The New Protectionism: The Welfare State and International Trade

Three topics are tied together in this clearly written work: the classic case for free trade; the costs of governmental measures to shape the domestic economy and resist change by penalizing foreign trade; and the long-run burden on growth and productivity of heavy government expenditure. It is stretching things a bit to see all the bad effects as the fault of the welfare state, but they certainly reinforce one another. This is the first product of the International Center for Economic Policy Studies, which intends to go on making the case for markets as the best way to allocate resources.