{"id":13159,"date":"2012-01-20T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T15:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=13159"},"modified":"2012-01-20T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T15:12:11","slug":"calculating-the-real-benefits-of-international-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/20\/calculating-the-real-benefits-of-international-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Calculating the real benefits of international trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/report-on-business\/economy\/economy-lab\/daily-mix\/is-canadas-economy-really-dependent-on-global-trade\/article2309032\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Carmichael<\/a> has an article in the <em>Globe and Mail<\/em> Economy Lab on the attempts to determine the actual benefits a country derives from international trade:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Currency traders love the monthly import and export data, which provide an excellent guide of how much demand exists for dollars, euros, yen, francs and the like.<\/p>\n<p>But for anyone seeking a more precise understanding of the dynamics of international trade, the data compiled by customs agents are about as about as relevant to a modern economy as carbon paper. <\/p>\n<p>The reason: supply chains. Virtually nothing is produced entirely within a single border anymore. Companies outsource everything from components to packaging. That means a good can cross a border several times on its way to becoming a final product. Each time, it\u2019s value increases. That value is what the customs agent enters in his or her computer. But that inflates the actual contribution of that good to a country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n<p>It is relatively early days, but some economists are trying to develop a more useful measure of international trade. Among them is the Conference Board of Canada, which Thursday released the first of three reports based on what it calls \u201cvalue-added trade.\u201d The report should be required reading in Ottawa. Its conclusions challenge much of what we think we know about the nature of Canada\u2019s economy. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Carmichael has an article in the Globe and Mail Economy Lab on the attempts to determine the actual benefits a country derives from international trade: Currency traders love the monthly import and export data, which provide an excellent guide of how much demand exists for dollars, euros, yen, francs and the like. But for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,25],"tags":[316,320,290],"class_list":["post-13159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-economics","tag-borders","tag-freetrade","tag-statistics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3qf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13161,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions\/13161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}