We Don’t Feel Better Off, Because We’re Not
(Dec. 4, 2018) — Earlier this year, trade experts explained to two audiences in Seattle how workers should adjust to the global economy. Workers displaced by global competition could learn computer skills and move to Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. One of the experts expressed disappointment at her failure in reassuring workers that our free-trade approach to globalization made us better off. At a third meeting a few weeks later, two trade experts from Mexico said their country’s biggest problem was inequality. One, an economist, said he was “agnostic” about whether free trade made inequality in Mexico better or worse.