Trading Up: How Expanding Trade Has Delivered Better Jobs and Higher Living Standards for American Workers

Opponents of trade liberalization have sought to indict free trade and trade agreements by painting a grim picture of the economic state of American workers and households. They claim that real wages have been stagnant or declining as millions of higher-paying middle-class jobs are lost to imports. But the reality for a broad swath of American workers and households is far different and more benign. Contrary to public perceptions: Trade has had no discernible, negative effect on the number of jobs in the U.S. economy. Our economy today is at full employment, with 16.5 million more people working than a decade ago. Trade accounts for only about 3 percent of dislocated workers.Technology and other domestic factors displace far more workers than does trade. Average real compensation per hour paid to American workers, which includes benefits as well as wages, has increased by 22 percent in the past decade. Median household income in the United States is 6 percent higher in real dollars than it was a decade ago at a comparable point in the previous business cycle. Middle-class households have been moving up the income ladder, not down. The net loss of 3.3 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade has been overwhelmed by a net gain of 11.6 million jobs in sectors where the average wage is higher than in manufacturing. Two-thirds of the net new jobs created since 1997 are in sectors where workers earn more than in manufacturing. The median net worth of U.S. households jumped by almost one-third between 1995 and 2004, from $70,800 to$93,100. The large majority of Americans, including the typical middle-class family, is measurably better off today after a decade of healthy trade expansion

Freeing the Farm: A Farm Bill for All Americans

Agricultural policy in the United States is interventionist, expensive, inequitable, and damaging to American interests abroad.Over the last 20 years, the opportunity cost to American consumers and taxpayers of supporting agricultural producers has totalled over $1.7 trillion.The harm to agricultural producers abroad, including many developing countries, does not help U.S. foreign policy. American intransigence over reducing farm subsidies is a significant impediment to a successful conclusion to the Doha round of world trade talks. It is time for the government to get out of the business of managing agricultural markets and supporting the incomes of farmers, many of whom are relatively well-to-do. Removing barriers to agricultural imports will provide cheaper food for consumers and inject competition and dynamism into agricultural markets. Democrats took Congress partly by criticizing fiscal irresponsibility. Dismantling farm income support programs is a perfect opportunity to make good on the promise to make changes for the better. Because the first-best solution of completely ending farm programs as of September 30, 2007--with no compensation or transition payments--is politically infeasible, we advocate that the government buy out the damaging and expensive support for farmers by paying them a fixed amount of money, which they would be free to spend as they wish. Although it would require large up-front outlays, a politically expedient buyout of agricultural subsidies and trade barriers, with concrete steps to ensure the changes are permanent, would be a worthwhile investment. The 2007 Farm Bill provides an opportunity for less government interference with rural America

Overcoming the Child-Langmuir law via the magnetic mirror effect

The maximum current in a vacuum tube prescribed by the classical Child-Langmuir law can be overcome, when the space-charge effect of the induced potential is mitigated by the mirror effect in a spatially varying magnetic field. The current could exceed the Child-Langmuir value by as much as a few factors. The regime of practical interest is examined

Comparison of theoretically predicted lateral-directional aerodynamic characteristics with full-scale wind tunnel data on the ATLIT airplane

An analytical method is presented for predicting lateral-directional aerodynamic characteristics of light twin engine propeller-driven airplanes. This method is applied to the Advanced Technology Light Twin Engine airplane. The calculated characteristics are correlated against full-scale wind tunnel data. The method predicts the sideslip derivatives fairly well, although angle of attack variations are not well predicted. Spoiler performance was predicted somewhat high but was still reasonable. The rudder derivatives were not well predicted, in particular the effect of angle of attack. The predicted dynamic derivatives could not be correlated due to lack of experimental data

As the Cursor Blinks: Electronic Scholarship and Undergraduates in the Library

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