Welcome Eco 340 Students

I will post trade and development related news and other items of interest here from time to time. You are invited to contribute by sending me ideas.

If you are new to 'blogs' you might read up a little on how to easily keep track of new blog entries on your computer or phone using an 'RSS reader' such as Google reader.

I also keep a 'stash' of other trade related stories here which I might later 'blog' about. You can also subscribe to that list via an RSS reader.

Past entries on this blog are from earlier Trade or Development courses I have taught.

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Help the World’s Poor: Buy Some New Clothes

Help the World’s Poor: Buy Some New Clothes : "Back to school shopping leads many people to buy apparel that was made in sweatshops. Rather than feel guilty for “exploiting” poor workers, shoppers should rejoice. Their spending is some of the best aid we can give to people in poorer countries." So says Benjamin Powell on the always provocative AidWatch blog. Liberal New York Times columnist and Economics Nobel Prize international economist Paul Krugman wrote an earlier and now often cited statement along similar lines titled " In Praise of Cheap Labor: Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all ." Do you agree with these arguments?
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Tariffs on Ethanol

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman writes about US tariffs on Brazilian sugar ethanol and calls them "dumb": Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses, who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition from Brazilian sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to keep it out. We do this even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it. We do this even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than corn ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty. Yes, you read all this right. We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don’t tax imported crude oil, which definitely finances our rich enemies. We’d rather power ant
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US Car giants lobby the White House (and pawn the shop)

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