I’m interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio today, in the wake of declining Wisconsin exports.
Figure 1: Wisconsin goods exports to world (blue, left scale), to China (red, right scale), in bn 2012$. Nominal values deflated using national goods exports deflator. Section 232 and 301 actions shaded gray. Source: ITA TradeStats, accessed 2/7/2020, export deflator from BEA, 2019Q4 advance release, and author’s calculations.
My colleague Jon Pevehouse speaks on WPR about the Phase 1 deal.
Interesting reading on Wisconsin and the trade war (a little out of date), from the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. Some stats state-by-state from TariffsHurt.
I’ll say something that will make Menzie groan to himself, wonder exactly how dumb I am, or both. When I verbally pronounce his name with my voice (rarely, but quoting his name sometimes in conversation) but most often in my mind I pronounce the “e” in the middle of his first name like “uh” or a “short u” sound, because I kinda think of it as a Chinese name instead of an “Americanized” (??) name. When I learned pinyin I learned the “e” in pinyin 95% of the time pronounced like a “short u” sound. So when I hear Menzie’s name pronounced the actual correct way, like you would say the “e’ in the band “Men at Work” at always really throws me, even though I have actually known this for awhile because I can’t get the incorrect way, phonetically “Muhnzie” corrected inside my mind’s voice. So now you all know why if I took Menzie’s class why I would get TWO Fs, one F for the substance of the class and one F for all the times I called him “Muhnzie” during class breaks.
The WLRB link gets more interesting the farther down you go. I guess as someone who lives in “Mid-south” USA, the most interesting question to me is, assuming Wisconsin is above average for literacy levels compared to most USA states (certainly better than the state I live in) can they decipher the difference between state level trade and industrial policy and national level trade and industrial policy when voting for the governor who has been in office X years?? I’m guessing the dominant answer here is “NO, they can’t”.