Protectionism

by Jagdish N. Bhagwati

A leading international economist looks at many of the key issues of trade policy now confronting the United States and the world in this timely book. Clear, informative, and witty, Jagdish Bhagwati provides the best available analysis of the protection debate and offers a prescription for reform in this turbulent area of trade policy. Bhagwati identifies new and powerful interests and ideologies that are likely to dominate the outcome of the debate. He argues that opposing tendencies can be identified in trade-related ideologies and in the national and sectional interests that lobby on trade policy in pluralistic societies. He offers the prognosis that the forces favoring freer trade are more robust and more fundamental than the forces of protectionism, and that pro trade forces are likely to triumph in the end but only if we adapt appropriately the institutions within which these ideologies and interests must function. Through an appealing combination of text, quotations, cartoons, tables, charts, and graphs, Bhagwati provides a masterly and entertaining look at the forces for and against protection. Protectionism is based on the inaugural series of Ohlin Lectures, which he delivered at the Stockholm School of Economics in October of 1987.

Genres: Economics

163 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati (born July 26, 1934) is an Indian American economist and professor of economics and law at Columbia University. He is well known for his research in international trade and for his advocacy of free trade.

Reviews

[Marcos Sorá · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read Bhagwati’s papers and had been wanting to read one of his more informal books for a while, as I had heard he was an eloquent writer. This is indeed the case, and the eloquence is specially put forward in a book with such a clear agenda (although his excessive reliance on witticisms and neologism of his own coinage is a little bit nerving).

The book itself is an enjoyable window to trade policy and the cleavages created around it in the 60s-80s. The book delineates sources of protectionism (and pro trade) feelings and arguments coming from institutions, ideology and academia itself. It is a cool starting point to think what things have changed since those days, and how the forces he focuses on were or not present in the protectionist escalation of the 2010s.

[Lance Cahill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A concise, clear, and excellent exposition of Bhagwati's views on what is broadly called commercial, or trade, policy. Bhagwati goes into detail regarding the GATT process, countervailing duties and tariffs under GATT, and what he views as the devolution of the trade policy with the introduction of bilateral trade agreements which undermine the multilateral and universal objectives of GATT.

There is no better advocate for a free and open trading system than Bhagwati.

The following link broadly covers the points covered in Bhagwati's book: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Pr...