Trade Warriors : States, Firms, and Strategic-Trade Policy in High-Technology Competition

Rating:
Summary: A tour de force, truly innovative.
Review: This book is just tremendous. Why do states promote "national champion" industries in some cases but not in others? When do such subsidies result in costly trade wars? Economists in the 1980s made their name with the heretical argument that intervening on behalf of key industries could be beneficial (with caveats). Busch takes the necessary extra step, explaining the political reasons why leaders have taken this economic advice to heart sometimes too closely and other times not closely enough. Along the way he debunks the common view that trade policy is purely the product of industry porkbarreling, and he introduces surprising evidence about cases government "should" have intervened more but didn't. If you are going to read just one thing about how states can promote competitiveness in the global high-tech economy, here is the book for you.