Every newspaper picture editor knows the score. If it’s a story about trade, it gets illustrated with a photo of a gargantuan cargo ship piled high with containers. And every amateur apostle of the free market, along with a few government ministers, knows that all you need to do to win an argument about trade is to cite the theory of comparative advantage and you’re pretty much done.
Much public understanding about trade and globalisation is either scant or trapped in models and realities that owe more to the 20th century, and sometimes the 19th, than to today. At a moment when the downsides of trade and globalisation are cited as causes of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the rise of rightwing populism in Europe, getting the analysis right is a matter of rather more than academic interest.
Enter, with exemplary timing, this excellent book by Richard Baldwin, an academic with a strong applied focus, who combines a professorship at the Graduate Institute in Geneva with the presidency of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a renowned network of economists.