Robert E. Litan – författare

International accounting standards tend to converge, as do auditing, enforcement, and corporate governance, whereas trading of equity shares remains essentially national. The book provides a thorough analysis of what information investors really need, how financial accounting systems developed and their current requirements in major commercial countries, and examines current issues, particularly the benefits and costs a single or multiple accounting standards, the bases for accounting standards, and limitations to accounting disclosure in financial statements.

As trade flows expanded and trade agreements proliferated after World War II, governments—most notably the United States—came increasingly to use their power over imports and exports to influence the behavior of other countries. But trade is not the only way in which nations interact economically. Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders. Nearly $2 trillion worth of currency now moves cross-border every day, roughly 90 percent of which is accounted for by financial flows unrelated to trade in goods and services—a stunning inversion of the figures in 1970. The time is ripe to ask fundamental questions about what Benn Steil and Robert Litan have coined as “financial statecraft,” or those aspects of economic statecraft directed at influencing international capital flows. How precisely has the American government practiced financial statecraft? How effective have these efforts been? And how can they be made more effective? The authors provide penetrating and incisive answers in this timely and stimulating book.

From two of the nation's leading economic thinkers, a concrete action plan to reignite the power of the U.S. economic systemIn the wake of the Great Recession and America's listless recovery from it, economists, policymakers, and media pundits have argued at length about what has gone wrong with the American capitalist system. Even so, few constructive remedies have emerged. This welcome book cuts through the chatter and offers a detailed, nonideological, and practical blueprint to restore the vigor of the American economy.Better Capitalism extends and significantly expands on the insights of the authors' widely praised previous book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, co-written with William Baumol. In Better Capitalism, Robert E. Litan and Carl J. Schramm focus on the huge—but often unrecognized—importance of entrepreneurship to overall economic growth. They explain how changes in seemingly unrelated policy arenas—immigration, education, finance, and federal support of university research—can accelerate America's recovery from recession and spur the nation's rate of growth in output while raising living standards. The authors also outline an innovative energy strategy and discuss the potential benefits of government belt-tightening steps. Sounding an optimistic note when gloomy predictions are the norm, Litan and Schramm show that, with wise and informed policymaking, the American entrepreneurial engine can rally and the true potential of the U.S. economy can be unlocked.

A World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Brookings Institution publicationMore than three years have elapsed since the East Asian financial crisis erupted, threatening economic and financial stability in the region and beyond. Although many of the region's economies have since staged a remarkable turnaround, much additional restructuring and reform is needed. Managing Financial and Corporate Distress: Lessons from Asia, stands out from other works on the East Asian crisis by moving beyond macroeconomic assessments to offer an institutional treatment of the microeconomic aspects of the corporate and bank restructuring. Contributors draw on their practical, hands-on expertise in various aspects of finance to provide complementary perspectives on how best to set in place strong and responsive institutions that might be able to resolve and avoid future crises in other emerging markets.

The extensive reforms and liberalization of financial services in emerging markets worldwide call for cutting-edge strategies to capture the benefits of new investment opportunities. In Open Doors, a volume of papers from the third annual Financial Markets and Development conference, multidisciplinary financial sector experts analyze current economic and political trends and prescribe practical advice to the financial development community. The book addresses the key issues of concern regarding the emerging markets, including the trends, motivations, and scope of FDI in finance; policy options that will best capture the opportunities of foreign entry; and the role of foreign institutions in e-finance innovation. The authors focus on specific topics such as foreign participation in emerging market banking systems and securities industries, WTO policies and enforcement, the role of foreign banks, liberalization of insurance markets, the need for capital markets, and the policy, regulatory, and legal issues associated with e-finance. For policymakers and financial practitioners affected by the WTO's Financial Services Agreement, this timely book should be of particular interest. Contributors include Donald Mathieson (International Money Fund), Pierre Sauvé (Trade Directorate, OECD), George J. Vojta (formerly with Bankers Trust and Citibank), Harold D. Skipper (J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University), Benn Steil (Council on Foreign Relations), Morris Goldstein and Edward M. Graham (Institute for International Economics), Nicolas Lardy (Brookings Institution), Phillip Turner (Bank of International Settlements), and Robert Ledig (Fried, Frank, Shriver & Jacobson).

Once we paid for things with bills, coins, or checks. Today we pay with zeroes and ones—digital entries on credit and debit cards, or electronic messages sent over the Internet. In Moving Money, distinguished analysts explore this trend, its development and likely future, and the ramifications of this transformation.This is a book about money as a medium of exchange—in the past, in the present, but particularly in the future. What forms has money taken over the years? Moreover, how have those means of payment changed in recent years, and how will they develop in the future? And what (if anything) should policymakers do to facilitate those changes, or at least allow them to develop and mature? Brookings economists Robert E. Litan and Martin Neil Baily and a distinguished group of experts dissect these issues and peer into the future of consumer payments.The landscape of the consumer payments industry will be shaped at least in part by public policies. Historically, governments have had monopolies on the manufacture of money. Any form of payment clearly requires trust on the part of both the seller and the buyer, and the government must establish and enforce laws to secure this relationship. More controversial is the issue of whether, and to what extent, government is also needed to protect the market in private sector payments systems.Why do these issues matter? The payments industry is a large and important sector of developed economies. In the United States, private-sector payments providers generate approximately $280 billion a year in revenue, while the government invests substantial resources into making money (minting coins and printing bills) or moving it (via checks and various electronic transfers). And the way we pay for things influences our purchases—what we spend money on, how much we spend, and where we spend it. Thus the future of consumer payments is intertwined with the health of national economies.Contributors: Martin Neil Baily (Brookings), Thomas P. Brown (O'Melveny & Myers), Kenneth Chenault (American Express Company), Vijay D'Silva (McKinsey and Company), Nicholas Economides (New York University), David S. Evans (Market Platform Dynamics), Robert E. Litan (Brookings and Kaufmann Foundation), Drazen Prelec (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Richard Schmalensee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

There is little dispute that the mortgage meltdown of 2007, created by irresponsible lending and lax oversight, helped lead to the global financial crisis. Why were these securities backed by subprime debt so desirable to so many seemingly sophisticated investors? The answer lies in distorted incentives, opaque securitization structures and a willingness to believe that house prices would continue to rise indefinitely and the hope for super-normal returns. In Prudent Lending Restored experts from the United States, Europe, and Japan draw a timeline of key events along the road to our most recent recession. Providing an in-depth analysis of the causes of the subprime mortgage meltdown, they propose reforms, including a more simplified securitization process with emphasis on oversight to encourage more prudent lending. This timely volume—the collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research—argues that securitization can and should have a brighter future, and they lay out ways that will make that possible.Contributors: Jennifer E. Bethel (Babson College), Robert E. Eisenbeis (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta), Allen Ferrell (Havard Law School), Günter Franke (Konstanz University, Germany), Jack Guttentag (University of Pennsylvania), Gang Hu (Babson College), Tetsuya Kamiyama (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research, Tokyo), Kei Kodachi (NICMR), Jan P. Krahnen (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany), Joseph R. Mason (Louisiana State University), Igor Roitburg (Default Mitigation Management LLC), and Eiichi Sekine (NICMR).

As the global economy continues to weather the effects of the recession brought on by the financial crisis of 2007–08, perhaps no sector has been more affected and more under pressure to change than the industry that was the focus of that crisis: financial services. But as policymakers, financial experts, lobbyists, and others seek to rebuild this industry, certain questions loom large. For example, should the pay of financial institution executives be regulated to control risk taking? That possibility certainly has been raised in official circles, with spirited reactions from all corners. How will stepped-up regulation affect key parts of the financial services industry? And what lies ahead for some of the key actors in both the United States and Japan?In After the Crash, noted economists Yasuyuki Fuchita, Richard Herring, and Robert Litan bring together a distinguished group of experts from academia and the private sector to take a hard look at how the financial industry and some of its practices are likely to change in the years ahead. Whether or not you agree with their conclusions, the authors of this volume—the most recent collaboration between Brookings, the Wharton School, and the Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research—provide well-grounded insights that will be helpful to financial practitioners, analysts, and policymakers.

For nearly two decades the U.S. economy has been plagued by two disturbing economic trends: the slowdown in the growth rates of productivity and average real wages and the increase in wage and income inequality. The federal budget is in chronic deficit. Imports have far exceeded exports for more than a decade. American competitiveness has been a source of concern for even longer. Many Americans worry that foreigners are buying up U.S. companies, that the economy is losing its manufacturing base, and that the gap between rich and poor is widening. In this book three of the nation's most noted economists look at the primary reasons for these trends and assess which of the many suggestions for change in policy—whether for increased tax incentives for investment, education reform, or accelerated research and development—are likely to work and which may not work and could even hinder economic development. The author's discuss a variety of issues connected with deindustrialization and diminished competitiveness, distinguishing between problems that would be of real concern and those that should not. They evaluate explanations for slow growth in aggregate productivity in the United States and its relation to slower growth in other industrialized countries. They discuss the performance of the various sectors of the U.S. economy and systematically examine the evidence for and against the major proposals for correcting the adverse trends in productivity and inequity. Growth With Equity clearly explains how the country can accomplish the challenge of accelerating growth and narrowing the gap that separates the rich from the poor. While recognizing that some of their recommendations may be politically painful, the authors stress the importance of adopting a purposeful, long-range policy to encourage growth, ensure equity, and reduce the government's equity.

Broad-based and inclusive financial systems significantly raise growth, alleviate poverty, and expand economic opportunity. Households, small enterprises, and the rural poor often have difficulty obtaining financial services for a multitude of reasons, including transaction costs, perceived risk, inadequate infrastructure, and information barriers. Yet many financial institutions are now making profitable inroads into underserved markets through formal banking, investment in equities, venture capital, postal banks, and microfinance. Access to Finance addresses the challenges of making financial systems more inclusive, emulating successful ventures in new markets, and utilizing technologies and government policies to support the expansion of financial access. The contributors examine many dimensions of financial access, including: • Measuring financial access • Understanding the impact of expanded access • Examining alternative institutional models • Exploring new technologies and information infrastructure • Evaluating government policies toward outreach.

With the increasing integration of the major economies of the world, trade frictions have also increased. The Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, once scheduled for completion in December 1990, has been slowed over the issue of agricultural subsidies. The U.S.-Japanese trade relations have continued to be a source of friction between the two countries. At issue in all these disputes is whether the United States and other countries are playing ""fairly"" in the international trade arena.The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) outlines a variety of rules designed to ensure fairness. The United States, like other GATT signatories, has enacted statutes designed, for the most part, to be consistent with the GATT requirements.In this book, Richard Boltuck and Robert E. Litan, joined by a team of attorneys and economists with direct experience in ""unfair trade"" practice investigations, provide the first study of how one of the U.S. governmental agencies charged with implementing the U.S. laws governing unfair trade—the Department of Commerce—has actually discharged its statutory mission. In particular, the book focuses on the antidumping and countervailing duty statutes, provisions allowing the United States to impose offsetting duties on imports that are sold here at prices below those charged by the producers in their home countries that benefit from subsidies provided by foreign governments to encourage exports. Although these provisions may have once been obscure parts of the U.S. trade laws, they have figured importantly in many recent celebrated trade disputes, including those involving the import of foreign-made semiconductors, steel, lumber, screen displays for laptop computers, word processors, and minivan vehicles.All but one of the authors in the volume are highly critical of the procedures used by the Department of Commerce to calculate margins of dumping and export subsidization. Specifically, they find that at many points in the investigations, both through substantive and procedural requirements, there is a bias toward higher margins, and therefore higher import duties, than is warranted by economic theory; and in some cases by the GATT antidumping and subsidy codes themselves. Significantly, these authors contend that most of the biases can be removed without legislative change, but rather through changes in administrative practice.

Juries are the one place where common citizens play an important part in the governmental process. But both the jury system and the American legal system itself have been under attack. Juries have been reduced in size, their selection procedures altered, and the unanimity requirement suspended. Many now question the ability of lay jurors to decide increasingly complex technical and scientific questions arising in civil suits and have advocated sharp limitations on the right to a jury trial. At the same time, the civil justice system itself has been criticized for the high and rising costs of litigation, along with the rising number of lawsuits that have strained the capacity of many courts which have effectively curtailed access to the courts. This report of a conference in June 1992, cosponsored by the Brookings Institution and the litigation section of the American Bar Association, brings together leading academic scholars, attorneys, federal and state judges, and federal and state legislative representatives and their staffs. They examine the civil jury system and offer policy recommendations to help resolve disputes in a more effective and efficient manner.

Throughout the 1990s, numerous financial crises rocked the world financial sector. The Asian bubble burst, for example; Argentina and Brazil suffered currency crises; and the post-Soviet economy bottomed out in Russia. In Financial Crises, a distinguished group of economists and policy analysts examine and draw lessons from attempts to recover from past crises. They also consider some potential hazards facing the world economy in the 21st century and discuss ways to avoid them and minimize the severity of any future downturn. This important new volume emerges from the seventh annual conference on emerging markets finance, cosponsored and organized by the World Bank and the Brookings Institution. In the book, noted experts address the following questions: How effective were post-crisis policies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East and Central Asia? Where do international financial markets stand ten years after the worldwide debt crisis? How can the provision of financial services resume vigorously, yet safely? What are the viable policy options for reducing systemic financial vulnerability? What will the next emerging-market financial crisis look like? Will lessons learned from past experiences help to avoid future disasters? How can nations reform their pension systems to deal with retirement challenges in the 21st century?

American consumers have become accustomed to obtaining instant credit. The process requires that credit bureaus have easy access to sensitive financial information about individuals, compiled largely without their consent. This report examines the debate surrounding the role of the states in regulating these credit bureaus, especially in light of expiring amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which have allowed bureaus to continue these practices, exempting them from state laws that might obstruct them. How this controversy is resolved will have an important bearing on credit markets and financial privacy in the future. The authors make the case for continued federal preemption of the states in this area. Without it, the authors argue, the consumer credit system has developed in the United States would be put in jeopardy.

Research suggests that if the majority of a country's financial institutions are owned by the state, that country will experience slower financial development, less efficient financial systems, less private sector credit, and slower GDP growth. Yet more than 40 percent of the world's population live in countries in which public sector institutions dominate the banking system. In The Role of State-Owned Financial Institutions: Policy and Practice noted experts discuss the challenges presented by state-owned financial institutions and offer cross-disciplinary solutions for policymakers and banking regulators. The issues include: methods for effectively managing, reforming, and privatizing state-owned banks; the fiscal costs and contingent liabilities of state-owned banks; macroeconomic implications and the impact of state-owned banking on access to credit in an economy; guidance for effective supervision of state-owned banks; managerial perspectives on improving products, human resources, and risk; management case studies of different methods of privatization, such as initial public offerings, employee stock ownership plans, and strategic investors Contributors include David Binns (Beyster Institute), Robert Cull (World Bank), Ron Gilbert (ESOP Services), James A. Hanson (World Bank), Richard Hemming (International Monetary Fund), Fred Huibers (ING Research), Arminio Fraga (formerly Central Bank of Brazil), Nicholas Lardy (Institute for International Economics), David Marston (International Monetary Fund), Moody's Global Investor Service, Herman Mulder (ABN-Amro), William Nichol (Deutsche Bank AG), Urjit Patel (Infrastructure Development Finance Company, India), and P. S. Srinivas (World Bank).

Public rhetoric in the United States has always laid heavy stress on the obligations of citizenship. Bill Clinton praised the idea of service, and so does George W. Bush. Since September 11, the debate over service and the obligations of citizenship has become even more urgent. United We Serve gathers many diverse voices on civic life and civic obligation to explore the idea of national service as it relates to citizenship. Activists and practitioners discuss the rise of the service movement, its practical successes, and its challenges. Policymakers and political leaders explore the links between service and problem solving. Political scientists and philosophers connect the service debate to larger concerns about democratic participation. The book also includes a lively debate over whether the U.S. should reconsider compulsory national service. The discussion about service is a debate over how Americans think of themselves and their nation—and about what the ""new patriotism"" means. Contributors include: Daniel Blumenthal, Harry Boyte, John M. Bridgeland, Louis Caldera, Bruce Chapman, former President Bill Clinton, Charles Cobb Jr., Jane Eisner, Jean Bethke Elshtain, William Galston, Stephen Goldsmith, Robert D. Haas, Stephen Hess, Peter D. Hart and Mario A. Brossard, Alan Khazei, John Lehman, Leslie Lenkowsky, Paul C. Light, Michael Lind, Tod Lindberg, Will Marshall and Marc Magee, Senator John McCain, Charles Moskos, Robert Putnam, Representative Charles Rangel, Alice M. Rivlin, Michael Schudson, Mark Shields, Carmen Sirianni, Theda Skocpol, Andrew L. Stern, Jeff Swartz, Steven Waldman, Caspar Weinberger, David Winston, Harris Wofford, and Robert Wuthnow.

While the immediate dangers from the recent financial crisis have abated—much of the financial system has returned to profitability and the economy is growing, albeit slowly—the damage to the economy will linger for years. Among the many impacts is the problem that may be most acute in the United States: how state and local governments and private companies will honor their obligations under defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Institutional investors also confront new difficulties in the low-interest-rate environment that has prevailed since the onset of the crisis. East Asian economies, namely in Japan, Korea, and China, also face pension issues as their populations age.In Growing Old, experts from academia and the private sector consider the hard questions regarding the future of pension plans and institutional money management, both in the United States and in Asia. This volume is the latest collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research on issues confronting the financial sector of common interest to audiences in the United States and Japan.Contributors: Olivia S. Mitchell (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania), Akiko Nomura (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research), Robert Novy-Marx (Simon Graduate School of Business, University of Rochester), Betsy Palmer (MFS Investment Management), Robert Pozen (Harvard Business School), Joshua Rauh (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University), Natalie Shapiro (MFS Investment Management)

It has been four years since the financial crisis of 2008, and the global financial system still is experiencing malaise caused by high rates of unemployment; a lingering, unresolved supply of foreclosed properties; the deepening European debt crisis; and fear of a recurrence of the bank turmoil that brought about the Great Recession. All of these factors have led to stagnant economic growth worldwide.In Rocky Times, editors Yasuyuki Fuchita, Richard J. Herring, and Robert E. Litan bring together experts from academia and the banking sector to analyze the difficult issues surrounding troubled large financial institutions in an environment of economic uncertainty and growing public anger. Continuing the format of the previous Brookings- Nomura collaborations, Rocky Times focuses largely on developments within the United States and Japan but looks at those in other nations as well.This volume examines two broad areas: the Japanese approach to regulating financial institutions and promoting financial stability and the U.S. approach in light of the Dodd-Frank Act. Specific chapters include ""Managing Systemwide Financial Crises: Some Lessons from Japan since 1990,"" ""The Bankruptcy of Bankruptcy,"" ""The Case for Regulating the Shadow Banking System,"" ""Why and How to Design a Contingent Convertible Debt Requirement,"" and ""Governance Issues for Macroprudential Policy in Advanced Economies.""Contributors: Gavin Bingham (Systemic Policy Partnership, London), Charles W. Calomiris (Columbia Business School), Douglas J. Elliott (Brookings Institution), Kei Kodachi (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research), Morgan Ricks (Vanderbilt Law School).

The twenty-first-century telecommunications landscape is radically different from the one that prevailed as recently as the last decade of the twentieth century. Robert Litan and Hal Singer argue that given the speed of innovation in this sector, the Federal Communications Commission's outdated policies and rules are inhibiting investment in the telecom industry, specifically in fast broadband networks. This pithy handbook presents the kind of fundamental rethinking needed to bring communications policy in line with technological advances.Fast broadband has huge societal benefits, enabling all kinds of applications in telemedicine, entertainment, retailing, education, and energy that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Those benefits would be even greater if the FCC adopted policies that encouraged more broadband providers, especially wireless providers, to make their services available in the roughly half of the country where consumers currently have no choice in wireline providers offering download speeds that satisfy the FCC's current standards.The authors' recommendations include allowing broadband providers to charge for premium delivery services; embracing a rule-of-reason approach to all matters involving vertical arrangements; stripping the FCC of its merger review authority because both the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have the authority to stop anticompetitive mergers; eliminating the FCC's ability to condition spectrum purchases on the identity, business plans, or spectrum holdings of a bidder; and freeing telephone companies from outdated regulations that require them to maintain both a legacy copper network and a modem IP network.These changes and others advanced in this book would greatly enhance consumer welfare with respect to telecommunications services and the applications built around them.

Developed country capital markets have devised a set of institutions and actors to help provide investors with timely and accurate information they need to make informed investment decisions. These actors have become known as ""financial gatekeepers"" and include auditors, financial analysts, and credit rating agencies.Corporate financial reporting scandals in the United States and elsewhere in recent years, however, have called into question the sufficiency of the legal framework governing these gatekeepers. Policymakers have since responded by imposing a series of new obligations, restrictions, and punishments—all with the purpose of strengthening investor confidence in these important actors. F inancial Gatekeepers provides an in-depth look at these new frameworks, especially in the United States and Japan. How have they worked? Are further refinements appropriate? These are among the questions addressed in this timely and important volume. Contributors include Leslie Boni (University of New Mexico), Barry Bosworth (Brookings Institution), Tomoo Inoue (Seikei University), Zoe-Vonna Palmrose (University of Southern California), Frank Partnoy (University of San Diego School of Law), George Perry (Brookings Institution), Justin Pettit (UBS), Paul Stevens (Investment Company Institute), Peter Wallison (American Enterprise Institute)

New financial instruments—such as structured financial products and exchange-traded funds—and new financial institutions—including hedge funds and private-equity funds—present opportunities as well as policy and regulatory challenges in U.S. and Japanese financial markets. This book presents cutting-edge research from experts in academia and the financial industry on new instruments and new institutions while contrasting their developments in the different countries. The contributors highlight the innovative way in which Japanese financiers and government officials have learned from the U.S. regarding the introduction of new instruments into their market. New Financial Instruments and Institutions continues the productive collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research in examining current issues in capital and financial markets. Contributors include Jennifer Bethel (Babson College),Todd Broms (Managed ETFs, LLC), Frank Edwards (Columbia Business School), Allen Ferrell (Harvard Law School),Yasuyuki Fuchita (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research), Gary Gastineau (Managed ETFs, LLC), Ken Lehn (University of Pittsburgh), Josh Lerner (Harvard Business School), Frank Partnoy (University of San Diego Law School), Adam Posen (Institute for International Economics), Ken Scott (Stanford Law School), Steve G. Segal (Boston University, J.W. Childs Associates),Yuta Seki (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research, New York), Erik Sirri (Babson College), and Randall Thomas (Vanderbilt Law School).

One of the first rules of investing is diversification: spreading resources over many types of investments in order to minimize financial risk. Mutual funds have been the diversification vehicle of choice for the last several decades. In recent years, however, other opportunities for diversification—such as separately managed accounts and exchange-traded funds—have enjoyed rapid growth. What lies ahead for the mutual fund industry in light of this increasingly competitive environment? In this volume, experts from the United States and Japan look at forces of change in their securities markets and offer their views of the future for mutual funds and other forms of securities diversification.Contributors include Harold Bradley (Kauffman Foundation), Koichi Iwai (Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research),Ajay Khorana (Georgia Institute of Technology),Allan Mostoff (Mutual Fund Directors Forum), Brian Reid (Investment Company Institute), Henri Servaes (London Business School), Paula Tkac (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta), and Peter Wallison (American Enterprise Institute).

When it came into force in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) joined the economic futures of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, with systematic rules governing trade and investment, dispute resolution, and economic relations. However, economic integration among the three countries extends considerably beyond trade and investment. The NAFTA agreement takes a very narrow view of integration, barely addressing such vital issues as immigration policy and labor markets, the energy sector, environmental protection, and law enforcement. The governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States now must confront the question of whether NAFTA is enough. Do they want to keep their trilateral relationship focused on economic matters or are they interested in integrating more deeply—perhaps initiating a process to build a North American Community similar to the European Union? This volume contains thoughtful discussions about the future of North America by knowledgeable experts from each of the three countries. Robert Pastor has written one of the more comprehensive books on the subject, Toward a North American Community (Institute for International Economics, 2001). Andrés Rozental is an ambassador at large for Mexico and president of Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internationacionales, the country's leading foreign policy association in Mexico. Perrin Beatty is a former foreign minister of Canada and currently the president and CEO of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. The governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico face thorny challenges as they decide whether and how to accelerate smooth, and institutionalize the integration process. Pastor, Rozenthal, and Beatty encourage greater dialogue among the three governments and their citizens, as well as more systematic thinking among policymakers and citizens about the promise and challenges of further North American integration. This volume considers the promise and challenges o

This volume brings together market practitioners, policymakers, development specialists, and academics from developed and emerging market countries to examine the underlying causes of the Asian financial crisis and ways of preventing future crises in emerging markets. Contents of the volume include: •""The Asian Crisis: Causes and Consequences"" by Richard Cooper, Harvard University •""A Closer Look at Equity Flows to Emerging Markets"" by Michael Barth, Capital Markets Development Department, The World Bank, and Konstantinos Tsatsaronis, Monetary and Economic Department, Bank for International Settlements •""Corporate Governance and the Treatment of Minority Shareholders,"" by Kenneth Scott, Stanford Law School •""Foreign Investment in Asia"" by Jarrod Wilcox, PanAgora Asset Management •""The Future of Emerging Markets Investing"" by Michael Adler, Columbia Graduate School of Business •""Lessons of the Asian Crisis for Latin America"" by Sebastian Edwards, University of California at Los Angeles •""Global Capital Markets: What Do They Mean?"" by Ian Giddy, Stern School of Business, New York University Copublished with the World Bank

With an ever-increasing number of liability lawsuits, are corporations electing to play it safe rather than risk the uncertainties accompanying innovation? In The Liability Maze experts address the issues surrounding safety and innovation and present the most detailed and comprehensive study to date on the actual impact of U.S. liability law. In recent decades it has been widely assumed that liability laws promote safety by significantly raising the price companies must pay for negligence, product defects and accidents. More recently, others have suggested that the broad and unpredictable sweep of these laws actually deters innovation. The risks of lawsuits are so great that corporations are showing more caution in product innovation than ever before. The contributors focus on five sectors of the economy where the liability system appears to have had the greatest effects, positive or negative: the private aircraft, automobile, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, and the medical profession. They suggest that in many sectors liability law has hampered innovation. In others it has stimulated safety improvements, although perhaps not so much as vigilant safety regulations.

The last decade has been both traumatic and revolutionary for the U.S. banking industry. In late 1990 and early 1991, the outlook for the banking industry and even the federal insurance fund that backs most of its deposits looked especially bleak. Several independent analysts, congressional watchdog agencies, and the federal government itself warned that the large number and size of bank failures would exhaust the resources of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for resolving bank failures and paying off their depositors.Amid extensive proposals for deposit insurance reform, Congress enacted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA), one of the most important and controversial pieces of banking legislation of the last fifty years.In December 1992, Brookings sponsored a conference, in conjunction with the Chicago Clearing House Association, to mark the first anniversary of FDICIA and to assess its impact.This book features the papers presented at the conference and a summary of the discussion of the more than 150 participants. Representatives with diverse viewpoints met to consider and debate the wisdom of FDICIA and of future banking policy. The authors include leading academic scholars, current and former policymakers, and experts from the private sector. Their papers cover the intellectual and political history of the Act, how the Act was being implemented, responses of regulators and banks to the Act, and how banking regulatory and legislative policy should proceed. The book concludes with recommendations for future banking regulatory and legislative policy.In addition to editors Kaufman and Litan, the contributors are James E. Annable, First National Bank of Chicago; Richard C. Aspinwill, Chase Manhattan Bank; Richard Scott Carnell, Senate Banking Committee; Anthony Downs, Brookings; Robert E. Glauber, Harvard University; William S. Haraf, Citicorp; W. Lee Hoskins, Huntington National Bank; Edward J. Kane, Boston College; Congressman Jim Leach, ranking minority member of the House Banking Committee; David W. Mullins, Jr., vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Kenneth E. Scott, Stanford Law School; Karen D. Shaw, Institute for Strategy Development; Barbara Timmer, former General Counsel, House Banking Committee, and Jay M. Weintraub, Merrill Lynch.

American Supporters of free trade are on the defensive. Record U.S. trade deficits are fueling demands from industry, Congress, and the public for tariffs, import quotas, and other protectionist measures that could reverse America’s long-standing commitment to open markets and sacrifice much of the economic progress experienced in recent years. In Saving Free Trade: A Pragmatic Approach, Robert Z. Lawrence and Robert E. Litan analyze both the allure of protectionism and the problems associated with free trade, proposing reasonable, cost-effective ways of helping industries, workers, and communities battered by intense import competition. The book focuses on the escape clause of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974, meant to provide domestic industries temporary shelter from severe import competition, and the trade adjustment assistance program, designed to provide direct aid to companies, workers, and communities injured by imports. The authors analyze the assumptions and implication of the many current congressional attempts to amend the provisions of the escape clause and the assistance program. They then set forth their own proposals, including new definitions of import injuries, modifications of provisions for providing relief for beleaguered companies, new standards for compensating and retaining displaced workers, and a plan for insuring communities against severe losses to their tax bases if local industries fail because they can no longer compete. Saving Free Trade provides a detailed but nontechnical introduction to the complex implications of amending trade policy and shrewd, innovative proposals for improving America’s ability to adapt to rapid changes in world markets.

The financial services industries are undergoing revolutionary change. Continuing technological advances, coupled with the removal of controls on deposit interest rates and barriers to interstate bank expansion, have ushered in a new age of competition among banks themselves and between banks and other types of financial institutions. What Should Banks Do? offers a new and controversial proposal for carefully circumscribed diversification. Robert Litan first examines what role banks should play in this altered environment: Should banks and their holding companies be confined to the "business of banking: and related activities? Or should banking organizations be permitted to engage in much wider set of businesses? He answers these questions by thoroughly reviewing the available evidence on the benefits and risk of expanding bank powers. He finds that the largest benefits would come from the reduced risk that most bank holding companies would face if they were permitted to diversify their service offering. He sees risks to the safety and soundness of the banking system from financial product diversification, but proposes ways to minimize them. In the final chapter, Litan outlines two basic policy frameworks form minimizing the risks while preserving the social benefits that increased competition will eventually produce, He concludes that the challenge for policy-makers is to act decisively to maximize the benefits of financial product diversification, while limiting its risks, before the rapid changes in the financial services industries make it too late to do so.

The United States has recently witnessed an explosion of personal injury lawsuits involving medical malpractice, unsafe products, and widespread environmental hazards. Jury awards and out-of-court settlements have escalated in many cases to hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the same time, premiums for liability insurance have skyrocketed. As a result, physicians have cut back services and some municipalities and businesses have been denied liability coverage altogether.Some experts claim that only fundamental reform of the nation's civil justice system will end this ""insurance crisis."" But critics of such wholesale judicial reform contend that the insurance industry has launced a ""tort reform"" campaign to cover its own past underwriting mistakes.Liability brings together economists and experts in liability law and the insurance industry to assess the merits of the conflicting positions and to formulate sound public policy. Led by Robert Litan and Clifford Winston, the contributors describe the major changes that have contributed to the insurance crunch and set forth a methodological framework for evaluating the debate over the current liability system.They conclude that increases in premiums and cutbacks in coverage have been real but selective; that the forces in the judicial system responsible for rising liability costs are not readily subject to change; and that we know too little about the cost and benefits of the current tort system to replace it with an alternative compensation program.