The global free trade error : the infeasibility of Ricardo's comparative advantage theory

Resource Information

The work The global free trade error : the infeasibility of Ricardo's comparative advantage theory represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The global free trade error : the infeasibility of Ricardo's comparative advantage theory

Title remainder

the infeasibility of Ricardo's comparative advantage theory

Statement of responsibility

Ron Baiman

Creator

• Baiman, Ron, 1951-

Subject

• Comparative advantage (International trade)
• Free trade

Language

eng

Summary

The doctrine of "free trade" is second only to that of "free markets" in undergirding ideological support for our current global economic structures and rules. From David Ricardo’s "comparative advantage principle" to James Meade’s Neoclassical or mainstream economics proof of self-adjusting free trade equilibrium, the free trade doctrine has had a lasting and destructive hold on Neoclassical economic thinking since its inception. The Global Free Trade Error provides a detailed analysis of these foundational models and counter-poses these to alternative Neo-Marxist "unequal exchange" models of global trade and finance. In the first part of the book the three core free trade models alluded to above are respectively demonstrated to be: overdetermined, inapplicable, and infeasible. In particular, Ricardo’s parable is shown to support managed trade rather than free trade as Ricardo and two centuries of economic texts have claimed. In the second part of the book, unequal exchange analyses of global trade are shown to provide logically coherent and useful insights into global trade and finance. In the third and final part of the book, this unequal exchange perspective is used, within a general "demand and cost" setting, to develop a set of global managed trade principles for a more equitable and sustainable world trade regime. This book will be of great interest to those who study political economy, history of economic thought, and international trade, including trade agreements and tariffs. --

Member of

• Routledge frontiers of political economy, 225

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Routledge frontiers of political economy

Series volume

225