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This report examines in some detail the hypothesis that trade is undermining the economic status of the American worker.

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This report provides a brief overview of the resource conditions of Florida Bay and of the economy of the directly adjacent Monroe County.

This report identifies the colleges and universities attended by Senators elected to the 103rd Congress.

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This report provides information on membership changes in the first session of the 103d Congress through special elections for vacancies in the House of Representatives and appointments and special elections for vacancies in the Senate .

Early in the post-Cold War era, the willingness of the United States to use military force was tested by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. U.S. actions and those of allied nations suggested that the international community had the will and ability to respond to serious aggressions and some other threats to international order. The United States appeared to be showing the way toward a post-Cold War international system whose demonstrated ability to respond to such threats was expected to deter at least some of them.

This report summarizes provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act Amendments of 1994 and outlines this Act's implementation schedule for use by Members of Congress and their staff.

While "competitiveness" has a clear meaning when applied to a baseball team, or a firm or industry, it is of limited usefulness when applied to a country's overall economic performance. Moreover, focussing on competitiveness can lead to questionable economic policies.

This report describes each stage of the legislative process that legislative assistants may find helpful as they seek to further the progress of a specific bill.

This report discusses the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is divided into six sections: Introduction, Background, CITES and the Endangered Species Act, Implementation, Upcoming Events, and Appendices.

In the 1980s, Japan's economy posted strong economic growth, in stark contrast to the more pedestrian growth other developed economies experienced. In this period, referred to as the "bubble" economy, Japan experienced a sharp increase in the values of land and stocks. The fast paced growth came to a halt in 1991, however, as the Ministry of Finance grew concerned over prospects of a rising rate of inflation, and, accordingly, tightened the nation's money supply. Since then, Japanese economic growth has fallen sharply and the economy has experienced asset deflation, rising levels of unemployment, and falling corporate profits and investments.

This report examines the current alcohol fuels Federal tax incentives. Part I describes the statutory provisions of each of the five incentives. Part II examines the major public policy and economic issues of concern to policymakers: potential revenue effects, effectiveness, and economic efficiency.

The Department of Energy (DOE) established the Office of Technology Development in 1989 to develop faster and less expensive technical solutions to the Department's widespread environmental problems, primarily the legacy of decades of nuclear weapons production. Without new environmental technologies, DOE contends, some types of contamination may prove impossible to clean up. The Office of Technology Development, which is part of DOE's Environmental Management Program (EM), manages all stages of the development of new environmental restoration and waste management technologies, from basic research and development through final testing, demonstration and evaluation.

Concerns about the national economy, environment, public health, and the quality of EPA's regulatory process have led Congress to consider proposals to require EPA analyses of risks, costs, and benefits of proposed regulations. Proponents of analysis want the results used to design more efficient regulations and to prioritize environmental problems for Federal attention. Risk analysis summarizes available scientific information about hazardous activities, chemicals, or technologies and the effects they may have on exposed animals or people under various conditions, for example, with or without regulation. Risk and economic analyses can be qualitative or, if information is sufficient, quantitative, but economists can only quantify economic benefits of enviromental regulations if scientists can quantitatively estimate risks to health and the environment.

If general regulatory reform bills were enacted, debates on statute-specific reauthorizations could shift from regulatory reforms to the substantive regulatory requirements of each Act. In this case, regulatory reform could consist of proposals to modify statutory requirements to reduce costs to the private sector and State and local governments, to increase flexibility, and to reduce or compensate regulatory impacts on the value of private property. At issue would be a series of potential tradeoffs, for example among efficiency of environmental regulations, national consistency versus local flexibility, protection of private property rights, and degrees of health and environmental protection.

An examination of estimates of saving published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that the U.S. is one of the least thrifty of the major industrial nations. But, the data also indicate that the U.S. is not the only country to experience a falling rate of saving in recent years. It may be that the large difference between the rates of saving in the U.S. and abroad depends on how saving is defined. A broader definition of saving than the one employed by the OECD suggests that the saving rates in the U.S. and abroad may be closer than official measures suggest.

As many countries enjoy growing financial economies, American banking and securities firms feel excluded from them. Asian countries are perceived as being especially discriminatory against U.S. financiers. Conversely, foreign financiers face few barriers against entry into the United States. Their share of U.S. finance has reached very significant amounts--especially that of Japan in U.S. commercial banking. Both pressures have induced consideration of legislation that could require reciprocity for foreign direct investment in financial companies in America, intended to open up corresponding nations' financial markets. The proposed legislation also reflects final collapse of multilateral negotiations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade seeking to open up financial services in many nations to U.S. providers. It would apply sanctions against such countries similar to those opening up government securities markets abroad, but might result in some retaliation.

Recent criticism of the Clinton Administration's policies toward China, Japan and other East Asian countries has contended that the United States is exerting much less influence and is becoming marginal in determining developments in this economically vibrant and strategically important area. Although there are important costs to U.S. influence associated with disputes with Beijing, Tokyo and others, an assessment of the U.S.-Japanese-Chinese triangular relationship that currently dominates trends in the region shows that the United States is likely to continue its influential position in post Cold War East Asia.