THE CHIEF BENEFIT OF FREE TRADE IS IDEAS.

THE CHIEF BENEFIT OF FREE TRADE IS IDEAS. Tyler Cowen argues here that the chief benefit of increased trade with China and increased prosperity in China will be innovation: “new ideas are the real prize…..The more access the Chinese have to American and other markets, the more they can afford higher education and the greater their incentive to innovate.” This is in the tradition of Adam Smith on the division of labor (specialization): “Each individual becomes more expert in his own particular branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.”