Trade, capital flows and the arguments about both.
9 topics · 9 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
Is Free Trade Passe?
Paul Krugman · 1987
Argues new trade theory's findings about increasing returns and strategic trade policy are real economics, but concludes they still do not add up to…
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
The Move Toward Free Trade Zones
Paul Krugman · 1991
Argues regional trade blocs are a pragmatic second-best response to a stalled multilateral process, but warns they can also entrench trade diversion…
+1 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas
Robert A. Mundell · 1961
A shared currency only suits regions where labour and capital move freely between them, because that mobility is what substitutes for the…
+5 more at this level
9 works
Paul Krugman
Argues new trade theory's findings about increasing returns and strategic trade policy are real economics, but concludes they still do not add up to a practical case for abandoning free trade as the default policy.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Paul Krugman
Argues regional trade blocs are a pragmatic second-best response to a stalled multilateral process, but warns they can also entrench trade diversion between the winners inside a bloc and the losers left out.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Dani Rodrik
Argues nations face a trilemma among deep economic integration, national sovereignty and democratic politics, and can have at most two of the three at once.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Robert A. Mundell
A shared currency only suits regions where labour and capital move freely between them, because that mobility is what substitutes for the exchange-rate adjustment each region gives up.
9 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026Johan Galtung
Uses the Rhodesia sanctions as a case study to argue international sanctions usually fail to change a target state's behaviour, and can even strengthen a regime by uniting its population against an outside threat.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Paul Krugman
Countries trade even absent any comparative advantage, because increasing returns to scale make it efficient for each to specialise in a narrower range of differentiated goods and exchange the rest.
10 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026Maurice Obstfeld
Distinguishes crises where a government's own inconsistent policies force a fixed exchange rate to collapse from crises where a currency comes under attack purely because investors expect everyone else to attack it too.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Maurice Obstfeld
Weighs the efficiency gains from letting capital move freely across borders against the crises that free capital flows have repeatedly triggered, arguing the balance depends heavily on a country's own financial institutions.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Gary Gereffi, John Humphrey & Timothy Sturgeon
Classifies the ways lead firms coordinate suppliers across a global value chain, from arm's-length markets to full ownership, and argues the choice depends on how codifiable and complex the required information is.
link checked 17 Sept 2026