Tag Archives: protectionism

On August 14, President Donald Trump instructed the US Trade Representative to commence investigating Chinese infringement of intellectual property rights. Whatever the merit of such allegations, Chinese retaliation against US trade sanctions would almost certainly cause far more economic damage. Project SyndicateAmerica and China’s Codependency Trap Stephen S. Roach, former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm's chief economist, now a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson...

Backgrounder on what to expect.Zero HedgeTrump Warns Xi: Trade War With China Begins Monday Tyler Durden

Friedrich List saw right through the English argument for free trade in Germany in his National System of Political Economy:“In our days the English legislation not having separated German agriculture from the British manufactures, Germany, with a progress of twenty years in an industrial career achieved at immense sacrifices, would he blind to allow herself to be diverted by the repeal of the English laws from the great national object she is now pursuing. We have, indeed, a firm conviction...

In one respect, it’s true there’s an awful lot of hypocrisy about welfare from big business, since wasteful corporate welfare is pervasive in our societies. On the other hand, some aspects of business welfare are actually sensible and justifiable, even in a social democratic nation. E.g., agricultural protectionism.It is well known that you simply cannot have a productive, stable agricultural sector in a true free market, because wild and violent swings in the prices of commodities destroy...

Here is one called John Wright in 1785:“The minister cannot be ignorant that an alleviation of duties on India muslins and callicos, or giving encouragement to them by laying a heavier tax upon the cotton goods of this country, especially upon the infant manufacture of muslins and fine callicos, must depress and discourage the industry and ingenuity of our manufacturers at home, and have the strongest tendency to promote the sale of such foreign fabrics, in preference to those of Britain;...

The issue of protectionism – and the related issue of industrial policy – is back on the political agenda, mainly because of the current US election season.Some very good books and articles relevant here are as follows: Amsden, Alice. 1989. Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. Oxford University Press, New York.Amsden, Alice. 1990. “East Asia’s Challenge – to Standard Economics,” American Prospect 2 (Summer): 71–77.Bairoch, Paul. 1993. Economics and World History: Myths...