headquartered in developing countries were majority state-owned.   Of particular note is the rising number and size of developed-country firms being acquired by developing-country sovereign funds of central banks and/or fiscal authorities. The recent Chinese investment in the U.S. private-equity firm Blackstone is one notable example.

This CSR will examine the scope, nature, causes, and consequences of rising restrictions to inward FDI around the world. It will discuss what best practices and principles should guide governments in formulating and implementing policies to govern national security reviews of FDI inflows, including how to prevent legitimate national security reviews from becoming tools for economic protectionism.  It will also consider what should be the policy responses from advanced countries and important leadership groups, such as the G-8, APEC, and the OECD, to the emergence of new FDI restrictions. The recommendations will also cover ways to avoid actions in the United States being used as justification for other countries to restrict foreign investment. 

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.

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.

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 how 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.

This roundtable series brings together policymakers, scholars, and journalists to explore current policy challenges that have both economic and national security dimensions.

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.

This meeting series is designed to bring Council members together in a small seminar environment to discuss new and innovative thinking at the intersection of economics and foreign policy.

This roundtable series is made possible by the generous support of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Cosponsored with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Macroeconomic Advisers

Georgetown University Conference Center

Part of CFR's Renewing America initiative and made possible by the generosity of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, this roundtable series brings high-level attention to issues that affect the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. Meetings have addressed issues such as reform of the U.S. corporate tax system, the effectiveness of the WTO dispute settlement process, and the U.S. approach to inward and outbound foreign investment.

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.

This project will result in a pamphlet examining current immigration reform attempts in the context of past immigration law reform.

This project will result in a book analyzing how the U.S. ought to manage immigration, taking into account policies, sociology, economics, and international relations. He calls for a benign attitude toward illegal immigration, even in the wake of September 11.

This quarterly meetings series brings together major U.S. and foreign policymakers, business leaders, and independent commentators to discuss and debate current issues in international economics, such as global energy markets, tax policy, global demographic change, and securities regulation.

This meeting series is sponsored by the Corporate Program and the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies.