Alan Blinder, “The Free-Trade Paradox” This is an important article to understand why the idea of free trade is so compelling economically, but so hard to sell politically. The theory of comparative advantage that underpins free trade is counterintuitive: it holds that the gains from trade to a nation as a whole always exceed the losses. The problem is this: the gains from trade are widespread but small for each individual, and as such almost invisible. The losses, by contrast, are concentrated and highly visible because they hit well-defined groups. The bottom-line: mercantilism (I win, you lose: Trump’s anti-trade agenda) has a bright future (reads in about 10 min).
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