World trade rivalry : trade equity and competing industrial policies /

Lovett attempts to draw together and explain more elements in the present tangle of the world economy than his title suggests. The author not only discusses competition for sales of export products in world markets but also covers the world history of international trade policies; recent techniques for improving productive efficiency and increasing exports; US governmental policy reactions to foreign subsidization of exports and inhibition of imports; the world debt crisis of the 1980s; trends and policies governing international investment flows; and a set of recommendations by which the US government could improve general economic efficiency in America. All of these matters are interrelated, but Lovett seems to jumble them together in a repetitious and insufficiently careful and analytical narrative, which will probably confuse the beginner and irritate the sophisticate. On the other hand, each chapter has voluminous endnotes with a great many citations. These constitute an extensive classified and annotated bibliography of the kind that is quite rare. Unfortunately, the items are strung together in rather capricious sequence, so their usefulness is reduced. Perhaps, all in all, a typical undergraduate reader could use Lovett as a reference and overview of relevant issues. Lester Thurow's The Zero-Sum Solution: Building a World-Class Economy (1985) is a more focused and readable account.-J.W. Nordyke, New Mexico State University