birth_place nationality institution field birth_date article_title name alma_mater
london , ontario american middlebury park college columbia university university of maryland at college international economics , macroeconomics 16 march 1933 paul wonnacott
 paul wonnacott princeton university university of western ontario
paul wonnacott

gordon paul wonnacott -lrb- born march 16 , 1933 -rrb- has been on the economics faculty of columbia university , the university of maryland and middlebury college , where he held the alan holmes chair until his retirement in 2000 .
from 1991 until january 1993 , he was a member of the council of economic advisers under president george h.w. bush .
he was the coauthor of `` free trade between the united states and canada : the potential economic effects '' -lrb- with r.j. wonnacott -rrb- , a study that helped to revive the canadian debate over free trade and set the background for the canada-united states free trade agreement of 1988 .
this agreement was the major issue in the canadian federal election , 1988 , and came into effect after the conservative victory in that election .
when it appeared , the wonnacott book attracted considerable attention in the canadian press , including major articles in the `` financial post , '' the `` toronto star , '' and the `` globe and mail . ''
the `` globe 's '' coverage -- taking up most of a page -lrb- sept. 25 , 1967 , p. 26 -rrb- -- included a report by bruce macdonald , who referred to the wonnacott study as `` a book that undertakes the broadest , most intensive economic study of the issue that has repeatedly divided canada since it became a nation 100 years ago . ''
he noted that the past controversy `` has usually been waged in political terms that bore little or no relation to economic facts . ''
the wonnacott study is an `` effort to fill this vacuum . ''
this study contributed to major changes in canadian attitudes toward free trade with the united states in the two decades prior to the negotiation of the free trade pact .
these changes were reflected in a study by the economic council of canada , `` looking outward '' -lrb- 1975 -rrb- , which `` built upon the work of economists such as the wonnacott brothers , john young , ted english , harry johnson , and others who had long contended that the small canadian economy could not afford to isolate itself from the world economy by maintaining high barriers to imports . ''
at the same time , business executives were increasingly coming to the conclusion that the canadian domestic market was too small to exploit economies of scale .
gordon ritchie , the canadian deputy chief negotiator for the free trade agreement , wrote of the wonnacott study as `` a seminal project on the issue '' of u.s.-canadian free trade .
the wonnacotts concluded that economies of scale would provide a major source of gain from free trade , particularly for the relatively small canadian economy .
a study for the brookings institution and institute for research on public policy -lrb- ottawa -rrb- observed that , at the time the wonnacott book was published , the `` most glaring deficiency standard international economics was the failure to incorporate economies of scale and imperfectly competitive markets , which , thanks to the work of several scholars -- notably harry c. eastman and styfan stykolt , ronald j. wonnacott and paul wonnacott , and richard g. harris and david cox -- is now clearly understood to be the salient feature of secondary manufacturing in canada . ''
max corden judged the wonnacotts ' book `` an outstanding trade-liberalization study -- probably one of the most impressive contributions to applied international economics in recent years . ''
wonnacott has also written a study of the canadian experience with exchange-rate flexibility in the 1950s .
as a result , he was asked to join the senior staff of the council of economic advisers -lrb- 1968 -- 70 -rrb- to study the possibilities for a more general system of flexible exchange rates .
his intermediate macroeconomics text first appeared in 1974 , when widely accepted keynesian theory was under vigorous attack from milton friedman and other monetarists .
wonnacott pointed out the strengths and problems of each of these viewpoints , and attempted to explain each in a manner that the proponents would recognize .
