From Volume 11, No. 8 of the “Current Issues” letter from the New York Federal Reserve Bank:
“The absence of any consistent pattern in the fortunes of individual industries suggests that while trade-related competition may have driven job losses in some sectors, layoffs in many other sectors occurred for reasons unrelated to trade. Indeed, in a number of industries, forces such as technological change, investment overhangs, and changing consumption behavior are much more likely to have caused job losses.“
That noise you hear is the sound of protectionist candidates everywhere gasping in horror as they realize their easily incited constituency will no longer blindly rally to the jingoistic complaint of unfair foreign competition taking away American jobs. (Just kidding, nobody actually reads the “Current Issues” letter from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.)
Filed under: Capitalism, Politics
