Undergraduate Students and International Trade

Most students gain the majority if not all of their knowledge of economics in their initial introductory economics course. International trade is a vital part of the U.S. economy and many people are obsessed with international competition. According to the author, students need to be able to separate the nonsense part of international trade from what is real. He feels students need to have their minds “vaccinated” as to be able to detect these misconceptions.

The first misconception he describe is what is called “pop internationalism,” and essentially shows the United States as operating as a corporation with a new set of emerging competitors (other nations), when in fact a national economy is not similar to a corporation. However, people believe these thoughts to be true because they can associate these so-called forward thinking ideas in relation to an actual corporation taking on new competition. The author believes undergrads need to know why this information is nonsense.

It is said that outsourcing different jobs and production due to an open market hurts the economy, when in reality, imports and exports are only a small part of national output. Another misconception is that countries engage in the same form of competition as corporations. When in fact, international trade deals more with a mutual exchange as opposed to competition. Imports are more important that exports in international trade. High productivity is not due to competition but strived for to increase a country production, which in turn allows for higher consumption.