This week's EconTalk sees the return of my favorite guests, Mike Munger, to talk about Free Trade and Fair Trade. Munger has the best quote of the podcast (arguably any podcast) when he says, "I'm a big coffee drinker. Sometimes I apply it topically."
Apart from Munger's offbeat sense of humor, the interview is one of the best discussions I've seen in a while of the mechanics of how trade creates wealth for the parties involved and why attempts to channel extra wealth to one of the parties through Fair Trade premiums don't always work out as expected. They also address the common misconception that trade is a zero-sum process in which nations compete to capture as much as they can from a fixed-size pool of jobs. It's well worth a listen, if you have 58 minutes to spare.
Apart from Munger's offbeat sense of humor, the interview is one of the best discussions I've seen in a while of the mechanics of how trade creates wealth for the parties involved and why attempts to channel extra wealth to one of the parties through Fair Trade premiums don't always work out as expected. They also address the common misconception that trade is a zero-sum process in which nations compete to capture as much as they can from a fixed-size pool of jobs. It's well worth a listen, if you have 58 minutes to spare.
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