This article shows the equivalence between tariffs on international trade and income taxation. Traditionally, income taxes have been seen as lowering society's output through the household's labor-leisure trade-off. Income taxes also reduce the degree to which individuals specialize in market...

David M. Gould, Roy J. Ruffin, and Graeme L. Woodbridge argue that free trade is supported both by economic principles and evidence from countries that have followed open market policies. The authors demonstrate that the countries whose markets are the most open have higher real output and...

David M. Gould argues that free trade agreements can help developing countries establish the credibility essential to successful trade reform. Credibility, he explains, is necessary if trade reform policies are to entice investment into the economic sectors where the liberalizing country has its...

Does increased investment in education enhance long-run economic growth, or does it simply reduce current consumption? Will free trade stimulate growth, or will it merely increase imports? ; For a long time, economists relied on an economic growth theory that offered little scope for...

According to conventional wisdom, trade balances reflect a country's competitive strength-the lower the trade deficit, the stronger the country's industries and the higher its rate of economic growth. In this article, David Gould and Roy Ruffin review the history of the conventional wisdom and...

Mexico's most recent economic crisis took many in the international business community by surprise. In early December 1994, the Blue Chip consensus forecast for 1995 Mexican real GDP growth was 3.8 percent. A few weeks later, on December 20, the devaluation of the Mexican peso rocked...

Many economists agree that a country's rate of saving can be a key factor in the growth rate and living standards the country achieves. Analysts are less certain about which factors have positive and negative influences on saving, what role government should have in creating a better environment...

The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is the first agreement of its kind that reduces or eliminates tariffs on many goods and addresses issues related to intellectual property rights, trade in services and agricultural subsidies. With good reason, it has...

The controversy over the success or failure of NAFTA is now bleeding over into discussion about the benefits of extending the trade accord to other countries in the Western Hemisphere. The NAFTA debate has typically focused on its impact on employment. But to understand the overall economic...