Like other sciences, economics shows long periods of gradual refinement of theory and the steady accretion of empirical evidence, punctuated by the occasional sea change in world views. Thus the history of economic thought and practice reveals distinctive eras characterized by differences in...

This paper explores the implications of recent developments in firm-based trade theory and empirics for trade policy and negotiations. While traditional trade theory focused on the country, and the new trade theory of the 1980’s adopted the industry as the unit for analysis, the newest theory...

On March 2-3, 2006, a group of leading observers of the international trade and investment scene gathered in Ottawa for an informal discussion of the prospects for the Doha Development Agenda in view of the progress in negotiations made at the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade...

This paper considers the reasons why APEC's potential remains, after its first decade in existence, as yet largely unfulfilled. APEC’s progress is assessed in terms of three periods: 1989 through 1992, when it was primarily in an exploratory mode, probing for direction and ways and means for...

In this paper, we examine the proposition that Canada’s economic relationship with Asia has languished, or at least has not lived up to its potential. To do so, we draw on the conventional gravity model of international trade and investment and take advantage of the similarity between Canada...

New trade rules being implemented as part of the on-going wave of major bilateral/regional trade agreements are impacting the complex and evolving innovation ecosystem in non-neutral ways, favouring some innovation modes (such as patent-oriented research and development), but generating...

This monograph evaluates the effectiveness of Canada's policies aimed at promoting the global competitiveness of its industries in light of policies with comparable aims adopted in two other leading industrialized nations, the United Kingdom and Germany. The concept of national competitiveness...

The pervasive divergence between private and social returns due to externalities have historically led countries to underwrite industrial risk. The approaches to this have varied widely across countries as have the articulated rationales and the results have been mixed, with some successes but...