This book invited a number of authors to write papers using both theoretical and empirical techniques to address current issues of interest to the economics profession at large: the US trade deficit and the global implications of policies that attempt to reduce it, the international ramifications of the debt crisis, the international oil market and its implications for the US oil industry, and the development of new econometric techniques. In addressing these issues, each author has approached the subject matter from an eclectic standpoint: that is, avoiding strict adherence to a given doctrine.