… is from page 58 of the 5th edition (2020) of Douglas Irwin’s excellent book Free Trade Under Fire:
Trade strengthens high-productivity firms and eliminates those that are low-productivity firms.
DBx: Yes. It follows that protectionism eliminates high-productivity firms and increases the prevalence of low-productivity firms. And yet a slew of American protectionists nevertheless call themselves “progressive” while others thoughtlessly insist that high tariffs will “make America great again.”
