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These proceedings contain presentations and summaries of papers presented at a Wheat Competitiveness Conference. They begin with two presentations--"The Wheat Prototype Study within an Overall Conceptual Framework of Competitiveness" (James Langley) and "U.S. Competitiveness in the World Wheat Market: A Prototype Study" (Jerry Sharples). The 23 summaries of contributing reports are divided into four groups. Papers in the section on aggregate analysis of export supply and demand in world wheat markets are "Patterns and Trends in World Wheat Competitiveness" (Mathew Shane), "Measuring Economic Competitiveness in Trade" (Peter Perkins), "Revealed Competitive Advantage for Wheat" (Thomas Vollrath), and "Potential Growth in the World Wheat Market: The Impact of Factors Underlying Demand" (Mervin Yetley). The section on major factors affecting supply, demand, and trade on world wheat markets contains "Forces That Could Expand U.S. Wheat Exports: Estimates from a World Wheat Trade Model" (Jerry Sharples, Praveen Dixit), "Shortrun Impact of U.S. Macroeconomic Policy on the U.S. Wheat Market" (Mark Denbaly), "The Value of the Dollar and Competitiveness of U.S. Wheat Exports" (Stephen Haley, Barry Krissoff), "Protection and Liberalization in World Wheat Markets" (Nicole Ballenger, Cathy Jabara), "International Transportation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Wheat Exports" (Kay McLennan), "Enhancing the International Competitiveness of U.S. Wheat through Agricultural Research" (Ira Branson, Yao-chi Lu), "The Green Revolution for Wheat in Developing Countries" (Gary Vocke), and "Variability in Wheat Land Values of Major Exporting Countries" (John Sutton). In the section on wheat export markets and factors affecting supply, demand, and trade are "Summary of Export Markets" (John Sutton, Ron Trostle) and these summaries: "The U.S. Wheat Market" (William Lin, Robert McElroy), "The Canadian Wheat Market" (Pat Weisgerber, et al.), "The Australian Wheat Market" (Paul Johnston), "The French Wheat Market" (Mark Newman), and "The Argentine Wheat Market" (Jorge Hazera). In the section on wheat import markets and factors affecting supply, demand, and trade are "Summary of Import Markets" (James Langley, Gene Mathia) and these summaries: "The Mexican Wheat Market" (Myles Mielke), "The Brazilian Wheat Market" (Edward Allen), "The Conduct of Wheat Marketing in North Africa" (George Gardner, David Skully), "The Dynamics of China's Wheat Trade" (Frederic Surls), "The Soviet Wheat Market" (Emily Moore), and "The East European Wheat Market" (Robert Cummings). Other contents include a conference summary and comments by review panels of trade and university economists. (YLB)

American hegemony has passed its peak. The twenty-first century will see a more multi-polar international system. Yet Western European countries may not be the United States' main foils in decades to come. Four new poles of the international system are now widely known in the business and financial press as the "BRICs economies" (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Does the concept of "the BRICs" have meaning within a rigorous political science framing? From the perspective of an economic liberal employing neoclassical assumptions to understand the world economy, the category's justification is surprisingly weak. In contrast, a political or economic realist's framing instructs us to focus on states that are increasing their relative material capabilities—as each of the four is. Finally, within a liberal institutionalist's mental model, the BRICs countries are a compelling set, yet one with a deep cleavage between two sub-groups: large emerging powers likely to remain authoritarian or revert to that state, and those that are securely democratic. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]