The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan—and the United States—in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout. Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade. In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction—economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

The contributions in this book provide a unique view of its emergence and growth in a number of different national settings in an area of the Third World where the industry is most advanced. In The Political Economy of Japanese Monetary Policy, Cargill, Hutchison, and Ito investigate the formulation and execution of monetary and financial policies in Japan within a broad technical, political, and institutional context.Their emphasis is on the period since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, and on the effects of policies and institutions in shaping the modern Japanese economy. The authors present basic themes and recent developments, as well as their own research findings.They also review and integrate the large literature in the area. They consider theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for each topic discussed. Topics covered include Japan's low inflation record (despite the central bank's lack of formal independence from the government); politically motivated business cycles and the timing of elections; exchange rate policy and international policy coordination; the historical development of central banking; Japan's "bubble economy" of the 1980s; and the causes, magnitude, and regulatory responses to Japan's banking and financial crisis of the 1990s.

East Asian countries are now pursuing greater formal economic institutionalization, weaving a web of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade agreements. Scholarly analysis of “formal” East Asian regionalism focuses on international political and economic factors such as the end of the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, or the rising Sino-Japanese rivalry. Yet this work pays inadequate attention to the strategies of individual government agencies, business groups, labor unions, and NGOs across the region. Moreover, most studies also fail to adequately characterize different types of trade arrangements, often lumping together bilateral accords with minilateral ones, and transregional agreements with those within the region. To fully understand this cross-national variance, this book argues that researchers must give greater attention to the domestic politics within East Asian countries and the U.S., involving the interplay of these subnational players. With contributions from leading country and regional trade specialists, this book examines East Asian and American trade strategies through the lens of a domestic bargaining game approach with a focus on the interplay of interests, ideas, and domestic institutions within the context of broader international shifts. With respect to domestic politics, the chapters show how subnational actors engage in lobbying, both of their own governments and through their links to others in the region. They also trace the evolution of interests and ideas over time, helping us to generate a better understanding of historical trends in the region. In addition to scholars of East Asian and comparative regionalism, this book will be of interest to policy-makers concerned with international trade and U.S.-Asia relations, and those interested in understanding the rich trade institutional landscape that we see emerging in the Asia-Pacific.

The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Theory, Evidence and Applications is a collection of sole-authored and co-authored papers by Devashish Mitra that have been published in various scholarly journals over the last two decades. It covers diverse topics in the political economy of trade policy, ranging from the role of modeling lobby formation in the context of trade policy determination to its applications to the question of unilateralism versus reciprocity and trade agreements. It also includes the theory and the empirics of the choice of policy instruments. Finally, the book presents the empirical investigation of the Grossman-Helpman “Protection for Sale” model as well as the Mayer “Median-Voter” model of trade policy determination.

This collection of papers by former students and colleagues celebrates the profound impact that Jagdish Bhagwati has had on the field of international economics over the past three decades. Bhagwati, who is the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics at Columbia University, has made pathbreaking contributions to the theory of international trade and commercial policy, including immiserizing growth, domestic distortions, economic development, and political economy. His success and influence as a teacher and mentor is widely recognized among students at both MIT and Columbia, and as founder of the Journal of International Economics, he has encouraged research on many questions of theoretical and policy relevance. The political economy of trade policy, Bhagwati's most recent area of interest, is the theme of this collection which addresses salient topics including market distortions, income distribution, and the political process of policy-making. Sections and Contributors Market Distortions, T. N. Srinivasan. Paul A. Samuelson. Paul R. Krugman * Trade and Income Distribution, Douglas A. Irwin. Richard A. Brecher and Ehsan U. Choudri. Robert C. Feenstra and Gordon H. Hanson. Earl L. Grinols * Perspectives on Political Economy, Robert E. Baldwin. Peter Diamond * Models of Political Economy and Trade, Gene M. Grossman and Elhana Helpman. John Douglas Wilson. B. Peter Rosendorff. Arvind Panagariya and Ronald Findlay

With little domestic fanfare and even less attention internationally, Japan has been reinventing itself since the 1990s, dramatically changing its political economy, from one managed by regulations to one with a neoliberal orientation. Rebuilding from the economic misfortunes of its recent past, the country retains a formidable economy and its political system is healthier than at any time in its history. Japan Transformed explores the historical, political, and economic forces that led to the country's recent evolution, and looks at the consequences for Japan's citizens and global neighbors. The book examines Japanese history, illustrating the country's multiple transformations over the centuries, and then focuses on the critical and inexorable advance of economic globalization. It describes how global economic integration and urbanization destabilized Japan's postwar policy coalition, undercut the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's ability to buy votes, and paved the way for new electoral rules that emphasized competing visions of the public good. In contrast to the previous system that pitted candidates from the same party against each other, the new rules tether policymaking to the vast swath of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. Regardless of ruling party, Japan's politics, economics, and foreign policy are on a neoliberal path. Japan Transformed combines broad context and comparative analysis to provide an accurate understanding of Japan's past, present, and future.

Explores the politics and economics of the Abe government and evaluates major policies, such as Abenomics policy reforms.