Testimony to the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission
Testimony to the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission's hearing on the panel "China and the Future of Globalization." Several fallacious arguments against free trade were made in the debate on outsourcing that raged during the last U.S. presidential election.I consider and reject four of these arguments: (i) the conventional case for free trade does not apply to outsourcing; (ii) productivity gains abroad in the goods exported by us undermine the case for free trade; (iii) the free flow of many factors internationally renders the principle of comparative advantage and the associated gains from trade invalid; and (iv) soon all jobs will be outsourced to China and India.