By Catherine L. Mann, Sue E. Eckert and Sarah Cleeland Knight, Institute for International Economics, July 18, 2000

Electronic commerce is changing the way businesses and consumers create, sell, and buy products, and the way they communicate and learn. How can policymakers position their countries to take advantage of this new environment? How should policymaking adjust to a more global, more networked, and more information-rich marketplace where relationships and jurisdictions between the governments, businesses, and citizens increasingly overlap? How can governments effectively harness rapidly changing technologies and partner with both domestic and foreign private sectors to reap the greatest benefits for their constituents?

This primer answers these questions using both general analysis and specific examples. It addresses in particular the needs of policymakers in emerging markets who must formulate and refine policies that affect e-commerce in areas such as telecommunications, finance, taxation, privacy, and international trade and domestic distribution.

Download Full Book (Divided PDFs):

Book Contents (PDF):

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Overview and Economics of Electronic Commerce

1. Overview 262.1KB

2. Internet Economics and the Economics of the Internet 191.9KB

II. Electronic Commerce Infrastructure

3. Infrastructure: Communications Systems 185.0KB

4. Infrastructure: Financial Sector and Payment Systems 148.8KB

5. Infrastructure: Distribution and Delivery 143.7KB

III. Opportunities and for Government and Policy

6. Government Operations: Tax Regimes and Administration and Services 258.2KB

7. Government and the Environment of Certainty and Trust 371.9KB

8. Government and the International Arena 330.5KB

9. Government and Development: The Digital Divide 215.7KB

10. Conclusions and Recommendations 97.8KB

References

Index

About the Author:

Catherine L. Mann, Senior Fellow, held several posts at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (1984-87 and 1989-97), including Assistant Director and Special Assistant to the Staff Director, International Finance Division (1994-97). She was a Senior Economist on the Staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisors (1991-92), the principal staff member for the Chief Economist of the World Bank (1988-89), and a Ford Foundation Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (1987). She is an Adjunct Professor at the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University, and has also taught at the University of Chicago, Princeton University, University of Maryland, Georgetown, Boston College, and MIT. She has written numerous articles on international trade and finance, publishing in the American Economic Review, Journal of International Money and Finance, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, and International Economy, among other journals and volumes. She is the author of Is the U.S. Trade Deficit Sustainable? (1999).

Sue E. Eckert, Visiting Fellow, is Research Fellow at he Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. From 1993 to 1997, she was Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, where her responsibilities included US export control, non-proliferation, technology transfer policies, economic sanctions, and defense trade and industrial base programs. Prior to service in the Executive Branch, she was a member of the professional staff of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, specializing in international trade issues. Her current research focuses on barriers to US exports and issues affecting high-tech industries, including electronic commerce.

Sarah Cleeland Knight is Director of E-Commerce Strategy at HomeTies.net, an Internet startup. Previously, she researched electronic commerce issues at the Institute for International Economics and worked with USDA's export promotion program and the international trade office of Seattle Chamber of Commerce. She has performed several in-country assessments of electronic commerce readiness, including work in Morocco as part of the Presidential Initiative on Internet for Economic Development. She is a graduate of the Masters in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University.

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