Jagdish Bhagwati is University Professor, Economics and Law, Columbia University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His 2004 book, In Defense of Globalization (Oxford) has just been released in a new Edition.
His latest books on trade, Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Trade Agreements are Undermining Multilateral Free Trade, and Terrified by Trade: The Paradox of Protectionism in the United States, will be published by Oxford.
Alan Blinder focuses on online outsourcing of services in his own writings as also in the present debate organized by Ben Friedman; but the issues raised are far more general for free trade itself, and have been advertised as such by the media. So, for both analytical and public-policy reasons, I cast my own contribution very wide, putting Blinder's arguments into necessary perspective.
Turn to the leading American newspapers these days and you will read about the “loss of nerve”, even “loss of faith”, in free trade by economists.
Then, you get incessant protectionist pronouncements from the New Democrats (i.e. those successful in the latest elections) in the Congress, and calculated ambiguities on free trade from the Old Democrats (such as Hillary Clinton who infamously asked for a “pause” in ratifying trade deals) as they run for President.
When challenged by the proponents of free trade, these politicians now typically say: “Ah, but economists no longer have a consensus on free trade”, citing these very same stories they read in the newspapers.
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