Recent Decades Have Witnessed an Acceleration of Economic Globalisation, in Particular International Trade. Is Trade Openness the Key Strategy to Achieve Economic Development? What Lessons Could You Draw for Policy Making?

On the wage front, Boudreaux notes the “high correlation between openness to foreign trade and people’s material prosperity.” The numbers provided within back him up. Between 1980 and 1998 citizens of countries most closed to trade had average annual per-capita incomes that were 13 percent of the wages earned by citizens in countries lacking heavy barriers to exchange. This shouldn’t surprise us when we consider labor is by definition finite, but potential jobs

While this may be detrimental to a smaller country, it is a casual sacrifice for the developed nation encouraging said liberalization. Due to their economic size and power, their cost of closure-the cost incurred on a nation by the termination of a trade partnership, measurable through direct income loss and adjustment costs of reallocating factors of production-is much smaller than that of the developing nation (Krasner, 21). Ideally, the smaller market is opened to a point of maximum advantageous trade, at whatever internal cost, and held there. The chances of the resultant instability overwhelming the capabilities of the nation are low, but if it does occur, the cost of closure for the larger nation is small. Thus, the instability is a worthwhile risk if it increases relative power. As a result, today large powers ubiquitously push economic liberalization upon smaller nations across the world in the name of the globalization

Many indicators serve to measure the degree of trade openness. The first is designed to assess directly the level of economy openness to foreign trade. The degree of openness measures the level of the external constraint and it is obtained by the ratio of the value of foreign trade on the GDP. The second indicator (distortion) aims to measure the impacts of protectionist policies of a country.

Googe 1 Avery Googe ENC 1101 Professor Alling April 19, 2015 Jaws When most of the world hears the iconic song from the movie Jaws, their mind automatically shifts to images of giant sharks and severed limbs. Thanks to the film, many people boycotted beaches and mothers strictly kept their children away from open waters; triggering a massive cloud of fear and ignorance that would consume most, if not all, of the world. Jaws coated the general public's perception of sharks with a curtain of blood and fear, vilifying them for decades to come. With the films debut in 1975, it kick-started a tidal wave of mass hysteria and paranoia, and as a result the public's attitudes on sharks plummeted as fast and as deep as the titanic.

"The bombings are pivotal because they mark the beginning of the cold war" (Culver, Pivotal Moments video). That quote alone properly depicts the devastating outcomes of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following World War II, the United States emerged as the world's greatest superpower (Foner, 896). The atomic bomb at that point in time had never been used before and the United States was the only country capable of possessing it since they accounted for half of the world's manufacturing capacity (Foner, 896). Leading up to the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union were very hostile towards one another.

There is no doubt that increasing in international trade is supporting the economic growth across the world, raising incomes and creating jobs. However, international trade can also some create economic obstacles, such as the international context and the market policy and regulations of each country, and consequently it can be said that the effects would have positive and negative sides, and it is useful to mention all of them and to take them into consideration.

“Free trade is not passé, but is an idea that has irretrievably lost its innocence” (Krugman, 1987, p.132). In his article, Is Free Trade Passé, Paul Krugman writes that the classical trade theory has been replaced with a new trade theory. The classical trade theory is based on constant returns to scale and perfect competition, is driven by comparative advantage, and endorses free trade. This classical theory emphasized the idea that trade was brought about by differences in tastes, technology, or factor endowments between countries (Krugman, 1987). However, the new theory of international trade is driven by increasing returns to scale, also known as economies of scale, and leads to imperfect competition (Carbaugh, 2011).

Free trade has long be seen by economists as being essential in promoting effective use of natural resources, employment, reduction of poverty and diversity of products for consumers. But the concept of free trade has had many barriers to over come. Including government practices by developed countries, under public and corporate pressures, to protect domestic firms from cheap foreign products. But as history has shown us time and time again is that protectionist measures imposed by governments has almost always had negative effects on the local and world economies. These protectionist measures also hurt developing countries trying to inter into the international trade markets.

Economic analysts say trading among other countries with no stipulations improve global efficiency in resource allocation (Tupy, 2005). Free Trade delivers goods and services to those who value them most and allows partners to gain from specializing in the producing those goods and services they do best; according to Tupy’s findings, Economists call that the law of comparative advantage. Tupy also states when producers create goods they are comparatively skilled at i.e. Germans producing beer and the French producing wine, those goods increase in abundance and quality. Trade allows consumers to benefit from more efficient production methods, for example, without large markets for goods and services, large production runs would not be economical. Large production runs, in turn, are instrumental to reducing product costs while lower production

The theory of comparative advantage explains the benefit of free trade. According to this theory by David Ricardo in the early 19th century, “Both countries will be better off if each specializes in the industry where it has a comparative advantage, and if the two trade with one another.” (Citation) International trade opens up markets to foreign supplier, and domestic companies need to improve their efficiency, boost productivity, and lower cost to increase competitiveness instead of enjoying monopolies or oligopolies that enabled them to keep prices well above marginal costs. On the other hand, international trade also offers domestic companies bigger demands and broader markets; therefore more jobs relevant to export have been created. Furthermore, jobs in the US supported by goods exports pay 13-18 percent more than the US national average (ustr.gov).

Throughout the years, there has been a constant controversy over whether the World Trade Organization should enforce global free trade. The primary idea is to establish in which all are happy. Although there are many advocates for trade liberalization, as well as many who oppose. I believe free trade may be advantageous for both large and small-industrialized countries, but it does not favor the smaller developing countries needs primarily.

The theoretical perspective that the author uses to support its evidence is the liberal perspective. In the book, “The Global Future: A Brief Introduction to World Politics” Kegley & Raymond (2005) explain how “At the core of liberalism is a belief in reason and possibility of progress” (p.31). Which is one of the main points and arguments that this paper makes. The paper continuously talks about the possibility of progress if trade is expanded. One specific example of this is in the category of the article “Keep On Growing” (p.2) where Froman (2014) states that “U.S. trade policy aims not only to update the global economic architecture, but also expand it”(p.2). It further goes to explain the correlation between trade and economic

Comparative advantage is a principle developed by David Ricardo in the early 19th century to explain the benefits of mutual trade (Carbaugh, 2008). Many underlying assumptions of comparative advantage depend on states of economic equilibrium and an absence of economy of scale. In reality, economies are dynamic and subject to innovation and interference; which has led to revised assumptions of return and competition (Krugman, 1987). These factors have created questions of free trade and governmental participation in an economy by the development of strategic trade policies. These new concepts do not replace the theory of comparative advantage; however, they further explain how trade can benefit a country's economy (Krugman, 1987).

Ever since the first involvement of government in international trade, many people have posed their opinion about what the role of government should be in it. Different factors are involved when it comes to deciding what this should be. It impacts a lot of people, so in order to do that, trade policy must be properly defined, identify what the roles of government currently are, and their involvement in it, and then analyse what should be their role. Trade policy is how a country carries out trade with other countries (Commercial Policy, n.d). Even though a lot of people support government intervention in international trade, countries would benefit a lot more if the government removes protectionism and promotes free trade instead.

The international trade of goods across the world accounts for approximately 60% of the world Gross Domestic Product (The World Bank, 2014). A great proportion of goods transactions occur every second. The primary question is whether international trade benefits a country as an entirety, and, if so, why would a country implement protective trade policies to restrict particular exports? To address this question, this essay aims to explore the impact of trade on various economic stakeholders, including consumers, producers, labour and government and, furthermore, will compare models and theories with reality to ascertain the true winner/ loser in the international trade market.