Book Description
Growing world trade has helped lift living standards around the world, and yet free trade is always under attack by opponents. Critics complain that trade forces painful economic adjustments, such as plant closings and layoffs of workers, and charge that the World Trade Organization serves the interests of corporations, undercuts domestic environmental regulations, and erodes America's sovereignty. Why has global trade become so controversial? Does free trade deserve its bad reputation? In Free Trade under Fire, Douglas Irwin sweeps aside the misconceptions that litter the debate over trade and gives the reader a clear understanding of the issues involved. This second edition includes a new chapter on trade and developing countries and updates the entire text to deal with new issues such as outsourcing and steel tariffs.
Customer Reviews:
An Economists Defense of Free Trade.......2006-07-11
This book makes a reasonably decent defense of free trade. It speaks in predominantly layman's terms, and is entertaining enough to hold the layman's attention. Irwin does a good job refuting the most patently ridiculous claims that free trade victimizes those it employs and other silly claims.
It doesn't do the best job demonstrating that trade with developing countries benefits wealthy nations, however. It does try to do so, and offers some evidence, but I wish the book had made a stronger effort in this area as this is where most protectionists simply cite the trade deficit as manifest evidence that we are worse off in free trade, without understanding that our standard of living rises when we have cheap goods, and the market for our high skill jobs and products increases as developing countries grow wealthier.
The book does bring up a good point of accounting balance, noting that foreign investment in the U.S. offsets the trade deficit, but I fear that most protectionists are sufficiently xenophobic that this argument is likely to scare them rather than reassure them.
Full of ahistorical assertions and disingenuous arguments.......2004-03-05
In this book the author argues for the "economic benefits of trade, not just for corporations but for people and the environment. He illustrates how protectionist policies damage the economy and fail to save jobs. Examining U.S. trade policy, he shows how "fair trade" measures are arbitrary, unfair, and often harmful"
Yet this author makes slight of America's long history of protectionist policies when it served its interest. In fact the history of America's industrial development was protecting her rising industries. So now that Americas industries are strong and known world wide; its labor force is a problem because it wants decent wages and health benefits. What is the solution? Free trade! Or free trade in cheap labor and dealing with counties that have no labor unions, no regulations that get in the way of business and officials that are easy to bribe.
This book is for those who have no critical facilities what so ever.
The case for free trade.......2003-10-09
Irwin's book, together with Bhagwati's Free Trade today,
makes a strong case for free trade. The argument is clear and
the book is easy to read and full of evidence supporting
free trade. Among other topics, the author discusses
the harmful effects of protection on developing/
developed economies, trade and the environment
and the role of WTO. Irwin's book is non-technical
and more historical than Bhagwati's. The latter
is more theoretical, at least in some parts, but also
a great read. For arguments against free trade using
economic theory see "trade warriors" by Marc Busch or " global Trade and Conflicting National Interests"
by Ralph E. Gomory, William J. Baumol
Necessity to arguing.......2002-07-26
Doesnt it always seem that your friends subscribe to the wrong views, and you to the right one? Well, at least for me it is. Whether your pals are from the anarchist wing or the Pat Buchanan camp, or even deviate just a little from your (correct) free trade stance, you should read this book. And even if you believe in the unholy stance of skepticism of free trade , you should read it too, for "The Economist" said that if this book doesnt convince anti-free traders, nothing will; so go ahead and test your faithfulness.
I am not an economist, and I hate reading economics text books filled with useless jargon. Before reading some great books, economics was as complicated as chemistry, physics or calculas to me. But after reading a few books, "Lexus and the Olive Tree", "Mystery of Capital" and "Peddling Prosperty", I realized that it isn't that complicated, its just the economists who create this aura of an esoteric subject.
This book is written in simple language, but when it does use phrases that regular people don't understand, he does something rare - he explains their meaning.
This is an excellent book, but only after reading The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Tom Friedman's book is the main weapon in my debating arsenal, and "Free Trade Under Fire" book gives me a large cache of ammunition, as do Peddling Prospery (or anything else by Paul Krugman like Pop Internationalism, another MUST read), and Henrando de Soto's masterpiece "The Mystery of Capital"(dont even look at his "Other Path", it is simplified and better argued in this "Mystery").
Highly Recommended
Reading This Book Will Make You Smarter.......2002-04-05
I have had the honor of having the author of this book as a professor in college. Not surprisingly he teaches classes dealing with international trade. All I can say is that he is an economist of the highest order and that he is capable of taking some extrodinarily difficult concepts and explaining them with a level of clarity that make them seem obvious. He takes this teaching approach to his book, making it both intelligent and approachable. If you ever actually wanted to know anything about international trade and even be able to discuss in a relevant manner the points at hand, read this book. You will be smarter for having done so.
Book Description
Advanced International Trade is the first major graduate textbook in international trade in a generation. Trade is a cornerstone concept in economics, taught in all departments both in the United States and abroad. The past twenty years have seen a number of new theoretical approaches that are essential to any graduate international trade course, and will be of interest in development economics and other fields. Here, Robert Feenstra steps beyond theory to consider empirical evidence as well. He covers all the basic material including the Ricardian and Hecksher-Ohlin models, extension to many goods and factors, and the role of tariffs, quotas, and other trade policies; recent material including imperfect competition, outsourcing, political economy, multinationals, and endogenous growth; and new material including the gravity equation and the organization of the firm in international trade.
Throughout the book, special emphasis is placed on integrating the theoretical models with empirical evidence, and this is supplemented by theoretical and empirical exercises that appear with each chapter. Advanced International Trade is intended to bring readers to the forefront of knowledge in international trade and prepare them to undertake their own research. Both graduate students and faculty will find a wealth of topics that have previously only been covered in journal articles, and are dealt with here in a common and simple notation. In addition to known results, the book includes some particularly important unpublished results by various authors. Two appendices describe empirical methods applicable to research problems in international trade, methods that draw on (i) index numbers and (ii) discrete choice models. Thoroughly up-to-date and marked by clear, straightforward prose, this book will be used widely--and enthusiastically.
Professors: A supplementary Solutions Manual is available for this book. It is restricted to teachers using the text in courses. For information on how to obtain a copy, refer to: http://pup.princeton.edu/class.html
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Condition & On time.......2005-09-25
It is on time and the book is in good condition.
The current standard.......2004-06-03
In my opinion this is the best book currently available for a graduate course in real-trade theory. I have already used it twice in class and my students have invariably preferred it to other recent works available, e.g., K.Y. Wong or Bhagwati et al. Compared to these, this book is better written and focuses judiciously on the models that yield the sharpest conclusions and most relevant insights. Discussions of the significance of gravity models, foreign investments, political economy, free trade areas, and institutional factors in trade (e.g., ethnic networks) are particularly clear and up to date compared with other texts.
The required mathematical apparatus (e.g., envelope and duality results) is introduced naturally, intuitively, and only as and when it is needed. The English flows easily, and the interweaving of theoretical and empirical material is especially novel and welcome.
This book should set the standard for writing graduate texts.
Advanced International Trade: Theory and Evidence.......2004-05-05
I really expected far more from this textbook. It adds very little to already existing graduate textbooks on trade. It is not useful for graduate students that want to understand the literature of the 2000s. It assumes you already know the material. It debotes a lot of space to the old literature at the expense of the new one. This is a field that has changed significantly. Frankly, I find hard to see its value added.
Book Description
This book presents the work that has been done to date with the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade, together with a full description and discussion of the model itself. Developed and refined for more than a decade, The Michigan Model is distinguished among general equilibrium trade models not only for its coverage (34 countries and 29 industries) but for its allowance for a wider variety of important short-run interactions among markets and a greater variety of policy parameters and institutional details than many other models permit. The model is intended as a practical tool for policymakers analyzing the effects of measures such as tariffs, taxes, and exchange rate changes on a set of highly disaggregated patterns of production, trade, and employment.
Following an introductory chapter that discusses the development and use of The Michigan Model, its theoretical structure is introduced and compared to the theoretical structure of other computational models and its implementation is presented in terms of data requirements and parameters, methods of solution, and application to various issues. Six chapters then explore a number of different applications designed to analyze the effects of the Tokyo Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and post-Tokyo-Round negotiating alternatives, the effects of tariffs on the structure of protection in the U.S. and other major industrialized countries, the effects of domestic tax/subsidies on the structure of protection in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan, the sectoral impact of real exchange-rate changes, and the effect of trade on employment in major industrial countries. A final chapter draws together the lessons of the efforts for computer modeling of trade and for the direction of future research.
Alan V. Deardorff is Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Robert M. Stern is Professor of Economics and Public Policy, also at Michigan.
Average customer rating:
- Not the best presentation of International Trade
|
International Trade in Goods and Factor Mobility
Kar-yiu Wong
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Advanced International Trade: Theory and Evidence
ASIN: 0262231794 |
Book Description
This up-to-date synthesis of the basic tools and survey results in international trade theory is unique in giving factor mobility equal billing with goods trade, highlighting factor flows in the context of a mainstream approach to trade theory.
The importance of the international flow of factors has grown in recent decades, primarily because of increasing returns, imperfect competition, multinational corporations, and labor migration; theories of factor mobility and trade in goods can no longer be lumped together. Using sophisticated techniques, as well as simple economic intuitions and easy-to-follow diagrams, Kar-yiu Wong systematically presents within unified frameworks all the basic analytical techniques involved in the theories of international trade and factor mobility.
Wong also provides extensive coverage of such issues as interactions between international trade in goods and capital movement, external economies of scale, monopolistic competition and differentiated products, oligopoly, welfare economics of international trade, and policy analysis for various models, and he devotes two separate chapters to multinational corporations and international labor migration. New techniques and approaches to these issues are suggested, and new results obtained for many of them.
For instance, the discussion of intra-industry trade in the presence of positive transport cost and arbitrage is new, as is the systematic examination of the relationship between international trade in goods and factor mobility with external economies of scale, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. Of particular importance to trade theorists, these issues serve as the link between neoclassical and imperfect-competition models.
Customer Reviews:
Not the best presentation of International Trade.......1999-12-13
This book is horrible. As a student of Professor Wong's I used this book extrensively. The mathematical examples were too general and presented in a confusing manner. The lack of intution behind the examples made his examples even more confusing
Average customer rating:
- Regulators should read it
- Horrible
- Heavy life saver!
- This Book Stinks
- Review of Economics of regulation and antitrust
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Economics of Regulation and Antitrust - 3rd Edition
W. Kip Viscusi ,
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The Antitrust Revolution: Economics, Competition, and Policy
-
Modern Industrial Organization (4th Edition) (Addison-Wesley Series in Economics)
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Antitrust Paradox
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Competition Policy: Theory and Practice
-
Lectures on Antitrust Economics (Cairoli Lectures)
ASIN: 0262220628 |
Book Description
Departing from the traditional emphasis on institutions, this text emphasizes the use of economic theory and empirical analysis to understand regulatory and antitrust policies. Questions addressed include: What are the market failure rationales for, and appropriate form of, government intervention? What does theory show about competition in the presence of a market failure and the implications of government intervention to correct that failure? What do empirical analyses indicate about our regulatory experience and the direction of future intervention?
The third edition addresses many issues that have recently dominated the economic and political landscape. New material reviews the government's case against Microsoft, charges of anticompetitive pricing in NASDAQ and airlines, the blocked Staples-Office Depot merger, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This edition also covers the deregulation of the California electric power industry as well as recent deregulatory efforts in bank branching and natural gas transmission. On the social regulatory scene, it covers in detail recent cigarette litigation and the contentious issue of the contingent valuation of natural resource damages, as exemplified in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. New empirical evidence appears throughout the book.
Each part of the text can be used separately for a variety of courses including regulation and antitrust in undergraduate institutions, business schools, and schools of public policy, as well as background for doctoral courses. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter.
Customer Reviews:
Regulators should read it.......2007-06-26
Economics of Regulation and Antitrust offers a broad conclusion on Regulation and Antitrust policies. The issues are well described and easily to understand. Best suited for graduate students in Economics.
Horrible.......2007-06-04
This read like a math book with a few interesting facts. I was dumbfouned by reading this book. I would get to class and my professor would explain things using the same examples from the book and I would understand. The book is impossible to follow. It will give you a million variables and different numbers to think about, and then later expect you to remember something it briefly mentioned two paragraphs ago. If you can learn from reading a math book and no class room instruction; I not only would like to meet you but hand you this book. You would probably love it and understand antitrustlaw and regulation as well as the douches at MIT that wrote the thing.
Heavy life saver!.......2005-02-13
Seldom books on economic theory, particularly on regulation and antitrust are as clearly and professionally written as this one. A student of economics and Ph.D. hopeful, I keep this book within my hand reach at all times.
Economics of Regulation and Antitrust cites numerous antitrust and regulatory cases from American and European history and is thought provoking rather than doctrinal. The graphs are exceptionally easy to read and understand. Particularly well written are chapters on regulation of American transportation.
I continue to use this book for my research and highly recommend it to anybody who is seriously interested in understanding the logic behind regulation acts, game theory, and franchise bidding.
This Book Stinks.......2004-04-21
If you are looking for a nonconsistant book that jumps around and does not follow through on its explanation of certain topics than this is the book for you!
Review of Economics of regulation and antitrust.......2000-05-15
This work provides an excellent overview of the field of regulation from an economic point of view. The primary focus is economic rather than institutional -- as a result it is more appropriate for economists than for legal scholars. Although the book does not require extensive training in economics, it does assume some formal knowledge of basic economic concepts. Since its focus is economic, little time is spent discussing legal cases surrounding many of the regulations compared with, for example, Law, Business, and Society, by McAdams, et. al.
Amazon.com
On Competition, a collection of works by Michael E. Porter, is a critical examination of the dog-eat-dog international economy. A Harvard Business School professor, Porter is one of the most respected and innovative economists of his time. Author of 15 books, he advises key elected officials and business leaders in all parts of the world. On Competition features 13 of his best articles over the past 15 years, including 2 new ones. The essence of Porter's message is that every company, country, and person must master competition to thrive in brutal international and domestic economies. Competition is the key to excellence. Worried about losing your job or your services becoming obsolete? Porter believes that a little fear is good for everyone. "Companies that value stability, obedient customers, dependent suppliers and sleepy competitors are inviting inertia and, ultimately, failure," he writes in his 1990 study and essay "The Competitive Advantage of Nations." Porter is a longtime critic of the short-term thinking on Wall Street that often stifles competition and hurts the economy. In "Capital Disadvantage: America's Failing Capital Investment System," he calls for much lower capital-gains rates for people who invest for the long term. He also urges investors and businesses to start thinking together. He contends that pension funds and institutional investors should get a greater say over the companies they own. It's wacky to have company directors with little expertise or financial interest in the company, he writes.
Porter is often unconventional and asserts that businessmen must be, too. In his essay "Green and Competitive," he shows little sympathy for businesses that complain about environmental regulations. Rules to protect the environment don't have to strangle companies--they can actually improve productivity with the right attitude and approach. Rhone-Poulenc, a French chemical and drug company, proved this when it stopped incinerating a certain byproduct and began selling it as an additive for dyes and tanning. Readable and provocative, On Competition is vital for business, government, and financial leaders as well as small-business people and investors. --Dan Ring
Book Description
For the past 15 years, Michael Porter's work has defined our fundamental understanding of competition and competitive strategy. Presented here for the first time as a collective whole are a dozen articles: two entirely new articles and ten of Porter's articles from the Harvard Business Review. The collection includes a framing introduction from Porter. As a collection, these essays assume a new strength and significance, with each piece augmenting and supporting a complete picture of Porter's perspective on modern competition. To read through this collection is to experience Porter at work: we see first hand as his important theories take shape, deepen, and evolve over time. Organized around three primary categories: Competition and Strategy: Core Concepts, The Competitiveness of Location, and Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems, these articles develop the building blocks that define competitive strategy as we know it. With his unique ability to bridge economics with management, Porter addresses the important issues of competition, from its relationship with environmental regulation to the counterintuitive role of geography in the global economy. A Harvard Business Review Book.
Customer Reviews:
Even More Relevant and More Valuable Today.......2006-05-30
I read this book when it was first published (in 1979) and recently re-read it prior to reading his most recent work, Redefining Health Care which I will also review in the near future. In the Introduction (which then became the first chapter of Competitive Strategy, published in 1980), Porter observes that competition "has intensified over the last decades, in virtually all parts of the world." That is even more true of competition - especially global competition -- during the 27 years since Porter shared that observation. Nonetheless, the core concepts which he and his collaborators rigorously examine remain relevant...indeed, in my opinion, have become even more relevant. Consider these assertions:
1. Competition shapes strategy
2. Successful strategy creates a "fit" among all organizational activities
3. Information can provide a decisive competitive advantage
4. Declining industries require an "end-game" strategy
5. Successful corporate strategy "builds" on three premises: Competition occurs at the business unit level, diversification inevitably adds costs and constraints to business units, and, shareholders can readily diversify themselves.
6. "Moving from competitive strategy to corporate strategy is the business equivalent of passing through the Bermuda Triangle."
Porter carefully organizes the material within three Parts: First, he focuses on competition and strategy for companies at both the level of a single industry and then for multinational or diversified companies; next, he addresses the role of location in competition; and then he Part III, he addresses some important societal issues (e.g. environment, urban poverty, health care, and income inequality), each of which he asserts - and I wholly agree - is "inextricably bound up with economics and, more specifically, with competition."
All but two of the articles originally appeared in Harvard Business Review, the exceptions being "Clusters and Competition: New Agendas for Companies, Governments, and Institutions" and "Competing Across Locations: Enhancing Competitive Advantage through a Global Strategy." In the former, Porter explains his concept of clusters, clusters which are geographic concentrations of firms, suppliers, related industries, and specialized institutions that occur in a particular field in a nation, state, or city. In the latter, Porter brings together the two dimensions of international strategy - location and global networks. As he observes, "The concept of activities, so important to understanding competitive advantage in general terms, provides the basic framework for international strategy as well."
This is by no means an "easy read" but it will generously reward those who read it with appropriate care. By all accounts, Michael Porter is among the most influential and productive knowledge leaders, justly renowned for his cutting-edge thinking on the subject of strategy formulation and implementation but in this volume and in countless others, he also has much of great value to say about competitive and corporate strategy insofar as their global impact is concerned. That said, many of his greatest concerns are those specifically related to the U.S. economy. Hence the importance to me of what he and his collaborators (Claas van der Linde, Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, and Gregory B. Brown) have to say in Part III: "Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems."
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Porter's other works as well as two recently published books: Kenichi Ohmae's The Next Global Stage and C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
Insightful!.......2005-06-20
Remember when you were a youthful entrepreneur operating a neighborhood lemonade stand? If author Michael E. Porter had walked up to buy a cup of punch from you, he probably would have asked about your business strategy. While you poured, he would have questioned what made your lemonade different from anyone else's. If he liked your lemonade, he'd no doubt give you suggestions on how to earn millions competing in the global marketplace. Ah, if only you had listened... The author, America's dean of competition, has spent two decades asking seminal questions such as, "What is competition? What are its effects? How can society benefit?" The Harvard Business Review previously published 11 of the 13 articles collected in this book. In the two new essays, Porter serves up invaluable concepts. His take on the growing importance of location, despite rising globalization, is a tour de force. Oddly, Porter sees no inconsistency in encouraging "productive competition" in the health care industry while advocating universal health care. For Porter, competition is the ingredient that turns lemons into lemonade. We recommend his latest book to any corporate strategist who seeks ideas on becoming more competitive, starting in your own neighborhood.
Helpful Essays from a Corporate Strategy Icon.......2002-12-07
This book is a collection of essays and articles by Michael Porter alone or with others. Most of them are collected from his writings in the Harvard Business Review although two are new to this book. Think of this as a "Porter's Greatest Hits" kind of thing. That is a bit misleading because his HBR articles are not exactly the same thing as his Competitive Advantage books although the topics are definitely related.
The essays are grouped into three broad sections: 1) Competition and Strategy: Core Concepts, 2) The Competitiveness of Locations, and 3) Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems. Will you find each article of the same high quality? Probably not (again, like a greatest hits collection), but you will find them informative and thought provoking. It is impossible to study for an MBA nowadays without invoking "Porter's Five Forces" in your discussions of competitive and marketing strategy.
This book can help add to your thinking and understanding of how every aspect of our life is in some way part of a competitive context and the ways it improves our standard of living. It will also help you improve your thinking in how to best strategize for and participate in competitive situations.
It would be a mistake to think that Porter advocates for a Hobbesian nightmare of life being nasty, brutish and short. Rather, he is more or less helping us think through the nature of the way competition arises and how to best think about its sources and how to manage it and the traps to avoid.
While Porter's model is used by some as a hammer that sees everything as a nail, it really needn't be used that way and, in its proper context, is very helpful.
Great aggregration of Porter's work.......2001-10-26
'Porter On Competition' is 'lighter' to read than his 'Trilogy', but it nicely consists the core ideas of his work & how it evolved during the past decades. It provides reader a nice overview about how competitive strategy & competitive advantage are applicable to a wide range of areas: from corporation, industry & nation, to social issues such as health care & environment.
Ladies and Gentlemen please! time to get out the Porter.......2001-03-04
You can always tell when it's time to dust off the old Michael E. Porter books and to start to frantically search for better and sounder ways to do business and compete, it's when the economy starts to get a little tighter and begin to show signs of taking a down-turn, like about now.
So, before you fork out good money and time to read the next great and grandiose book on how to make a fast few million bucks on the internet read this first, and you will still be in business this time next year, and after that - maybe.
Amazon.com
Everything For Sale is an erudite reprieve from the deluge of books written in praise of free markets. Robert Kuttner fires back with a book that documents relevant, real-world examples of market failure and makes the case for intelligent intervention to attain more desirable outcomes. His exhaustive litany of successful (some, even cherished) government interventions in the market--from National Public Radio to the Internet--creates a persuasive case for a mixed program of political and market-based approaches in the shaping of public policy. When Kuttner pushes his argument for a culture with less commercial emphasis, his preferences exhibit an anti-market bias. But overall, his argument is clear and compelling, exposing blind adherence to market outcomes as largely arbitrary, ideological, and often, an affront to democracy. Academic economists who ignore the political desires of the people in order to protect the purity of their mathematical models draw Kuttner's fire in particular. He writes about ideas and economic details with great verve and ability. Kuttner's book is certain to be a touchstone of debate, if not reform, among public policy makers.
Book Description
In this highly acclaimed, provocative book, Robert Kuttner disputes the laissez-faire direction of both economic theory and practice that has been gaining in prominence since the mid-1970s. Dissenting voices, Kuttner argues, have been drowned out by a stream of circular arguments and complex mathematical models that ignore real-world conditions and disregard values that can't easily be turned into commodities. With its brilliant explanation of how some sectors of the economy require a blend of market, regulation, and social outlay, and a new preface addressing the current global economic crisis, Kuttner's study will play an important role in policy-making for the twenty-first century.
"The best survey of the limits of free markets that we have. . . . A much needed plea for pragmatism: Take from free markets what is good and do not hesitate to recognize what is bad."—Jeff Madrick, Los Angeles Times
"It ought to be compulsory reading for all politicians—fortunately for them and us, it is an elegant read."—The Economist
"Demonstrating an impressive mastery of a vast range of material, Mr. Kuttner lays out the case for the market's insufficiency in field after field: employment, medicine, banking, securities, telecommunications, electric power."—Nicholas Lemann, New York Times Book Review
"A powerful empirical broadside. One by one, he lays on cases where governments have outdone markets, or at least performed well."—Michael Hirsh, Newsweek
"To understand the economic policy debates that will take place in the next few years, you can't do better than to read this book."—Suzanne Garment, Washington Post Book World
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Explanation of Market Impefections and How to Resolve Them.......2007-07-28
The marketplace has it advantages, yet it is unable to be perfect. It is foolhardy to believe that all economic solutions will eventually emerge from the marketplace and with just market corrections. Robert Kuttner explains where market imperfections exist and how to correct them.
Unions are presented as a positive economic force, as the organization of employees and prevention of employer abuses is shown to raise productivity. Often these productivity increases surpass their bargained wage increases. Employers resist unions, even with they are advantageous to them, because they don't wish to share concede managerial powers. Plus, increased wages are sometimes paid by with reduced profits. Yetl, the overall effect of unionization has created a better wage distribution that helps the overall economy.
The growing service economy is less unionized. In part, this is the fault of unions who expelled their more radical members, who were in fact their best organizers. The resulting lower wages of service employment in general is contributing to an increase in national wage disparity that is creating economic imperfections.
Robert Kuttner calls for greater civil vitality and government actions designed to work as allies with the market in strengthening the economy. Failing to do so, we will continue to experience such market imperfections as in wage and wealth disparities and a poor allocation of health care services. The health care system lacks free market competition, fails to provide perfect information to consumer, and consumers have little mobility to choose their health care providers even if they had better information.
The economy is one where people do not always act rationally or with stable economic optimization strategies, as a free market requires. There are forces in financial markets and businesses that often seek to take unfair advantage of market systems, which further diminishes the ability of the market to operate efficiently. There is a need for government regulation of the market, unions, fair trade with common international standards, and policies such as strong education systems and social support systems to keep the economic system operating as well as it can. The book is an excellent explanation of the true workings of our economic system.
well argued and well documented critique of "free market" religion.......2007-07-21
Kuttner is not a "leftist", he's pro-capitalist. But he is aware of the destructive consequences of laissez faire policy.
The virtue of this book is that it discusses clearly in detail a wide variety of areas where market failures are rife. He shows how laissez faire market governance doesn't work for health care, or electric power, how it leads to greater oppression and inequality for workers. He gives many concrete examples from the real world that falsify the theoretical assumptions of "neo-classical" (laissez faire) economic theory. He shows how the assumptions laissez faire makes about people -- "we're all self-centered maximizers of our own self-regarding wants" -- are wrong, how humans are more complex in their actual motivations.
When a theory -- neo-classical economics in this case -- is held to despite its being falsified by reality over and over, it begins to take on the character of a religion. Since the explanation for its hold can't be its scientific credence -- in fact it's a pseudo-science -- we need some other explanation for its hold. The fact that it is an ideology that has been extremely beneficial to the rich and powerful seems the best explanation.
Kuttner is an old-fashioned liberal and a particularly intelligent one. His book is thus in part a defense of the liberal approach that wants to use state regulation of the economy and he provides various arguments to show how efficiency and other human benefits can be secured through government action.
Since capitalism has always depended on the state to support it, I don't think this is a different economy from capitalism, whereas Kuttner calls his proposal a "mixed economy". Kuttner thus doesn't consider any alternatives that would go beyond the hierarchies of the state and corporations or go beyond a society based on private appropriation of profit. However, Kuttner's evidence of endemic market failures can provide good ammo for those who have a more anti-capitalist viewpoint.
Democracy not for Sale: a Fair and Balanced View of Markets.......2006-11-06
Everything For Sale is a powerful response to the wave of ideologically motivated free market boosterism that passes itself off as works of sophisticated scholarship. Notice the subtitle: The Virtues and Limits of Markets. Kuttner does, in fact, praise markets for their strengths. He has little patience, however, for the abstract ideal of a pure market, which is as illusory as Kant's thing-in-itself. He asks that discussions of markets and regulations bearing upon markets account for the way things really work, with conclusions supported by actual case studies.
Instead what Kuttner finds is the scholarship of those questing for the grail of a pure market relies primarily on deductive reasoning, tautologies, abstract models and unlikely presuppositions (the rational maximizer, for example), rather than sound historical analysis. Of course, it is easy to cherry pick regulatory failures, but ideologues that ignore or misrepresent counter examples of regulatory necessity and success disserve the cause of democracy -- they see only the virtues, not the limits of markets.
Kuttner effectively argues for a nuanced view of markets and regulation in his discussion of health care and money markets, in his discussion of democratic, human and environmental values, none of which can be reduced to market values, but all of which appropriately rely on markets to varying degrees to achieve communal and individual good. Kuttner does not argue that regulation is always the solution for market limits and failures, but he decisively rejects that dogma that no matter how bad things are, government involvement will always only make it worse. He rejects the market vs. regulation dualism, and the cynicism that says market values are all that matter.
Everything For Sale presents a well reasoned and well written case for reevaluating the public institutions upon which our democracy (and markets) depends. If anything, it is a more important book today than it was when written in 1996.
An excellent refutation of classical liberal misunderstandings.......2006-08-09
Free market zealots will find this book impossible to understand, because the author has a sophisticated ontological understanding of the human being that they can never have. Kuttner, like Freud, Veblen, Polanyi, Galbraith, Packard and many others before him, understands that the human is a vulnerable, emotional being driven by anxiety and susceptible to manipulation by a business class whose ruthlessness has never been in question. This contrasts starkly with the simple-minded utilitarian view of the individual as a free-willed rational calculator programmed to maximise his or her economic interests in a market system that circulates information purely and transparently. This view of the human being as an autonomous hedonist-rationalist has become a self-fulfilling prophecy amongst those who subscibe to it, and they have become in their everyday lives the narrow, simple, unethical and anomic creatures that the belief constructs. Tediously and predictably, all critiques of work such as Kuttner's are grounded in this one-dimensional depiction of the human being. Consequently, all the apparently sophisticated mathematical models constructed by the pseudo-scientists who call themselves 'free-market economists' - even though their internal logics seems to make sense to the simpletons who construct and apply them - are thus spectacular examples of mumbo-jumbo based on a single and catastrophically false ontological assumption. To me, books such as Kuttner's make a strong case for temporarily disbanding economics and reformulating its fundamental metaphysical assumptions under the guidance of more sophisticated social scientific and philosophical disciplines. Well done indeed, Mr. Kuttner, and someone now needs to take up the baton and write a comprehensible book that instructs these Hayekian-utilitarian simpletons about the psychological vulnerability of the emotional human being and the moral complexity of human intersubjectivity in its economic, political, social and ecological contexts.
The grail of a perfect market is a dangerous fantasy.......2005-07-13
In this mightily important book Robert Kuttner attacks frontally and defeats by KO the utopian view of 'laissez faire' of the Chicagoans, who hold that regulation is never warranted because all private choices are free of coercion.
He adopts the Schumpeterian view that the real economy rather than aggregating to a single optimal 'general equilibrium' is constantly in disequilibrium. 'Perfect competition is not only impossible, but inferior.'
He turns the 'Revealed Preference' (markets serve free choices and aggregate welfare) into Bertrand de Jouvenel's 'Revealed Ignorance'. Corporations have the power to set prices, not to take them passively.
What we need is a mixed economy: a balance between market, state and civil society. In fact, the US has a long history of governmental interventionism.
The author illustrates his credo forcefully by examining a whole range of all important industries and markets.
Free markets and/or deregulation are not a solution for
- the health care sector (the most efficient way to make a profit is to avoid sick people and to limit care)
- the money market (the S & L disaster)
- the labor market (is a reflexion of the relative power between the capital owner and the salary worker. After loosing his job, the latter is three months away from destitution)
- the airline industry (deregulation has degraded service in multiple ways)
- the environment (global warming, acid rain and deforestation cannot be solved by market forces)
- telecommunications (major sectors are natural monopolies)
- electricity (the final sale remains a true natural monopoly)
- education (a paramount source of long-term economic growth)
- safe and health in the workplace (that's why Congress wrote OSHA).
He cleverly explains the motives behind 'laissez faire' policies. As Robert Heilbroner said 'Ideology is part of economics'.
'Wealth buys among other things power and power resists income distribution.'
The champions of false evangelism are for the author the Public Choice cynics. He unmask them as fundamental anti-democrats, because they believe that 'politics is hopelessly self-defeating'.
However, he notes that its representatives are very congenial to the most powerful and poses the rhetoric question: Who looses when society pursues political mobilization of propertyless voters, a broad welfare state, substantial economic regulation and redistributive taxation?'
On the contrary, we need a reinforced democracy as a bulwark against tyranny, for the expression of selfhood, for the cultivation of civic skills and norms and to keep markets in place and to limit their sometimes destructive mechanism.
This is a very important political book written by a superb free and unbiased free mind.
Nevertheless, the political pendulum is actually close to the far right: after giving mighty tax breaks for the wealthy, the actual US government declares that pensions and medical aid have to be cut for budget reasons!
I also recommend Peter Temin's work 'Did monetary forces cause the Great Depression?' where he destroys Friedman's explanation of the most important economic disaster in the US history.
Book Description
This rigorous and comprehensive text encompasses modern theoretical and applied methods of analysis in the field of international trade. Rather than presenting the theory as fact, the authors illustrate the application of theory and consider those areas where theory appears deficient to explain observed phenomena.
The analysis begins with perfect competition, followed by an examination of imperfectly competitive market structures (including a wide range of models of price and quantity competition) and of multinational production. Part 1 provides an overview of the patterns and policy of the trading world; part 2 explores the trade and trade policy of competitive markets; part 3 discusses the trade and trade policy of imperfectly competitive markets. Of special interest are the final two chapters in part 4, which provide an updated analysis of topics that are not typically covered in other texts, namely the properties of exchange rate regimes for international trade and the relationship between growth and international trade.
The appendix provides a wealth of sources of data, most of which are available on the Internet. Another useful feature are the selected references and list of additional readings, ordered in terms of main topics, which appear at the end of each chapter.
The book is designed to be adopted as the core text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in international trade; prerequisites are courses in intermediate microeconomics and introductory econometrics.
Harry P. Bowen is Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Economics, University of California at Irvine. Abraham Hollander is Associate Professor of Economics, University of Montreal, and Associate Researcher at the Centre de Recherche et de Développement en Economique. Jean-Marie Viaene is Professor of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute.
This title was formally part of the Studies in International Trade Policy Series, now called Studies in International Economics.
Book Description
For much of the post-World War II period, the increasing globalization of the U.S. economy was welcomed by policymakers and by the American people. We gained the benefits of cheaper and, in some cases, better foreign-made products, while U.S. firms gained wider access to foreign markets. The increasing economic interlinkages with the rest of the world helped promote capitalism and democracy around the globe. Indeed, we helped "win" the Cold War by trading and investing with the rest of the world, in the process demonstrating to all concerned the virtues of trade and markets. In recent years, however, a growing chorus of complaints has been lodged against globalization--which is blamed for costing American workers their jobs and lowering their wages. The authors of this book speak directly and simply to these concerns, demonstrating with easy prose and illustrations why the "globaphobes" are wrong. Globalization has not cost the United States jobs. Nor has it played any more than a small part in the disappointing trends in wages of many American workers. The challenge for all Americans is to embrace globalization and all of the benefits it brings, while adopting targeted policies to ease the very real pain of those few Americans whom globalization may harm. Globaphobia outlines a novel, yet sensible program for advancing this objective.
Customer Reviews:
The Very First Book To Read on Globalization.......2002-02-17
The ease of reading is exceptional. If you are worried about your limited understanding in economics and especially international trade, this is the book for you. In addition to the book being written and edited to be understood by nearly any modestly educated person it is further advantaged by authors that clearly understand the subject in great depth. As is so often the case the extremely well informed can write with such clarity for the lay reader.
As nearly all economists understand net trade flows always equal net investment flows. Shockingly large numbers of media and congressmen do not understand this utterly simple formula. In a nut shell, with all the foreign money pouring into the USA treasuries market, stock market and direct business investments over the last several decades, it follows that the USA would run trade deficits equal to the net investment inflow over the same period. If you do not understand this or you want an ultra easy review of these simple facts, this book was made for you. In a grand gesture of national service these authors wrote the book that was needed for general understanding of what positive and negative points globalization means to the USA. It is not designed for academic kudos.
If every modestly educated voter would read this book, the future of the USA and the world would be significantly brightened. While this is a pipe dream, at least read this book before you say one more word about globalization otherwise you may embarrass your self in the presence of informed people. If you are informed on economics please forgive my heavy handedness. It is not meant for you. This is a critical issue for underdeveloped nations and the mature nations, there is so much to be gained by informed voters on this subject.
This book is carefully grounded in the proven principals of economics. While a reviewer or two gives an impression to the contrary, decades of reading in economics provides me the confidence to assure you that this book is profoundly well grounded. At each point where scholars may differ the authors and editors have carefully laid out its discussion. This is not a book written with a liberal or conservative bent. Modern economics encompasses a significant degree of science and mathematical logic. To view this book as otherwise, is to be illogical or unwilling to accept the most basic proven equations. Again you will not find an easier more meaningful book to read on economics.
The USA economy for a variety of reasons has sharply declining need for workers without a high school education and places a continuing rising premium on post college education. Increasingly, those that can graduate from the elite institutions lead nearly a charmed life in the USA. Immigrants that are able to enter the USA with limited education are having increasing difficulty as the decades roll by. It is not clear that globalization is a meaningful factor in placing the such great educational needs on the American worker. This book helps frame the questions that might be asked about the rising importance of education in the USA. The book being about globalization does not dwell on this issue, but it does strongly suggest that the potential understanding of this issue of the exponentially rising need for superior knowledge is much broader than the globalization trend.
The most provocative theme in the latter chapters of the book is the impact of globalization on those American workers that are poorly educated. The adverse impacts on this group comes from rapid technology changes, defective educational system, ineffective governmental assistance and to a very small degree open trade. The authors documentation about how little negative impact foreign trade has on a very limited number of workers is shocking. A source of another worthy book would be to provide a more exhaustive review of this aspect. The authors conclude that the popular obsession on this point should treated with a reorganized aggressive worker assistance program. Almost any reasonable assistance program would be a modest cost relative to the diverse and powerful benefits that all the rest of Americans get from open trade according to the authors.
The authors are very negative on the effectiveness of government sponsored retraining. The book is highly critical of the governments ability to define injured parties in open trade without it being a political football. The authors suggest an assistance program that is indiscriminate as to the cause of worker misfortune and focuses on programs that show imperial evidence of effectiveness. The focal point is intermediate assistance for any lower income workers need to find new employment. While the left and the right quarrel about where to draw the line, the authors contend that so few people are in need relative to the benefits of open trade that just focusing on a well designed assistance program would make all the difference in giving support and comfort to the aggrieved relative to the huge benefits of open trade.
A little gem.......2001-06-30
Globaphobia is a great little text on the benefits of free trade. If only some of those protesting about the evils of capitalism actually took the time to educate themselves. They might then see that everyone benefits from free trade; developing countries have more jobs and developed countries higher real wages; consumers everywhere get greater choice.
There will always be losers - as the book makes clear. But that's a fact of life whichever economic creed you follow. There are significantly fewer losers in Asia now that forty years of economic liberalisation have raised income levels from paddy field to first world standards. This book explains why - in crisp simple terms.
Excellent Information BUT Beware of Assumptions.......2001-03-05
Globaphobia is an important book for anyone trying to get a handle on the free trade arguments. The book is well written and addressed to a lay audience. One should be careful about some of the assumptions in the book, especially if one has no background in economics. I was required to get the book as a supplementary reading for an International Trade Theory course. I found it to be very helpful in getting a big picture understanding of current International Trade Theory. Buy the book; it is worth the relatively inexpensive price!
Stimulating ideas on globalization and the U. S. economy........1998-10-10
An effective presentation of the positive and sometimes negative effects that open world trade has on the U. S. economy. It suggests thought-provoking ideas on how the United States and other national economies can ease the negative effects of globalization on their less-educated or poorly-prepared working populations. Our consulting staff recommends this publication as "semi-relaxed" reading when you are ready to let your mind roam and consider new ideas. John R. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute
Stimulating ideas on globalization and the U. S. economy........1998-10-10
An effective presentation of the positive and sometimes negative effects that open world trade has on the U. S. economy. It suggests thought-provoking ideas on how the United States and other national economies can ease the negative effects of globalization on their less-educated or poorly-prepared working populations. Our consulting staff recommends this publication as "semi-relaxed" reading when you are ready to let your mind roam and consider new ideas. John R. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute
Average customer rating:
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Economics of Offsets: Defence Procurement and Countertrade (Studies in Defence Economics, Vol 4)
S. Martin
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Book Description
Despite their growth, outlined and analysed in this book, the claims and counter-claims that surround offsets have not been subjected to critical scrutiny by economists. This book fills that gap. It brings together a team of internationally renowned specialists to document and evaluate the economic impact of several countries' offset policies. In addition, the papers by industrialists and defence officials yield further insights which help to tease out which of the claims made for offsets do not stand critical scrutiny. br Offsets, or work-sharing arrangements, are frequently requested by governments when buying foreign defence equipment. Under an offset the vendor agrees to place work to a set value with firms in the buying country. Although popular, controversy surrounds their impact. Some claim that offsets create jobs and enhance the defence industrial base. Others argue that offset work would have been won without the offset or that it is low technology work which ceases once the vendor has ful
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