Tweet [1]
… is from page 90 of Pierre Lemieux’s excellent 2018 monograph, What’s Wrong With Protectionism? [2]:
The fear that domestic firms will be outcompeted by subsidized foreign producers is not a sufficient argument for a government to prevent its own citizens from making their own import deals. Whatever harm is thereby caused domestically, such as loss of jobs, is no different from damage caused by everyday economic competition, which requires producers to respond to changes in consumer demand and technological innovation. Moreover, the fear of outcompetition is probably exaggerated. State-owned and heavily subsidized companies are typically inefficient, and their handicap rarely diminishes with time.
Comments