Trade Links

TRADE LINKS
The high costs of U.S. quantitative restrictions: Quantitative restirictions cost the United States three times what the protection-equivalent tariff would cost---because two-thirds of the higher cost to consumers goes straight to foreign producers. Why the giveaway to foreigners? U.S. producers have a louder voice than U.S. consumers, and foreign producers lobby aggressively to face a quota rather than a tariff---and thus get a higher price in the U.S. market

Conference Summary:American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
March 1998

The argument that low foreign wages provide an unfair competitive advantage has been widely believed in the United States for at least 150 years, and it was a powerful factor last year in defeating President Clinton's request for "fast track" trade authority. Nevertheless, that argument has two important flaws: it fails to recognize a fundamental distinction between comparative and absolute advantage, and it fails to grasp the link between low wages and low productivity.

From the Heritage Foundation - Very Good.

LookSmart - Articles and Research on the Economics of Int'l Trade
News Brief: IMF Seminar Discusses Revenue Implications of Trade Liberalization

Although trade liberalization is presumed to reduce trade tax revenues, the impact is in fact ambiguous, since it depends on the nature of a country’s trade barriers and its strategy of trade reform.

NCPA - Trade Issues - Tariffs And Other Trade Barriers

Good list of links.

NCPA - Trade Issues - A New Look At Trade Barrier Costs: Surprisingly few studies exist which estimate the total costs of trade barriers. Experts find that the figures which have emerged are suspiciously low.

If Congress is in the mood to make the tax code &quotfairer," a good place to start is with America's unfairest taxes: tariffs and quotas.

In 1790, the Tariff Code consisted of a single sheet of paper. Today, there are more than 8,757 tariffs - plus vast numbers of quotas, so-called voluntary import restraints and other import restrictions. All too often these barriers to trade impose their greatest burdens on low-income families.