s the United States enters the 21st century, it stands unchallenged as the world’s economic leader, a remarkable turnaround from the 1980s when many Americans had doubts about U.S. “competitiveness.” Productivity growth—the engine of improvement in average living standards—has rebounded from a 25-year slump of a little more than 1 percent a year to roughly 2.5 percent since 1995, a gain few had predicted.
Economic engagement with the rest of the world has played a key part in the U.S. economic revival. Our relatively open borders, which permit most foreign goods to come in with a zero or low tariff, have helped keep inflation in check, allowing the Federal Reserve to let the good times roll without hiking up interest rates as quickly as it might otherwise have done. Indeed, the influx of funds from abroad during the Asian financial crisis kept interest rates low and thereby encouraged a continued boom in investment and consumption, which more than offset any decline in American exports to Asia. Even so, during the 1990s, exports accounted for almost a quarter of the growth of output (though just 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product at the end of the decade).
Yet as the new century dawns, America’s increasing economic interdependence with the rest of the world, known loosely as “globalization,” has come under attack. Much of the criticism is aimed at two international institutions that the United States helped create and lead: the International Monetary Fund, launched after World War II to provide emergency loans to countries with temporary balance-of-payments problems, and the World Trade Organization, created in 1995 during the last round of world trade negotiations, primarily to help settle trade disputes among countries.
The attacks on both institutions are varied and often inconsistent. But they clearly have taken their toll. For all practical purposes, the IMF is not likely to have its resources augmented any time soon by Congress (and thus by other national governments). Meanwhile, the failure of the WTO meetings in Seattle last December to produce even a roadmap for future trade negotiations—coupled with the protests that soiled the proceedings—has thrown a wrench into plans to reduce remaining barriers to world trade and investment.
For better or worse, it is now up to the United States, as it has been since World War II, to help shape the future of both organizations and arguably the course of the global economy. A broad consensus appears to exist here and elsewhere that governments should strive to improve the stability of the world economy and to advance living standards. But the consensus breaks down over how to do so. As the United States prepares to pick a new president and a new Congress, citizens and policymakers should be asking how best to promote stability and growth in the years ahead.
Unilateralism
