It is time to junk much conventional wisdom about the US economy. Until recently,most analysts assumed the recovery from recession would remain abnormally weak. And looking further ahead they assume that the US would continue to decline economically relative to other industrial countries,principally Japan and a more unified European Community. Both assumptions are now looking shaky. A clutch of much stronger than expected data suggests the US recovery is finally beginning to take off. Output per hour increased 2.7 percent last year-the fastest productivity growth in 20 years. With productivity increases translating into impressive gains in corporate profits,US share prices are hitting record high and the dollar is beginning to climb relative to other leading currencies. For internationally mobile capital,the attractions of the US economy are enhanced by worse than expected performance just about everywhere else. Growth throughout Europe is being held back by the strains imposed by German unification and currency instability,Japan,meanwhile,is struggling with its worst financial crisis in decades. President Mr. Bill Clinton is not only inheriting a lean,productive economy, he is inheriting the most encouraging inflation outlook for a generation. Consumer prices are expected to rise by only about 2.5% to 3% this year and next. Mr. Clinton,however,in his State of Union address on February 17,is expected to announce an economic stimulus worth about US $30 billion,or 0.5 percent of GDP. He will also announce longer term plans to tackle the familiar budget deficit,now running at about $300 billion but expected nearly to double within a decade because of runaway growth of spending on health care an other “entitlement” progarms. Mr.Clinton will make effort to slash the familiar budget deficit.( )

It is time to junk much conventional wisdom about the US economy. Until recently,most analysts assumed the recovery from recession would remain abnormally weak. And looking further ahead they assume that the US would continue to decline economically relative to other industrial countries,principally Japan and a more unified European Community. Both assumptions are now looking shaky. A clutch of much stronger than expected data suggests the US recovery is finally beginning to take off. Output per hour increased 2.7 percent last year-the fastest productivity growth in 20 years. With productivity increases translating into impressive gains in corporate profits,US share prices are hitting record high and the dollar is beginning to climb relative to other leading currencies. For internationally mobile capital,the attractions of the US economy are enhanced by worse than expected performance just about everywhere else. Growth throughout Europe is being held back by the strains imposed by German unification and currency instability,Japan,meanwhile,is struggling with its worst financial crisis in decades. President Mr. Bill Clinton is not only inheriting a lean,productive economy, he is inheriting the most encouraging inflation outlook for a generation. Consumer prices are expected to rise by only about 2.5% to 3% this year and next. Mr. Clinton,however,in his State of Union address on February 17,is expected to announce an economic stimulus worth about US $30 billion,or 0.5 percent of GDP. He will also announce longer term plans to tackle the familiar budget deficit,now running at about $300 billion but expected nearly to double within a decade because of runaway growth of spending on health care an other “entitlement” progarms. The budget deficit of US is expected to be worse in the next ten years.( )

服务贸易

知识产权

反补贴税

at a rough estimate

in prospect

at a conservative estimate

The draft agreement contains many sensible new rules for global trade （covering,for instance,the settlement of disputes，the protectionist use of technical standards, anti-dumping measures,subsidies,countervailing duties,government procurement and many other implicit barriers to trade). To promote trade and innovation,it offers new safeguards to owners of intellectual property. It brings trade in services into the GATT for the first time,opening new foreign markets to efficient producers of services in America and Europe. America's ambitious early goals for farm-trade liberalization will not be fully met by the compromise that is now within reach;but even in farming,a half-successful round will deliver great benefits. And if this package can be banked,future rounds will be obliged to argue over how much to cut farm protection,not whether-an achievement in itself.

Disputes over farm trade have bedevilled the current round of GATT talks from the start. That is unsurprising. For decades governments everywhere have suppressed market forces in agriculture with subsidies,tariffs,quotas,monopoly purchasing boards and all the other paraphernalia of mule-headed intervention. No industry in the world has been pushed further,or so needlessly,from the liberal ideal of guiding resources to their best use by means of prices set in markets. On one plausible estimate,consumers in industrial countries pay $300 billion a year in taxes and higher prices to support farming.Even allowing for the income transferred to farmers,the net welfare loss caused by the industrial countries farm policies is $100 billion a year. Distortions on such a scale have given a comparative handful of people every reason to fight to the bitter end for economic lunacy. On October 14th French farmers held another "day of action"——blocking roads,planting wheat in awkward places and so forth-in protest at the planned reforms. What is the content of the current round of GATT talks from the start?