What, another paper on the new economy? When financial markets are raking through the debris of $8 trillion in lost equity value, and “.com” is a reviled four-symbol word, a paper on the impact of the new economy on productivity would seem as welcome as an analysis of the role of whales in the lighting revolution. In fact, the new economy (or, more precisely, information technologies) continues...

This paper focuses on the post-war process of creation of a global trading system and integration of world trade. As the former came into being, multilateral trade liberalization became an on-going feature of the global economy facilitating international trade, consequently importance of international trade in the global economy increased dramatically. Since the mid-1980s, mindset of policy mak...

The structure and performance of the Australian economy have been shaped profoundly by international linkages. Despite their enduring importance, however, the strength of the links between Australia and the rest of the world have varied considerably through time. The depression of the 1930s, and then World War II, saw the trade links weakened substantially. In the three and a half decades that ...

WHEN THE U.S. INVADED Iraq in March 2003, many economists feared that the war would lead to a sharp decline in Iraqi oil production, a spike in oil prices, and a woeful U.S. economy that would follow the scripts of the oil shocks of 1973, 1978, and 1990. Real oil prices did increase, indeed more than tripled, from $20 in 2001:Q4 to $62 in 2006:Q3 (in 2007 dollars). But the ailments associated w...

Several studies of the post-war American political economy find that Democratic presidents have been more successful than Republicans. Most recently, Bartels (2008) found that economic growth had been greater and that unemployment and income inequality had been lower under Democratic presidents since 1948. If true, these findings combined with the frequent success of Republicans in presidential...