Competition policies for an integrated world economy

During the second half of the twentieth century, competition policy has been accorded an increasingly prominent role in the policy portfolios of industrialized nations. Since the late 1940s, when twenty-three nations ratified the first General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), tariff barriers have been progressively reduced throughout much of the industrialized world. The final Uruguay Round negotiations extended GATT's reach to agriculture, services, and intellectual property and clarified policies toward other aspects of trade. While great progress has been made, much remains to be done to integrate the world economy in the 21st century. . In this book, part of the Brookings Integrating National Economies series, F. M. Scherer explores the three-way interaction among competition policy, national trading and investment strategies, and international trade policies. Focusing on four nations - the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan - he surveys the evolution over two centuries of national trading and competition policies and the points at which they come in conflict. Attempts to harmonize them through multilateral institutions, such as the European Union, are