Data from around the world suggest that countries are undertaking reforms of their tax systems in the face of global competition. Stephen Matthews and Steven Clark, OECD tax policy experts, will offer their findings and an international context, and discuss implications for the United States.

The fierce battle over reform was based on the perception that Americans did not get good value for their money. That perception is wrong.

April 1 may be a day for jokes, but on Sunday Japan ceded to the United States a distinction that is no laughing matter: the highest combined statutory corporate tax rate (state, local, and federal) in the developed world.

Kim Jong Il was nothing less than an economic catastrophe for North Korea. His political ascent, in fact, tracks almost precisely with that ill-fated nation's shift to economic stagnation and then its frightening free-fall into abject mass misery.

Congress is set to pass three bilateral trade agreements that would generate substantial job and export growth in an economy that sorely needs both. And while boosting exports by an estimated $13 billion and jobs by 380,000 won't by themselves turn the economy around, their passage could set the stage for much larger gains in years to come.

The one thing on which our political leaders seem to agree is the need for corporate tax reform. But amid all of the promising rhetoric there is significant cause for concern. Many proposals, particularly those of Messrs. Obama and Santorum, seem to have unlearned many of the lessons of modern economics.

Much has been written over the years on the geopolitical, security, legal, institutional, economic, and policy requisites for success in a hypothetical Korean reunification. One issue that has attracted much less attention is the role that human resources may play in any prospective reintegration of the still-divided Korean nation.

Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur note that high corporate tax rates reduce U.S. competitiveness and help explain why U.S. companies are moving plants abroad.