Re:Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]
by ashark on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @02:13PM
(#14606430)
> Ultimately globalization is a must, as it just increases efficiency and cuts prices.
Unless I'm misreading the paper, one of its points is that lowering trade barriers has sharply diminishing returns-relative-to-harm, i.e. cutting a 10% tariff to 5% has a much better benefit-to-harm ratio than cutting a 5% tariff to 0%, and the effect is strong enough that at some point and by some accountings it may be more costly than it is enriching, to the state as a whole. So commitment to total destruction of trade barriers may not be the best policy, absent serious global-political-system shakeups (say, the dreaded one-world-government) to accompany it.
Unless I'm misreading the paper, one of its points is that lowering trade barriers has sharply diminishing returns-relative-to-harm, i.e. cutting a 10% tariff to 5% has a much better benefit-to-harm ratio than cutting a 5% tariff to 0%, and the effect is strong enough that at some point and by some accountings it may be more costly than it is enriching, to the state as a whole. So commitment to total destruction of trade barriers may not be the best policy, absent serious global-political-system shakeups (say, the dreaded one-world-government) to accompany it.