Jump to content

Talk:Protectionism

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This statement is incorrect

[edit]

From the lead:

"Although trade liberalization can sometimes result in large and unequally distributed losses and gains,"

No, this is not accurate, or certainly not clear. The losses are not large, they are relatively tiny and concentrated, while the gains are dispersed economy-wide. Those gains also aren't limited to lower prices, but also include greater economic efficiency. The alternative, protectionism, results in deadweight loss, not from higher prices (which are a transfer from consumers to producers), but changes in behavior that use up more resources for the same outcome (like reorganizing supply chains). It's like making someone take a longer route to work -they'll spend more money on gas (that could be spent somewhere else), but that extra time, the resource, is completely wasted.

Basically, the lead could be more clear and not use language that seems to exaggerate the losses from trade, and cover the benefits both in terms of lower prices and economic efficiencies. Jonathan f1 (talk) 07:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]