The China Deal: If You Can't Sell It, Buy It

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue May 23 11:26:36 PDT 2000


On Tue, 23 May 2000, Brad De Long wrote:


> But Heckscher, Ohlin, Stolper, and Samuelson say that there is a very
> strong presumption that increased trade is bad for the *scarce*
> domestic factor of production--which in the case of the U.S. today is
> labor.

If one accepts this argument, does that entail accepting that there is a very strong presumption that increased trade is good for the third world? Is this then the mainstream analog of the EPI argument, that it's a zero-sum game?


> You have to believe very strongly in new growth theory
> magic--increasing returns of one sort or another somewhere (which, by
> the way, I do)--to reach the conclusion that increased trade is
> Pareto-preferable

So does this mean trade has been bad for US labor until 5 years ago? And if you aren't a new economy believer, it's still bad?

Michael

__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com



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