Talk:Free trade

"Net gain for society"

I modified the wording about free trade being "a large and unambiguous net gain for society" because this is a value judgment that depends on the social welfare function used. The only welfare function under which a net increase in economic surplus necessarily results in a net gain for society is the Benthamite welfare function, which does not take inequality into account. Since many people believe that inequality is important, we either have to state outright that we are equating economic surplus and social welfare for the purposes of the article or avoid value-laden terms like societal loss in the economics section. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 04:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: Don't know if you're still active on here, but your rationale for rewording that statement is incorrect and contradicted by the source. There is no "social welfare function" to consider when making a statement about net gains from trade. The source states there's strong agreement that 1) restrictions on trade reduce welfare; and 2) income inequality in the US is not caused by global trade. (p. 382)

Also a reminder that the rule against OR applies on talk pages. You can't just make things up and then change wording on a hunch. The statement in question was an accurate summary of what the source says and is clearly uncontroversial in the field of international economics. Questioning whether more commerce is good for society makes no sense outside the world of special interest politics. Jonathan f1 (talk) 07:23, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I am still an active user. It's been over five years since I made the edit in question; is there an issue with the current version of the article? Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 07:51, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I just don't see what was so problematic with the phrase "large and unambiguous net gain for society." That's a fair characterization of what the source says, and in fact what most reliable sources say. Jonathan f1 (talk) 08:12, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Economist

The world's largest free trade area took effect in Africa in July 2020. It is projected to contribute to an increase in GDP and industrial specialization.

@B. M. L. Peters: I would appreciate it if you didn't remove sourced info with no explanation. Benjamin (talk) 18:36, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Of both win...how is there a "loser" and a "winner"

The article uses those two words wildly... 2A01:E34:EC12:36C0:F18D:D656:AA78:1B1B (talk) 14:07, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Because every economic policy creates winners and losers. Changing the minimum wage, or tax code, or business regulations will create winners (people who benefit from the change) and losers (people who are hurt by it). The point about free trade is that the "losers" are concentrated while the winners are widely dispersed throughout the economy -it's a net gain for the economy. This article should be more clear about this and not act like trade is unique in its effect on employment. Most studies show no big net change in employment from trade (some jobs are lost, some are gained). Jonathan f1 (talk) 06:44, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The question appears to be about effects of trade itself, and the answer is about effects of changes in trade policy. I'll have to look at the article and see whether this distinction is clear enough. —Tamfang (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I decided it is not, but another editor deemed my distinction not helpful. —Tamfang (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, perhaps calling it a "political act" wasn't helpful. Making that same point about economic policy (ie that all economic policies create winners and losers) would be helpful. I don't see how anyone could disagree with this. Jonathan f1 (talk) 08:07, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I welcome a better term for a change in policy. —Tamfang (talk) 05:32, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Economists have analyzed trade for centuries, and generally concluded that the law of comparative advantage says that both sides win, because, even if one side can produce an item, if they can get it more efficiently from others, they can use their resources to produce something they are even better at producing. Libertarians (small “L” even though it’s at the beginning of the sentence) long argue whether they should say freedom is good for moral reasons, or because it’s more efficient. Any way you look at it, a person, business, or country should have the right to free trade, but it’s also a good idea for both, because then one has resources, in the form of money, to buy something one desires more cheaply. Admittedly, it has been difficult to get people to understand the advantage of buying things cheaply, even though jobs may be lost. Problem is, the losses may be incurred by one group, benefits by others; however, one study on washing machines after tariffs were applied, said the cost was $800,000 per job gained, not a good bargain, and many have noted the American advantage in services like banking and software, but try explaining that to the voters, or the President. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.71.133.157 (talk • contribs) 04:25, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Categories

I changed the Category:Conservatism to the Category:Conservatism in the United States. Free trade is by no means the primary value of conservatism. Rather, most conservatives around the world, except the United States, are often less friendly to free trade than liberals. Mureungdowon (talk) 07:34, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

use of PhD dissertations as sources

In the further reading section most of the sources are dissertations. This may not fit with WP:RS, WP:SECONDARY and WP:OR so potentially we need to remove these sources in favour of more robust alternatives. Duncnbiscuit (talk) 08:47, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:26, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. The dissertations are NOT listed as sources for this article, but as Further Reading. They each come from leading research universities and were each approved by a panel of experts. Furthermore they are accessible for downloading (at no cost) at most academic libraries. They are highly useful for university students looking for paper topics on "Free Trade"--which has a major theme in economic history since the days of Adam Smith. The dissertations each have long bibliographies that can help the students select their termpaper topic. I looked at all these dissertations and they are all "published" according to Wiki standards. As for OR -- editors of Wikipedia articles are not allowed to use their own original research. That prohibition is reversed in the case of PhD dissertations, where PhD candidates are required to do original research. A Wikipedia editor reading a dissertation is just like a Wikipedia editor reading a book published by a university press. Rjensen (talk) 01:27, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Rjensen I called out the use of PhD dissertations because they are generally not as reliable a source as a text book on the subject or a well cited journal article.

Speaking as someone who has a PhD, I would regard my work as Original Research and focused on a nuanced aspect of my specialism. It was also, from a internationally significant research department of a top tier university and the academics who reviewed my dissertation were highly regarded in our field.

However, being quite esoteric, I never published my work in a significant journal and I very much doubt the conference papers I presented were ever cited, apart from possibly in my supervisors work, which it was closely related to.

I fully agree that a good dissertation should provide a good literature review and solid bibliography, which is very useful to anyone researching a topic. However, this holds for a published paper or book, and the latter will have been more thoroughly vetted.

A further reading section is providing the reader with a an opportunity to get a bigger picture of the topic. A dissertation is less likely to provide this than a textbook in its umpteenth edition.

Also, I could imagine that dissertations on free trade might give undue weight to interpretations of the topic that are novel or not the consensus view; fine for a primary source with original research being presented to a knowledgeable community of peers, but not appropriate for Wikipedia, which is aimed at one or more levels down of lay reader.

I'm comfortable that you are vouching for the suitability of the dissertations as an editor with subject matter expertise. Your last point about an editor getting the same value from reading a dissertation or reading a university press published book, holds when you have enough background knowledge. But for a reader to have confidence in the source, a book or well cited paper will always be the better source. Plus, for a mature topic like free trade surely there are some go-to books covering the whole topic that would suit WP:FURTHER requirements better that a collection of PhD dissertations? Duncnbiscuit (talk) 08:15, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Are textbooks useful to get the bigger picture--yes, but that's not the only issue. Wikipedia has thousands of articles to cover the big picture of a vast topic like trade. (practically every article on cities, states and nations has a section on economics.) If you think about students looking for a specialized termpaper topic, the good dissertation is a very good source as well. Students already have a textbook for the course they are taking. The textbook has to briefly cover a hundred topics--and rarely has discussions of methods and sources that can serve as a model of how to do original research. By contrast the dissertation can concentrate on a handful in more depth. The solution is not to remove good dissertations, but rather to add some of those textbooks. Rjensen (talk) 08:31, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Rjensen the article is aimed at a general reader, which is appropriate for a broad topic like this.

We can spin the one level down principle, which is a WP:LEAD strategy to satisfy the very casual reader, to instead take a one level up approach for WP:FURTHER, to satisfy readers that want more depth.

I don't think this article should assume the core readership is undergrads studying trade. So I would hope to see seminal published works about free trade, which are assessable to senior school level upwards. I agree that a solution would be to add published works, such as textbooks on the topic, allowing the the general readers to further understand the topic while avoiding the several levels up dissertations. Meanwhile, keeping the PhD dissertations for those who are of level to make use of them.

The preceding General and cited references section, sort of fills th role of the general reader's Further reading. Its not unusual to have a Reference section split into short citations followed by a few full citations. with the full citations doubling up as Further reading citations.

My view of the current Further reading section is that the overemphasis on PhD dissertations would not encourage general readers to delve deeper. I count myself as a general reader having looked up the article after listening to a podcast on the impact of New Zealand leaning into free trade ever since the United Kingdom joined the European Union in 1973.

I think we have a way forward that would improve general access to the article. Duncnbiscuit (talk) 10:04, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

If it helps with your discussion, material in "Further reading" has much the same status as "External links". It is an adjunct to the article, it is not part of it.

(At another place, I argued for the section to be subject to WP: ELNO because what is or is not included in it is arbitrary, the whim of individual editors. But the consensus was opposed to any such change. So if any editor considers a source to be useful, relevant and competent, there is no policy reason not to include it.)

My opinion, fwiw, is that (genuine) PhD theses are very good sources because they get a more rigorous peer review than do almost any other. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:22, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Duncnbiscuit that a mature textbook would provide more mainstream and solidified consensus beliefs about topics; dissertations are the place to put forward new and novel ideas, and research at the cutting edge of the field; overloading with these skews away from what is known mainstream knowledge to what the academic community is currently researching (the popular "fad" for research at the time). ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:11, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

In this case the dissertations are not recent "fads" by economists -- they are mainstream intellectual histories --by historians--of the history of the spread of free trade ideas in various countries-- especially Britain and Canada, as well as China, Japan, & South Korea. Rjensen (talk) 01:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Rjensen your reply brought a smile to my face with your comparison of flighty economists versus grounded historians.

It still strikes me that a PhD dissertation might focus on particular histiographical trends that may or may not align with the mainstream consensus on the topic.

I note that you are an academic historian with a lifetime of subject expertise and with experience as a Wikipedia editor to match. So with the discussion so far I don't doubt that the dissertations listed have been chosen carefully to reflect mainstream consensus on the history of free trade.

However, as a general reader with no academic background in history or economics my own Further reading preference would be an accessible and well received book like Kicking Away the Ladder by economist Ha-Joon Chang, which is listed in General and cited references rather than Further reading and is by an economist with strong opinions on the efficacy of free trade. Does he count as a faddy economist?

So a Further reading section with more published books, looking at free trade from a range of mainstream perspectives would be a good improvement to the article. Duncnbiscuit (talk) 08:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

OK I added some major textbooks and a few wide-ranging books. Rjensen (talk) 14:40, 23 March 2026 (UTC)