Advantages of free trade:
1. It results in efficient competition and therefore technological innovation
2. It does not provoke counter –measures which could lead to a trade war
3. It results in international stabilization of prices, countries and organizations
4. There are rules of the game which are known internationally, and which are applied without
arbitrariness; everyone knows in advance what they adhere to.
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade): treaty to stimulate Free Trade. Signed in 1947, 23 countries,
currently 123 countries signed the treaty. Its objective is the abolition of mutual trade barriers between the
signatories. It is the most important treaty in which the policy of free trade was laid down so far.
Status of the WTO organization (125 members) is comparable to that of the Worldbank and the IMF. One of
their tasks is to check adherence to the GATT treaty, to provide new stimuli to negotiations which have not yet
been completed and to initiate various trade related policies.
Free trade benefits consumers through increased choice and reduced prices, but because the global economy
brings uncertainty (price & quantities) with it, many governments impose tariffs and other trade barriers to
protect industry.
Drawbacks of free trade:
1) The theory doesn’t allow for cyclical movements and the influence of emotions, culture and religion and the
behaviour of opportunities of companies (LOSS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE)
2) The theory sets great store by the effects of comparative costs and now allowance is made for the limitations
of these effects.
3) Developing countries argue that international free trade by definition discriminates against them, which
hampers their opportunity for growth (MORE BENEFITS FOR RICH THAN POOR)
Globalization: process through which the world is becoming a single independent system
Protectionism: trade policies by a country to protect their own industries. As a result, prices and quantities are
controlled in contrast with the situation resulting from a policy of free trade. Protectionist measures are issued
by governments and defended by various arguments.
Forms of Protectionism
Traditional forms
- Import duties (or tariffs): taxes which the gov of the importing countries levies on imported goods and services
- Export subsidies: the gov grants exporting companies or sectors, financial compensation, in order to increase
their competitive power in foreign markets.
- Import and tariff quotas: the gov decides on the amount of the product to be imported on the basis of
quantities (quantity quota) or on the basis of the value of the goods (value quota). A combination of import
duties and quotas.
- Trade agreements: agreements between two or more countries about mutual trade.
- Non-tariff linked barriers: rules, regulations, formalities and procedures which form barriers to international
trade (formalities, health and safety regulations, levying tolls on motorways, maximum allowable axle weights
for trucks etc. This a veiled but nonetheless effective form of protectionism.
Government trade: in many countries it is still the gov that acts as a major trading partner. Which means that
the exporter is in fact up against a monopolist.
Managed trade: trade in which politicians try to influence decisions regarding export
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