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To buy local is loco

By Tom Papworth
March 2nd, 2011 at 11:39 am | Comments Off on To buy local is loco | Posted in Economics, International Development

Over at Cafe Hayek, George Mason professor of economics Russ Roberts turns his guns on the ”buy local” fallacy.

Roberts is a far better economist than I am, and I have no doubt that he has a better understanding of the value of trade, but I am left feeling that somehow his article fails to get to the root of the issue.

I have therefore set out my own reasons why the Buy Local movement is actually harmful to human development and will reduce welfare. This boils down to the fact that it is anti-trade, preventing people from benefiting from the most effecient providers across the country or the world; that it undermines the principle of specialisation on which human development is based; and ignores Comparative Advantage, which makes it worthwhile for even the most and the least efficient producers to work together.

Please head over to the IEA website and take a look at the full article. I have closed the comments section below to encourage readers of this site to comment in the same place as readers of the IEA site.

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GUEST POST: at Copenhagen, beware “green” protectionism

By admin
December 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in Economics

dusty_kidWith all eyes on the UN summit at Copenhagen this month, keen observers are wondering whether collaborations are possible to mitigate climate change. Yet some proposals would do more harm than good, with “green” protectionism the most dangerous of all.

These are proposals to permit trade restrictions on the grounds that they will help to prevent climate change–a sadly misleading theory, which has predictably gained support already from uncompetitive industries and other vested interests have jumped on the bandwagon.

In our petition against these measures, the Freedom to Trade campaign explains:

“Trade enables specialisation, which results in the development of new technologies and leads to the creation of wealth. In the past two decades, trade has enabled over a billion people to escape poverty. Trade is the most powerful weapon in humanity’s armoury to fight poverty and environmental ills, including climate change. Trade restrictions are not desirable, nor are they an effective means of addressing climate change.”

Ongoing health disasters that some fear will be accentuated by climate change are already a reality today for millions of people–as a result of poverty, imbedded by oppression and trade restrictions.  Every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria, an entirely preventable and curable disease.  Seventeen thousand people in poor countries die every day from respiratory or diarrhoeal illnesses.

To instil today’s disasters by encouraging barriers to trade that are already preventing people in poor countries from lifting themselves out of poverty is madness. Please sign our petition against this phoney cure, and send a message to the politicians in Copenhagen that trade and wealth are our best weapons to adapt to a changing climate.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/1mu46P

Alec van Gelder is Project Director of the Freedom to Trade campaign and writes on trade for publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Sydney Morning Herald.

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Wednesday morning double-history video fun

By Julian Harris
May 13th, 2009 at 11:10 am | 1 Comment | Posted in Economics

By no means have I tired of this Morvah George business, believe you me, but for some of us a little break from Expenses-gate may be welcome, no?

A minor distraction, perhaps, and so what to distract us? Oh yes! By Jove, we’re still in a global economic recession.

And rather than reading books and stuff, why not try that old hungover teachers’ trick of dimming the lights and pretending that a historical video counts as work?

Quiet please…

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