ultimately, I expect that the growth in services trade will reduce pressures for protectionism. Instead of talking about hypothetical trade in hypothetical completed goods–like cars and computers–it will become clear that portions of the value-added are often being created in different places. Pushing for trade protectionism in the name of specific products made in other countries like cars or steel or televisions is one thing, but I’m not sure any similar protectionist movement will form to prevent, say, insurance record-keeping or checking diagnostic X-rays from happening in another country. In addition, countries will need to be wary of placing tariffs or other restrictions on imports, because many imports will be part of a global production chain, and domestic produces will be quick to point out how inhibiting their access to those global connections will injure the domestic economy.
He cites a paper by Prakash Loungani and Saurabh Mishra and points out that trade in services has been growing three times faster than trade in goods. I would make the additional prediction that the Great Factor-Price Equalization will continue.
Trade in services will not be blocked by tariffs using economic arguments, they will be harassed by non-tariff barriers (regulation) in the name of safety or any of the other “market failures” that “compel” us to regulate.
Yep, if the economy is technically growing, and the top 10% of the US wealth distribution continue to do well, who cares if life is slowly getting worse for the other 90% of Americans? They can just distract themselves from their misery with the latest computer games, which didn’t even exist 10 years ago, so they’re really better off. And if they’re too discouraged and enervated to reproduce, we can just replace them with more immigrants, who, as long as they get the crummy jobs that can’t be exported and sufficient public assistance, won’t pester the bipartisan ruling class with silly political demands, such as for public schools that actually teach kids something other than P.C. catechisms.