A new look at US trade and employment data shows why it's wrong to believe that foreign competition accounts for weak job growth since 2000.

Editor's Note: a topical article, but the economic analysis provided is interesting and of value for other countries and times...

Pose the question to any audience, "How many here favor free trade and how many support protectionism or managed trade?" Inevitably, an overwhelming majority of hands are raised for free trade.

In the leading academic centers and think tanks, as well as in most of the press and major business organizations, the need for freer trade is constantly enjoined. And yet....

Editor's Note: this article was written in 1991 and it shows in spots (e.g., talk about establishing a WTO) but its discussion of managed versus free trade is still mostly valid and a good read...

Removing tariffs is easy. Breaking down social barriers to trade is hard.

To judge by the example of Canada, which began an experiment in free trade with the United States in 1989, the proposed U.S. free-trade agreement with Mexico is a threat to the social comity on which prosperity depends.

Editor's Note: this was written back in 1992 but the analysis it provides is really interesting and of long-lasting value when evaluating free trade concepts (thanks to FinanceProfessor.com for alerting me to this article).

The financial crisis of 1997-98 hit the East Asia and Asia Pacific area hard, especially the primary regional organisations ASEAN and APEC. Perhaps down, but not quite out, a new regional group called ASEAN Plus Three (APT) emerged. Will it succeed where the others have failed? Professor Douglas Webber examines the strengths and weaknesses of these organisations. He also shows how several of the factors that contributed to the decline of the first two are responsible for the growth of the third.

The legality of trademark protection in gray markets is determined by the principles of: universality, exhaustion and territoriality. Recent cases involving the Tariff, Lanham, and Copyright Acts have restricted the level of legal recourse where parallel imports jeopardize the trademark holder's investment and/or create confusion amongst the consumers. The landmark 1998 L'Anza Supreme Court decision clearly sends a message to trademark owners that legislative protection has been severely limited. The case opened the US market to greater importation of gray goods. This study also has important implications for marketing managers which include:

(1) competition from parallel imports will inevitably test trademarked products in profitable markets with "free-rider" potential;
(2) marketers understanding the law, and willing to devise proactive international strategy, may still find limited protection under the Tariff, Lanham and Copyright Act;
(3) a combination of legal and nonlegal measures may provide the best overall protection;
(4) failure to address gray market activities can erode trademark image and destroy marketing strategies.

Marketers may be best served by minimizing the conditions which create gray markets or looking for nonlegal response alternatives. Proactive strategies, such as the ones described in this article, to limit the opportunities for gray markets could prove the most viable alternatives for trademark protection.

Abstract: The Internet stimulates trade. Using a gravity equation of trade among 56 countries, we find no evidence of an effect of the Internet on total trade flows in 1995 and only weak evidence of an effect in 1996. However, we find an increasing and significant impact from 1997 to 1999. Specifically, our results imply that a 10 percent increase in the relative number of web hosts in one country would have led to about 1 percent greater trade in 1998 and 1999. Surprisingly, we find that the effect of the Internet on trade has been stronger for poor countries than for rich countries, and that there is little evidence that the Internet has reduced the impact of distance on trade. The evidence is consistent with a model in which the Internet creates a global exchange for goods, thereby reducing market-specific sunk costs of exporting.

Because of its ability to link people around the world, the Internet is causing a global logistics transformation. Moving goods and dealing with customs and tariffs is still hard, but software automation and supply-chain suites are starting to help the process.