Molson Hart

...sharp relief – is that it creates harmful kinds of global interdependence and undermines certain types of flexibility by eliminating slack within the system. I would take it further. I think the belief that more globalization leads to more economic efficiency is mistaken...

...It can, under certain conditions, but a highly globalized economy can actually be less efficient in a world in which nations can put policies into place that for political reasons distort production or the distribution of income. A highly globalized trade and capital regime...

...accommodates these policies by allowing countries to push the costs onto trade partners while retaining the benefits, and it prevents the recipient countries from absorbing these distortions except by implementing similar policies and forcing the cost elsewhere: this is...

...basically what beggar-thy-neighbor means. One way in which this happens is when some countries choose to achieve “trade competitiveness” by lowering the wage share of total production, either directly by lowering wages or indirectly by devaluing the currency, repressing...