This from the Economist, (all bold highlights mine)
DURING the Great Depression, America’s protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 raised tariffs on more than 900 goods. A series of retaliatory actions by other countries followed. The effect on global commerce was devastating. In the three years to June 1932, the volume of world trade shrank by over a quarter. No wonder, then, that the spectre of the worst recession since the Depression led many to fear another descent into protectionism and a similar decline in trade.
At first, the recession did hit trade hard. Global GDP fell by 0.6% in 2009 while the volume of world exports dropped by 12.2%. But whereas the Depression saw trade decline for at least four years, this time the rebound has been quick, and sharp. By May this year, emerging-economy members of the G20 were importing and exporting around 10% more than their pre-crisis peaks (see chart). Rich-world trade has recovered from the trough too, though it has not yet made up all the ground lost since the credit crunch began.
Trade has not been devastated by the raft of protectionist actions taken during the downturn. According to the World Bank, the rise in tariffs and anti-dumping duties explains less than one-fiftieth of the collapse in world trade during the recession. For the most part, the fall in trade reflected a drop in demand.
There is even some evidence that activity has rebalanced from the lopsided trade pattern that existed just before the crisis. Then, the share of emerging-world imports that came from rich countries had been on a steadily declining path. But now demand from emerging economies is helping to prop up rich-world exports to a larger degree than is commonly realised. According to IMF figures, of nine emerging markets in the G20, seven got a higher share of their imports from rich countries in 2009 than they did a year earlier. Just 59% of China’s imports came from rich countries in 2008, but this rose sharply to 66% in 2009. India obtained 42% of its imports from rich countries in 2008, but last year this rose to 47%.
That mutually beneficial pattern points to the importance of both rich and poor countries keeping their markets open, so that growth in one part of the world can help stimulate a recovery elsewhere.
Some observations:
People have learned from history (perhaps heeded George Santayana’s admonitions?)
Having sentiently benefited from the experience of trade, most of the world appear to embrace free-trade globalization as means of generating wealth. And as shown above, this is noteworthy especially in the emerging markets.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The best test of the conceptual assimilation of free trade is through a crisis, and free trade seems to have passed with flying colors.
The Economist doesn’t mention it, but the world’s growing acceptance of free trade, in my opinion, is largely aided by the shift to the information age. This seismic transition allows for real time communication, thereby reduce the instances of conflicts by open dialogue.
Like always, mercantilists have it wrong anew.
And with this we quote Mr. Ludwig von Mises in Liberalism,
To this question Ricardo's doctrine provided the answer. The branches of production distribute themselves among the individual countries in such a way that each country devotes its resources to those industries in which it possesses the greatest superiority over other countries. The mercantilists had feared that a country with unfavorable conditions for production would import more than it would export, so that it would ultimately find itself without any money; and they demanded that protective tariffs and prohibitions on imports be decreed in time to prevent such a deplorable situation from arising. The classical doctrine shows that these mercantilist fears were groundless. For even a country in which the conditions of production in every branch of industry are less favorable than they are in other countries need not fear that it will export less than it will import. The classical doctrine demonstrated, in a brilliant and incontrovertible way that has never been contested by anybody, that even countries with relatively favorable conditions of production must find it advantageous to import from countries with comparatively unfavorable conditions of production those commodities that they would, to be sure, be better fitted to produce, but not so much better fitted as they are to produce other commodities in whose production they then specialize.
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