questions on trade:
what significance to we attribute to the fact that a given country
consistently runs a trade deficit? a surplus?
at bretton woods, keynes proposed that international trade be managed
so that no country ran a consistent (global) surplus or deficit, and
that in the event of an imbalance, the onus would fall equally on the
surplus and the deficit countries to remove the imbalance. The US (at
the time, running a large surplus) rejected the proposal of Keynes
(representing Britain, running a large deficit). do pen-lers support
Keynes' proposal today? what would it solve/leave unsolved?
what is the difference between an import and an export? that is, in
what way are imports and exports symmetric in their economic effects,
in what ways fundamentally different?
these questions, particularly the last one, are motivated by my
current readings in the relatively-more-honest pro-NAFTA literature,
particularly R. Hinojosa's pro-NAFTA study, wherein it is argued, to
use Charles II's phrase, that imports and exports are "clean different
things."
___________________________________
Robert Naiman
1821 W. Cullerton
Chicago Il 60608-2716
(h) 312-421-1776 (here there is voice mail)
Urban Planning and Policy (M/C 348)
1007 W. Harrison Room 1180
Chicago, Il 60607-7137
(o) 312-996-2126 (here there is voice mail also)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://icarus.uic.edu/~rnaima1/
