International Liberalization: Its Implications for Countries’ Social Wellbeing

Abstract

The traditional economic theory of international trade has, from its inception, played a crucial role in sustaining the doctrine of economic policy that promotes free foreign trade overall as something beneficial for all parties involved. The paper specifically stresses the need, when assessing the consequences of free international trade (i.e., free imports) on social-economic well-being, to perform analyses that distinguish between social-sectors (within this or that country), as opposed to the usual practice of doing so at the whole country level. It is also discussed here the standard (implicit) assumption that there are sufficient possibilities regarding comparative advantages for every country in the world to exploit one to develop its exports to the point of countervailing the value of its imports under a no-tariffs rule.