Richard Harris’s now classic study on trade and industrial policy was written for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (also known as the Macdonald Commission). First published in 1985 when the Canadian economy faced dramatic changes arising from the emergence of manufacturing competitors among newly industrialized nations and increased protectionism in the US, its recommendations were instrumental in the negotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement.

Addressing the key issues surrounding the design and choice of policies for the Canadian economy, Trade, Industrial Policy, and International Competition reviews the theory and evidence concerning trade liberalization as a mechanism to enhance economic growth, disinvestment in sections that are disadvantageous in the international marketplace, and future problems for the marketing sector caused by increasing competition from developing countries. Drawing from many streams of conventional economic thinking, Harris develops an original and sophisticated model for assessing the broader economic impacts of trade liberalization on the Canadian economy. He concludes that free trade and industrial policy should be regarded as complementary, not substitutes for one another, and recommends a free trade agreement with the United States as a top priority.

A new introduction by David Wolfe situates this work within its time and shows how Harris’s analytical insights and policy prescriptions are as relevant today as they when they were originally crafted three decades ago.

Richard G. Harris is professor of economics at Simon Fraser University.

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David A. Wolfe, PhD, ABPP, is a psychologist specializing in issues affecting children and youth — including prevention of bullying.

After completing his PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of South Florida in 1980, David Wolfe pursued an academic career in Canada focusing on child abuse and domestic violence. He holds the inaugural RBC Chair in Children’s Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and heads the CAMH Centre for Prevention Science in London, Ontario. He is also Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Toronto. Since 2007 he has served as Editor-in-Chief of Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal.

David has received the Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science from the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Blanche L. Ittleson Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Delivery of Childrens Services and the Promotion of Childrens Mental Health from the American Orthopsychiatric Association. His books include Adolescent Risk Behaviors: Why teens experiment and strategies to keep them safe (with P. Jaffe & C. Crooks; Yale University Press, 2006); Child abuse: Implications for child development and psychopathology, 2nd Edition (Sage, 1999); and Abnormal Child Psychology, 4th edition (with E. Mash; Wadsworth, 2009).

His interests in violence prevention have culminated into a comprehensive school-based initiative for reducing adolescent violence and related risk behaviors, known as the Fourth R. The Fourth R is currently used in over 800 high schools throughout Canada. It was recently identified as a top evidence-based program for school-based violence prevention by the New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where it is being implemented in several US sites as part of their national violence-prevention initiative.

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