Free Trade Under Fire:
Second Edition
Douglas A. Irwin

One of Choice's Oustanding Academic Titles for 2003

Paper | 2005 | $26.95 / £18.95
304 pp. | 6 x 9 | 26 line illus. 17 tables.

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Growing world trade has helped lift living standards around the world, and yet free trade is always under attack by opponents. Critics complain that trade forces painful economic adjustments, such as plant closings and layoffs of workers, and charge that the World Trade Organization serves the interests of corporations, undercuts domestic environmental regulations, and erodes America's sovereignty. Why has global trade become so controversial? Does free trade deserve its bad reputation? In Free Trade under Fire, Douglas Irwin sweeps aside the misconceptions that litter the debate over trade and gives the reader a clear understanding of the issues involved. This second edition includes a new chapter on trade and developing countries and updates the entire text to deal with new issues such as outsourcing and steel tariffs.

Reviews:

"A wealth of reporting, both of trade-theory debates and of recent political battles in America over trade, is elegantly squeezed into the book. . . . If [Free Trade under Fire does] not change trade sceptics' minds, it is hard to think what else would."--Economist

"[Irwin] sets out most of the anti-trade claims one by one (such as 'imports destroy good, high wage jobs') and then marshals the evidence to show why it just ain't so. . . . Compelling [and] cogent."--Wall Street Journal

"[Irwin] successfully parries nearly all arguments leveled against free trade by its critics, and does so in an engaging style, which in itself makes for lively reading."--Gene Epstein, Barron's

"[A] first-rate book that deals in a systematic and logical way with the arguments and myths about globalization and trade."--Harold James, National Interest

"Vigorous and persuasive. . . . [Irwin] offers an especially informative chapter on antidumping duties, which have historically been supported in the name of ensuring 'fair trade.'"--Richard Cooper, Foreign Affairs

Table of Contents:

List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The United States in a New Global Economy? 5
Chapter 2: The Case for Free Trade: Old Theories, New Evidence 21
Chapter 3: The Employment Rationale for Trade Protection 70
Chapter 4: Relief from Foreign Competition: Antidumping
and the Escape Clause 111
Chapter 5: U.S. Trade Policy and the World Trading System 138
Chapter 6: The World Trade Organization and New Battlegrounds 179
Conclusion 225
References 229
Index 251

Other Princeton books by Douglas A. Irwin:

• Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade.
• Free Trade Under Fire: Third Edition.

Subject Areas:

• Economics
• Political Science and International Relations

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