Is the U.S. Trade Deficit Sustainable? - Paperback

by Catherine Mann (Author)

The global financial crisis of 1997-98 and the widening US trade deficit have precipitated fresh inquiry into a set of perennial questions about global integration and the US economy. How has global integration affected US producers and workers, and overall growth and inflation? Is a chronic and widening deficit sustainable, or will the dollar crash, perhaps taking the economy with it? If the problem was one of "twin deficits," as many thought, why has the trade deficit continued to grow even as the budget deficit narrowed to zero? If US companies are so competitive, why does the trade deficit persist? Is the trade deficit a result of protectionism abroad? Will it lead to protectionism at home? What role do international capital markets have?

Author Biography

Catherine Mann was a senior fellow who is now the Chief Economist at the OECD, where she also heads up the Economics Directorate. She was most recently the Barbara '54 and Richard M. Rosenberg Professor of Global Finance at the International Business School, Brandeis University, where she also directed the Rosenberg Institute of Global Finance. She joins the OECD after 7 years at Brandeis and following 20-plus years in Washington, DC.