How We Know Protectionists Control Trade Policy: The Case of Medical Trade

Macroeconomists knew too little about the macroeconomy to recognize the $8 trillion housing bubble whose collapse gave us the Great Recession. Trade and labor economists show little more understanding of their fields. This is why we routinely hear stories about how trade causes us to lose less-skilled manufacturing jobs to the developing world or that technology is leading to a hollowing out of the distribution of occupations, with middle wage jobs disappearing.

The logic behind these views i...