Refusing to liberalize trade unless partner countries adopt new labor or environmental rules is a bad policy, because even if the new standards would reduce distortions on some dimensions, such a policy involves threatening to maintain large distortions in the form of restricted trade.
Responses
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
3%
11%
0%
18%
29%
32%
8%
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
0%
25%
27%
37%
12%
Participant |
University |
Vote |
Confidence |
Bio/Vote History |
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 Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Not clear that increasing carbon-intensive imports from, say, China would be a step closer to a less distorted allocation.
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 Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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When countries adopt beggar-thy-neighbor trade/currency policies, bilateral trade agreements are a powerful tool for disciplining behavior
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 Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Measuring the social cost of the environmental distortion and the social cost of the trade distortion is hard to do definitively.
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 Janet Currie |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Theory is clear that we cannot make such statements outside of the first best.
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 Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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I see the point, but it seems impossible not to want to reserve judgment on a case by case basis.
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 Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Such a broad proclamation seems overstated. Relatedly, are the trade restraints on Iran bad on balance because of distortions?
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 Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Theory of the Second Best suggests strongly that "it depends."
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 Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Claudia Goldin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Depends on how big the distortion is in the status quo
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 Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Yes but new research sez benefits of trade smaller than old view Greenhouse gases impt exception b/c global impact of climate change.
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 Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Policymakers seem to think that granting the right to export to the US is a valuable privilege that comes at some cost to the US.
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 Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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If there a true distortion (e.g. environmental) that needs correction, it should be addressed directly, not through distorting trade.
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 Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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These arguments are often used by protectionists who use these issues to block freer trade.
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 Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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OK to threaten it, but losing a deal over this would be bad policy; this reasoning seems to make it much harder to reach deals.
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 Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Income growth and technology transfer through free trade could actually improve environmental and labor standards.
-see background information here |
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 Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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If the labor or environmental practices are bad enough, they should have primacy.
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 William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Maurice Obstfeld |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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In many, perhaps most cases I would agree, but I don't see how one can argue that the trade distortion is always more important.
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 Hyun Song Shin |
Princeton | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Nancy Stokey |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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This question is to broad/vague to be meaningful. Specific instances would probably lead to different answers.
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 Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Poor question. Trade deals are negotiated. The word "refusing" is an odd choice.
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 Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Luigi Zingales |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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