Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on November 7, 2017
… is from page 155 of the 2015 Fourth Edition of Douglas Irwin’s indispensable volume, Free Trade Under Fire:
[A]ll of the dollars that U.S. households and businesses hand over to other countries in purchasing imports do not accumulate there, but eventually return to purchase either U.S. goods (exports) or U.S. assets (foreign investment). Both exports and foreign investment create new jobs: employment in export-oriented sectors such as [in early 21st-century United States] farming and aircraft production is higher because of those foreign sales, and foreign investment either contributes directly to the national capital stock with new plants and equipment or indirectly promotes domestic capital accumulation by reducing the cost of capital.
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