*EPF303 04/26/00
Text: U.S. Economists Sign Letter Supporting China's WTO Entry
(Economists site "enormous benefits" of open markets) (1380)

America's top economists -- including 13 Nobel Prize winners -- signed an "open letter to the American people" strongly supporting China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"China's WTO accession will encourage economic growth in ways that can benefit its trading partners, including the United States, directly," the letter signed by 149 economists said. It will also help sustain China's market-oriented economic reforms, they added.

The White House released the economists' letter during an April 25 press briefing which featured Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council, Martin Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Robert Solow, a Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Following is the text of the letter:

(begin text)

OPEN LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Recognizing the enormous benefits of open international markets, we, the undersigned economists, strongly support China's entry into the World Trade Organization. China's entry will raise living standards in both China and its trading partners. By acceding to the WTO, China will open its borders to international competition, lock in and deepen its commitment to economic reform, and promote economic development and freedoms. At the same time, China's accession will create new opportunities for American businesses, farmers, and workers.

China's entry into the WTO will help sustain the process of market-oriented economic reform that began there two decades ago. This process, which has transformed China's economy by steadily removing power from the hands of central planners, has yielded rapid growth and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. It has helped promote individual liberty in China, by giving China's citizens greater choice about how they work and live. WTO accession will open China more fully to new technologies that foster communication, so that Chinese people can more readily obtain and exchange information and ideas. Moreover, the commitment to abide by WTO rules can help promote further reform and advance the rule of law in China.

China's WTO accession will encourage economic growth in ways that can benefit its trading partners, including the United States, directly. It will provide firms outside China with better access to one of the world's largest, most dynamic markets, improving the allocation of resources around the world. China has agreed to reduce wide-ranging protection, including many institutional barriers that are difficult to measure, but extremely effective in blocking trade. Adherence to WTO rules, including those for settling disputes, will reduce uncertainty for firms that already do business in China and may encourage others to enter the market with more confidence about the future.

For all these reasons, we believe that the United States must stand firmly behind China's entry into the World Trade Organization.

Martin N. Baily, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers
Robert Z. Lawrence, Member, Council of Economic Advisers

Kenneth J. Arrow (Nobel), Stanford University
Milton Friedman (Nobel), Hoover Institution, Stanford University
John C. Harsanyi (Nobel), University of California, Berkeley,
Lawrence R. Klein (Nobel), University of Pennsylvania
Robert E. Lucas (Nobel), University of Chicago
Robert C. Merton (Nobel), Harvard University
Merton H. Miller (Nobel), University of Chicago
Franco Modigliani (Nobel), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paul A. Samuelson (Nobel), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William F. Sharpe (Nobel), Stanford University
Herbert A. Simon (Nobel), Carnegie Mellon University
Robert M. Solow (Nobel), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James Tobin (Nobel), Yale University

Michael J. Boskin (CEA), Stanford University
Martin Feldstein (CEA), Harvard University/NBER
Paul McCracken (CEA), University of Michigan
Raymond J. Saulnier (CEA), Columbia University
Charles L. Schultze (CEA), Brookings Institution
Beryl W. Sprinkel (CEA), B. W. Sprinkel Economics
Joseph E. Stiglitz (CEA), Brookings Institution
Laura D'Andrea Tyson (CEA), University of California, Berkeley
Murray Weidenbaum (CEA), Washington University
Janet L. Yellen (CEA), University of California, Berkeley

Henry J. Aaron, The Brookings Institution
Joshua Aizenman, Dartmouth College
Joseph G. Altonji, Northwestern University
James E. Anderson, Boston College
Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University
Kyle W. Bagwell, Columbia University
Richard E. Baldwin, Graduate Institute of International Studies
Robert E. Baldwin, University of Wisconsin
Laurence M. Ball, Johns Hopkins University
Claude E. Barfield, American Enterprise Institute
C. Fred Bergsten, Institute for International Economics
Jeffrey Berstrand, University of Notre Dame
Andrew B. Bernard, Dartmouth College
Rebecca M. Blank, University of Michigan
Alan S. Blinder, Princeton University
Bruce A. Blonigen, University of Oregon
Gordon M. Bodnar, Johns Hopkins University
Barry P. Bosworth, Brookings Institution
David F. Bradford, Princeton University
William C. Brainard, Yale University
Gary Burtless, The Brookings Institution
William A. Brock, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Christopher D. Carroll, Johns Hopkins University
Karl E. Case, II, Wellesley College
Menzie D. Chinn, University of California, Santa Cruz
Gregory Chow, Princeton University
Philip J. Cook, Duke University
Richard N. Cooper, Harvard University
Vincent P. Crawford, University of California, San Diego
Donald R. Davis, Columbia University
Tom E. Davis, Cornell University
Alan V. Deardorff, University of Michigan
I.M. (Mac) Destler, Inst. for International Economics/Univ. of Md
Kathryn M. Dominguez, University of Michigan
Rudiger W. Dornbusch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Charles M. Engel, University of Washington
Robert Feenstra, University of California, Davis
Gary Fields, Cornell University
Robert W. Fogel, University of Chicago
Kristin J. Forbes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jeffrey A. Frankel, Harvard University
Morris Goldstein, Institute for International Economics
Robert J. Gordon, Northwestern University
Edward M. Graham, Institute for International Economics
Lyle E. Gramley, Mortgage Bankers Association
Wayne B. Gray, Clark University
Gene M. Grossman, Princeton University
Gregory Grossman, University of California, Berkeley
Daniel S. Hamermesh, University of Texas
Eric A. Hanushek, University of Rochester
John R. Harris, Boston University
Oliver Hart, Harvard University
Kevin A. Hassett, American Enterprise Institute
Robert H. Haveman, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Walter P. Heller, University of California, San Diego
Donald D. Hester, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Gary Hulbauer, Institute for International Economics
Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth University
D. Gale Johnson, University of Chicago
Dale W. Jorgenson, Harvard University
Lawrence F. Katz, Harvard University
Peter Kenen, Princeton University
Miles Kimball, University of Michigan
Alvin K. Klevorick, Yale University
Michael M. Knetter, Dartmouth College
Lawrence B. Krause, University of California, San Diego
Michael Kremer, Brookings Institution/Harvard University
Stefan Krieger, Yale University
Anne O. Krueger, Stanford University
Nicholas R. Lardy, Brookings Institution
Lawrence Lau, Stanford University
Philip I. Levy, Yale University
Robert E. Litan, Brookings Institution
Ying L. Lowrey, George Washington University
Lisa M. Lynch, Tufts University
Paul W. MacAvoy, Yale University
Louis J. Maccini, Johns Hopkins University
Burton Malkiel, Princeton University
N. Gregory Mankiw, Harvard University
Catherine I. Mann, Institute for International Economics
Richard C. Marston, University of Pennsylvania
Keith E. Maskus, University of Colorado
Andrew M. Mclennan, University of Minnesota
Bruce Meyer, Northwestern University
Thomas G. Moore, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Herve Moulin, Rice University
Alicia H. Munnell, Boston College
David B. Neumark, Michigan State University
Donald A. Nichols, University of Wisconsin, Madison
William A. Niskanen, Cato Institute
Marcus J. Noland, Institute for International Economics
Maurice Obstfeld, University of California, Berkeley
Howard Pack, University of Pennsylvania
Janet Rothberg Pack, University of Pennsylvania
John L. Palmer, Syracuse University
Christina Paxon, Princeton University
Dwight Perkins, Harvard University
George L. Perry, Brookings Institution
Edmund S. Phelps, Columbia University
Adam S. Posen, Institute for International Economics
John M. Quigley, University of California, Berkeley
Alice M. Rivlin, Brookings Institution
Ken Rogoff, Harvard University
Andrew K. Rose, University of California, Berkeley
Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale University
Robert W. Rosenthal, Boston University
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Harvard University
Gary R. Saxonhouse, University of Michigan
Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland
Richard Schmalensee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John Karl Scholz, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Matthew Shapiro, University of Michigan
Robert J. Shimer, Princeton University
Matthew J. Slaughter, Dartmouth College
Timothy M. Smeeding, Syracuse University
Robert W. Staiger, University of Wisconsin
Robert M. Stem, University of Michigan
Alan M. Taylor, University of California
Davis Christopher Udry, Yale University
Shang-Jin Wei, Brookings Institution/Harvard University
David E. Weinstein, Columbia University
Marina v.N. Whitman, University of Michigan
Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University
Paul Wonnacott, Middlebury College

(Nobel)= Nobel Laureates
(CEA) = Former Council of Economic Advisers Chairs

Affiliations are provided for identification purposes only.
Total Number of Signatories: 149 Economists, including 13 Nobel Laureates and 10 Former CEA Chairs.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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