Are the Gains from Free Trade Lower than Previously Believed?

The short answer is yes but not for the reasons that people often think. The economists producing reports that show lower gains than in previous studies have not concluded that the benefits from a given amount of trade liberalization are lower than previously thought. Rather, the decline in projected gains across otherwise comparable studies is due mainly to a reduction in the measured level of remaining trade barriers.

Antoine Bouet (2006) surveys a number of recent studies that use computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to estimate the gains from trade and explores the differences in assumptions and behavioral parameters that contribute to differences in results. Two World Bank studies have attracted particular attention because the later one finds the gains from global free trade to be $100 billion lower than the earlier study, even though they use the same model and make similar assumptions (Anderson, Martin, and van der Mensbrugghe 2006; World Bank 2002). The principal ... more.

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