WHWG Perspectives

EconTalk (at www.econtalk.org) is among the most popular and respected podcasts on the web.  Voted Best Podcast in the 2008 Weblog Awards, it is hosted by Russ Roberts, Professor of Economics and the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Posted weekly, the program usually features Roberts interviewing a distinguished economic thinker.  On February 8th, Roberts broke from this format to discuss his own thinking about why trade is good.  Drawing on Adam Smith and David Ricardo, 18th and 19th century respectively giants of economic thought, he explored how trade increases personal productivity by a factor of a hundred and more.  As he summed up, “Self-sufficiency [in a person, a tribe, or a country] equals poverty.” Read

When we think of exports, we tend to visualize container ships, trains or planes carrying large, heavy cargo. But former Federal Reserve economist W. Michael Cox tries to correct that impression in today’s New York Times (Feb. 17). While praising President Obama’s State of the Union speech call for the United States to “export more of our goods”, Cox says it would have been much better to have said “goods and services.” As Cox points out, the United States has a $144 billion surplus in services, including an 8-1 edge in operational leasing — handling short-term deals on planes, vehicles and other equipment — a 6-1 margin in movie and television program distribution, and a 4-1 advantage in architectural, construction and engineering services. In total, the United States is competitive in 21 of 22 services categories, with significant surpluses in 12 of them. Read