To reduce their deficits, state and city officials pursue beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

"I'm afraid it's going to touch off the usual suburb-city, beggar-thy-neighbor policy."

The Western governments, however, pursued beggar-thy-neighbor policies, including protective tariffs and competitive currency devaluations, that "frequently made things worse."

This beggar-thy-neighbor policy, American lawmakers and others say, permits Japan to avoid taking the difficult steps needed to jump-start its domestic economy.

Robert B. Reich, the professor at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government who delivered the lunchtime address in the museum's Temple of Dendur, praised the group for forsaking traditional beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

We embrace technological dynamism and cultural diversity and reject beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

A. The danger of continued dollar weakness is that it's a beggar-thy-neighbor policy.

Such beggar-thy-neighbor policies are economically counterproductive, eventually hurting industries, farmers and consumers throughout the world, trade officials say.

"In the past, Japan has held back on pursuing a weak yen policy because it would have been accused of pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor policies."

The campaign to bring down the dollar was a beggar-thy-neighbor policy directed at fellow members of the industrial establishment, since exchange rates have little relevance yet for the newcomers.