Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free TradeAbout two hundred years ago, largely as a result of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, free trade achieved an intellectual status unrivaled by any other doctrine in the field of economics. What accounts for the success of free trade against then prevailing mercantilist doctrines? And how well has free trade withstood various theoretical attacks that have challenged it since Adam Smith's time? In this readable intellectual history, Douglas Irwin explains how the idea of free trade has endured against the tide of the abundant criticisms that have been leveled against it from the ancient world and Adam Smith's day to the present. An accessible, nontechnical look at one of the most important concepts in the field of economics, Against the Tide will allow the reader to put the ever new guises of protectionist thinking into the context of the past and discover why the idea of free trade has so successfully prevailed over time. |
From inside the book
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... mean those that address the economist's stringent standard of whether a particular policy will increase aggregate economic wealth , where wealth is suitably defined as , for example , real national income.2 Debates surrounding the ...
... means ( i.e. , the policy instruments ) by which noneconomic objectives can be achieved.4 Before proceeding further , I should briefly discuss what is meant by free trade , a term that has no unique definition . In theoretical terms ...
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Contents
Early Foreign Trade Doctrines | 11 |
The English Mercantilist Literature | 26 |
The Emergence of Free Trade Thought | 45 |
Physiocracy and Moral Philosophy | 64 |
Adam Smiths Case for Free Trade | 75 |
Free Trade in Classical Economics | 87 |
Torrens and the Terms of Trade Argument | 101 |
Mill and the Infant Industry Argument | 116 |
Manoilescu and the Wage Differential Argument | 153 |
The Australian Case for Protection | 172 |
The Welfare Economics of Free Trade | 180 |
Keynes and the Macroeconomics of Protection | 189 |
Strategic Trade Policy | 207 |
The Past and Future of Free Trade | 217 |
References | 231 |
253 | |